My First Post - Quick and Dirty

Hi Everyone. I would like to say first thanks for the great melting pot of information these forums are. It has been a big help for me in my first foray into home theater.

Here is a quick bit: Roommate got the Pioneer Elite Pro 151FD TV 60" and I get the audio part. I will not be able to match the TV but oh well, that's life! I have a Denon AVR-890 on the way and am researching what speakers to get. Kind of looking at the Polk Monitor 70s right now. We will be streaming (wired) over our home gigabit network. We have been able to stream blu-ray with no issues so I am happy about that. Our server with movies and music is upstairs and we have a dual proc, dual core, 8GB, windows 7 system at the TV to handle everything downstairs. We are looking at the Asus HDAV 1.3 slim (since we have a PCI slot and not PCI E) to do the Audio part of things for DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD.

This set up took us about twenty minutes including the time to move the tv from our other room into here. We have alot of time invested in this...not! Not yet at least. This living room goes right into our kitchen so it will be interesting to see what kind of sound we will be getting. I am just excited we are getting some pretty good gear (IMHO) to start with. Here are some quick pics!

Note the sweet swivel action on the right speaker. "it really sounds like someone is moving the right speaker when someone swivels it." says our cat Daximus.


Cable management is non-existent at this point. Things will change.


Living room is part of kitchen.


XBMC Interface. Main interface for our server. Must research to see if it handles lossless audio formats.


Final Fantasy VII. Great looking movie.


Ratatouille.


Living in a bachelor pad is fun. I will enjoy it while it lasts! Thanks again for the forums and if I messed up posting or broke any rules please let me know I will adjust accordingly.

Thanks for the messages ddgtr, hometheatergeek and pcweber111! I am very pumped about getting the receiver in on Monday! I am learning that I cannot just get everything at once no matter how much I want to. It will be a process for sure.

Hometheatergeek, I am excited to be on the audio end as well. (I have a technical degree as an Audio Engineer (which is different than this but has been a good foundation for knowing the terminology and some basics) and I love music.) I am learning a ton as I go along.

Props to my roommate for the TV.

Thanks Klipper and croseiv. Klipper, I get the receiver today when I get home. There seems to be a wave of things to learn about like what cabling and what connections to get. I am excited to be learning so much. Sad news, the Pioneer TV has a huge black horizontal line on it. We are getting in home service done hopefully soon on it. Not a great start but its under warranty so that is good.

That is a super pimp table eh! It is a pretty big table. Just waiting for our third roommate to get a tv stand for the system. I have spent the last week researching cabling, and banana plugs and looking at my bank account and figuring out how to reverse all my old headphones and microphones into speakers (hey, they are transducers right) to save some money. jk! But seriously...I am out of cash. I guess that will make it all the more enjoyable to build this system up!

Just a quick update. The Pioneer is in the shop getting a board replaced because of the big black horizontal bar on the screen and it will be back hopefully soon. My roommate got a Bello stand for it that we are going to put together soon. I just took the plunge and got the two Polk Monitor 70 floorstanding speakers from Newegg as they are having a special until tomorrow (if you are interested its 60 bucks off each one which makes for a pretty good deal). So now we have two front speakers and I will move my old two Sony SSMB300Hs to the back for back surrounds for now. They are pretty big so I am going to have to see if I can build stands for them to sit on the walls. I am not sure exactly how that will work yet. I also got some Nakamichi banana plugs from Ebay that I will be using for connections. They look nice and work well. So I am excited! Broke, but excited!

Howdy folks! Got the center channel in today (Polk CS2). Changed all wiring over to the 14 gauge wire. Will be cleaning up the wiring as the project goes along. Here are a few pics to keep you up to date. Still waiting on the Pioneer TV to be fixed. We are only going two channel analog right now for sound but the Denon is doing a great job splitting it up for now. I am looking at an ASUS HDAV 1.3 card for audio from the computer but I am not sure yet.

