CONTEST: Tell us your Greatest Home Theater Moment Ever - Page 2

Mine had to be the time my daughter (around 8) had a sleepover and they were watching some Pixar flick. I had each seating position in the couches hooked up to bass shakers, and my daughter thought they were the coolest thing. She called them "booty shakers" and asked me to not to say anything to the other girls. Well, during a particularly bass heavy scene, one of the girls leaped out of the sofa in fright screaming, "There's something wrong with the couch!"

We laughed so hard while we explained the setup to her. She liked it once she understood it.

Since 2 months after I graduated HighSchool, home theater has always drained my budget! I've been obsessed with the idea of projectors and surround sound (in my opinion creating the ultimate Home Theater). High quality audio to me has always been exciting but in the circle of people around me, they don't hear what I do. The defining highs of the tweeters, the clarity of the mids, and the low resonating, wall shaking frequencies of the bass joining together to create a lifelike experience! My first projector in my first apartment (still 2 months after graduation) was purchased from Wal-Mart (I believe the manufacturer was Tiger Electronics). It wasn't much, but it was awesome for me! A short while after I moved into my apartment, I made a life changing experience....Joining the Marine Corp. While in the service, I continued my home theater hobby, which made my house..."the party house" every weekend....literally...EVERY WEEKEND! but I still wasn't receiving the Home Theater reviews I wanted, It wasn't enough for me to enjoy my Home Theater...I wanted others to hear what I was hearing, see what I saw, and feel what I felt. It was mind boggling to me...."How do you people not see, hear, and feel the awesomeness that is home theater!!!" Meanwhile 4 years later, my contract ended and after 2 tours to Iraq and 1 to Afghan (and a slight bit of artillery caused hearing damage), I decided to get out and go back home. Since then it has been a struggle financially to provide for my family and keep my hobby but I have always managed to provide while keeping a mediocre, semi home theater. (with no projector and an "o.k." surround sound). After a while I started to acquire more for my home theater from trading on craigslist to include 2 Pioneer AVR's, a Yamaha M-4, KLH Surrounds and a powered sub, and Sony surrounds and a powered sub. I acquired much more than this but these items are still in my system so I felt they needed mention.

My moment came the day I woke up, got ready for work, checked the mail and my Logitech Harmony 1000 came in the mail. Later when I went to work, I purchased a 5000 ANSI lumen HD projector with 8 extra bulbs, a Tivo HD 3 Series, 2 ceiling mount speakers, a Sony Vaio HTPC, and all the HDMI cables etc necessary to finally bring my home Theater together for less than $500 all from my job. (electronics recycling company) and that same evening purchased a pair of (Great Condition!!!) Vintage Snell Acoustics Type B Speakers from a friend for $25 (he didn't feel like moving them again and didn't really know what they were). After all the financial struggle, I was able to spend less than $600 and finally have what I considered a complete Home Theater! I didn't sleep that night as I was only concerned with setting up and hiding all the wires (ignoring the requests from my wife to "come to bed already!") I was too excited and was having mini "spaz-fits" knowing that I was actually going to have what I considered an awesome home theater on a major budget! For that matter, the best and most complete I had ever owned! I was smiling well into the next day hyping myself up for the completed project. I didn't turn anything on after I finished, due to wanting to wait until around 10am as not to receive complaints from the neighbors. When I tested everything, I wanted to TEST EVERYTHING!!! (if you know what I mean) IT WAS AMAZING!!!! and having what I finally wanted combined with the fact that I was also having a Superbowl Party that day was much like the wet dream of a Home Theater Connoisseur/ Sports fanatic. By the end of the party, the circle of people around me heard what I heard, saw what I saw, and felt what I felt. It was the ultimate recognition for home theater! I had finally received the feedback I hoped for!

As if that wasn't enough,after the party, I went outside to clean the BBQ Pit and my (upstairs) neighbor said thank you. I inquired as to why he was thanking me and he informed me that the bass resonating from my apartment made his superbowl watching experience that much better. Now that was surprising! All in all....A GREAT 2 days!
Edited by Matthew Reid - 8/18/12 at 6:54am

Perhaps my favorite home theater moment was a new friend Mike's first audition of my theater, and specifically his subsequent unintended facial reactions.