I listened to a few movies and wow! It will only get better from here I am sure! I had to turn down the center a fair amount because it is pretty powerful. I am worried about having to put it on the middle shelf. What do you think? Is it too low? Should I just listen and see? It has an option to angle it up but we would have to lower the shelf for it to fit if we had it angled up.

This is a great hobby!

Cabling getting started


After the cabling


Second pic of post cabling. Using a 24 inch Dell 2408 for the interim display


To help everything go according to plan.

Thanks Cornhulio. I will definitely remember this. I have just started listening to that center channel and it IS pretty bright but acceptable so far. Will there be a "burn in" period for these speakers? I am assuming they would mellow out over time? I still do not have a solid, high quality audio source to listen critically to but the tweeter upgrade does sound intriguing.

It is white! I had to go double check. I think they are the same color its just I took some pictures in low light and it came out that blue color.

And a quick update on our setup, my roommate got an Nvidia GT 220 that has HDMI out on it and built in HD audio so we hooked that up last night and I got my first taste of HD audio. Deeelicious! It was easy to set up in Windows 7 and I have the nice GUI up on our interim monitor. We get the ASUS HDAV 1.3 slim in on Tuesday probably so then we can see if there is an audible difference (to me) going up to the Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio. The Pioneer will be fixed hopefully by Wednesday so that will leave purchasing a subwoofer (probably Epik Sentinel?), mounting surround speakers, and running Audyssey for the first time!

It sure seems to help sometimes!

Here is a pic that I know you have all been waiting with baited breath for. I had to post something because of all the private messages and people flying in from out of town to knock on my front door and say .. "We want more pics." Ok, Ok! I re ran Audyssey since getting my surrounds up on the wall and getting my Hsu VTF3 MK3 in. My cat Dax helped me. He was actually very good and did not move or make any noise during the process.

"You need to be careful with that statement buddy. This hobby can become unhealthy.

You maybe be satisfied with your monitor 70's and cs2 for now but when you start seeing other people setups, the upgrade drug kicks in.

One guys already mentioned upgrading your center channel tweeter. Soon you'll want to get a better receiver, better sub, better wires, acoustic panels.. Soon, your crib will not be enough (it creates bad stereo imaging for your speakers). You buy a house....etc, etc, etc..
Be careful.... I'm speaking from experience"

Thank you Kevon27 for the concern. I completely understand where you are coming from. I have a Very addictive personality. I appreciate it.

I have actually gotten the upgrade bug already and I heard about them Rotels makin' everything sound better. I bought a whole case of Ro Tel tomato sauce and poured it all over my speakers. It didn't help nothin'!

Thanks Mike. I will definitely read over the Audyssey thread. And when we get our TV back and a few room adjustments I will post the latest Audyssey GUI results..and it does have a GUI which has been helpful.

I have been good! I will post an interim picture of the sub. I have been waiting to get a poster up in our room and get stuff a little more organized. The TV is still out of the picture but we have a 32 inch interim placement right now that is doing alright.

You might have heard us last night. We had a small gathering of people over and listened to the system for a little over an hour at unhealthy levels. I do not want to do that much. I was glad to see the system handled it. My receiver got hot but everything worked and the sub handled it with aplomb. I took an SPL reading in the middle and it was peaking at 110db. (insert picture of smiley face with ears bleeding and glow sticks spinning). I really prefer to listen to some good jazz but the drum and bass Is impressive to listen to.

I sent you a PM with some stuff to do while you are in town! Good to hear from you Hometheatergeek.

Alright. A few more pics. I got my surrounds up and here are a few pics of the setup right now.

HSU VTF3 MK3 in the front line of sound. It has changed the experience completely.



Picture of the cabling. Biamped the Polk Monitor 70s and got a cable from monoprice that I am quite happy with for the sub.



Picture of my old Sonys that used to be my mains that I have sequestered to be surrounds. I used monkey hooks to hang the speakers.



And one picture from back a bit. As you can see I have added window treatments.