Mike is a DJ and professional audio mixer/recorder who works with professional audio and artists for a living - especially versed in the realm of hip hop. I did hope he'd be impressed with my setup, but wasn't sure what to expect because I knew he had exposure to all sorts of professional audio gear at studios, clubs, churches and the like. The movie choice of the evening was to be Tron Legacy, which is a fantastic flick to show off your theater, but before the feature, I started running through some demo material off the scubasteve demo disk designed by avsforum member scubasteve2365. I'll pause here to note if you haven't happened to stumble upon this thread yet, absolutely make an effort to do so.

Likely, the most fantastic thing about my theater is my sub choice and integration. I have a pair of JTR Captivator Pros setup to deliver a near perfectly flat frequency response to 20hz (check my avatar pic) and both subs face agressively foward towards the listening position at close proximity, as you can see in the following picture:



The JTR Captivators are a high excursion, high efficiency 18" subwoofer driver with nearly 4" peak to peak travel, and a power handling rating up to 7,200 watts. Their ported box utilizes slotted vents and is tuned to 20hz.. The Caps can really displace a ridiculous sum of air. During the demo of the ScubaSteve demo disc I repeatedly saw that involuntary grin appear on Mike's face as I stole a glance during some of the most intense scenes. I've seen this involuntary grin on many of my friends at my place, as well as when demoing some of the best subwoofers currently sold during the various subwoofer meets I've attended and hosted. It's best described as a goofy smile you just can't wipe off even if you try. The grin is coupled with emotion and heart flutter. It's a kind of enthusiasm that makes you want to shout and immediately tell all your friends about your experience! You may have felt it the first time you heard a drag car with open headers, a tank or other heavy tracked vehicle rumbling by, or even a particularly awesome thunderstorm clap as heard from the front porch swing during an intense summer storm. Despite his obvious grin, Mike didn't say much --- he just kept his eyes trained on the screen in front of him - intently enjoying the demonstration. We were playing these clips at reference level (or close to) with the subs several dB hot. Shortly, I arrived at the skadoosh clip which is taken from the animated DreamWorks movie Kung Foo Panda. There is a scene in the movie where Jack Black's Panda character Po, defeats the nemesis with a mystic and elusive wuxi finger hold. It generates an explosion with a resulting wind that flows over the land. During this scene the air movement effect from the Captivators is as strong as any clip I've ever demoed and matches the on screen video action perfectly. I'll not forget when Mike and his involuntary Chesire cat grin very slowly turned towards me and said in disbelief "Is all that wind from the subwoofers?" I laughed, and said yes! He excaimed he'd never experienced anything like it! We moved on to the Tron Legacy movie and of course had an enjoyable experience with a full length very bass heavy movie. After the movie as we were parting ways he said he wold like to bring some of his friends over to experience my theater in the near future and asked when I would be available again. I laughed because I barely knew Mike at this point and he was already asking if his friends (who I didn't know) could come over and watch a movie. This really demonstrates the contagious bug of enthusiasm that can both be propogated and caught in our beloved hobby of home theater.


I recorded a fun video of the JTR Captivator Pros in action to illustrate just how much air displacement they are capable of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlpqBoQ1hoQ

Edited by Archaea - 8/18/12 at 10:52am

I think I'm in love!!!!!!!!!!!!

The greatest moment in the evolution of my Home Theater was when I told my contractor to GO HOME.

I paid him. Then I told him I would rather fix his mistakes myself than continue dealing with his ineptitude. To realize WHY this is the greatest moment in the history of my HT, you'd need to check out the details that I posted many years ago in the Home Theater Builder Subforum right here on AVS. To summarize, the contractor and his army of minions were clueless and managed to screw up almost everything they touched. Getting that guy out of my house and putting the finishing touches on the theater myself was priceless.

Read more about it here: http://www.avsforum.com/t/783876/welcome-to-the-downtown-johntown-theater#post_9404026
Edited by gremmy - 8/18/12 at 7:08pm

I remember it like was yesterday. It was Thanksgiving 2007 and I had all the neighbors over for Turkey dinner. Roy and Elanor, Rick and Iris, Katie, and Roy and Elanor's daughter Marjorie and her granddaughters Sienna and Lisa. We all sat down in the living room. We hadn't built our projector based theater yet. I was using a Sony XBR4 for viewing. I had Denon electronics a AVR 5308CI and 2500BTCI Blu Ray transport. Speakers were Gallo Nucleus Reference for the L,R, and C. Surrounds were Totem Lynks. A Sunfire True Signature filled out the bottom octaves. The sound from this system was breathtaking and the picture from the XBR4 just popped off the screen. We were watching a Blu Ray copy of Across the Universe.

There is a very stirring scene in which a young boy is crouched behind a car in 1967 Detroit during the riots. He was singing Let it Be Acappella. The scene changes and there is the inside of a church and the boy is laying in a casket. The whole community was in attendance and the choir was finishing Let it Be. A black woman in the choir was singing solo with the rest of the choir in backup. Her voice was so pure and beautiful, it made the hair on my arms stand up. I never had such goosebumps before. That this Denon system was able to capture the raw emotion of that scene and convey it to my guests and me. I had never experienced anything so palpable before.

I looked around the room and all my guests had tears streaming down their cheeks. What a powerful moment. I never expected that. My theater had shown me a side of my friends that I hadn't known before.

I'll never forget it, ever.

After that, Saturday nights became movie night at our house . Pot luck supper and a Blu Ray feature in our humble little home theater in Berkley Michigan. A job change in 2010 forced a move to Lansing. we converted the master bedroom into a fabulous projector based theater. Big or small home cinema is here to stay.

I'll never for get it. It was in the year 2000. I didn't know home theaters existed until a friend asked me to help him hook up his stereo. I had worked in television, cable and played music so I knew a little about in's and out's so I said sure I'll help you.
I walked in and the guy had a 50" TV with a movie going, but no sound. The unit was a behemoth, but the picture was awesome!. He could get sound from the unit speakers but not from this "Boom Box" looking thing, with colored lights and a million buttons that had speakers attached to it. It said "Pro Logic" on the front..whatever that meant...so I proceeded to hook up the speakers to it...basic stuff..and after a trip to radio shack for a cord, I hooked the audio out of the TV to the audio in of the boom box, flipped a switch on the back of the TV and VOILA! sound came out of the front speakers. I thought I was done until he said "I don't hear anything coming out of the back speakers" and we tried and tried until I thought.."What does this button do?"..it happened to be during and action scene. I pushed it and the whole room opened up with sound. So with the screen in front and sound all around..at that moment I said to myself "I gotta have this". The Home Theater bug reeled me in like a Trout and I've been hooked ever since.

My greatest home theater moment is when my two and a half year old son quietly said, "thucks" during the THX opening of Toy Story..

A friend of mine who was getting his LFE from the woofers in his tower speakers and was on the fence about making changes. The rest of his system from audio processing to video was pretty good and subwoofers were next so I took over mine over as icing on the cake and calibrated it to his room and threw on a few scenes of the bluray (terminator salvation) to convince him to upgrade that area . We sat down and the look of shock on his face was priceless and then it turned into a huge smile but he was still speechless so next thing I know he is throwing in every bluray he has to hear certain scenes again. Well the upgrade fever has started for him so hopefully the neighbors will understand.

I've had many great experiences in my home theater but the most memorable was one about half way through its construction before any movie had been watched. I had just spent 2 weeks building a large fiber optic star ceiling and turned it on just before my 8 yo daughter came to check on me. She thought the ceiling looked so real she disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with blanket, drinks, snacks and a orange glow stick (for a fire).

We both sat under the stars and had a picnic! Totally cool and better than Disneyland!!

This contest has perfect timing! Our theatre room has been mostly completed for about a year and a half now in which time our family has enjoyed it immensely. However my greatest home theatre moment occurred just the other week on August eleventh when I received the following picture message on my phone from my wife while I was at work. I forwarded it to my email and pasted it below exactly as I received it.

The best thing ever! Thank you for being so cool and giving us a theater room to enjoy


For me this simple message made all my dreams i had before I began this project come true. The fact that my wife and four year old daughter were watching a 4:3 aspect ratio low channel/resolution DVD movie (Sword in the Stone) on a 120" 16:9 screen with a full HD projection and audio setup using a small fraction of the whole systems potential yet getting beyond imiganiable enjoyment out of it!

For me it was such a wonderful reminder of what is important in life and I will remember the moment forever!

I have had two moments in my life like that.

First one when I was in middle school, say around 12 years old. My dad was who got me into a/v stuff, we were even the first ones out of all our friends and family with a DVD player, and my sister and I got our own DVD player before most families got one. I remember setting one birthday, I had saved up enough money combined with birthday money that I bought myself a new 25 inch tv that had S Video! I was stoked! It even had audio out! Previous tv was a 19 inch that just had rf and that was all. I was so excited, I came home and immediately went to work.

I set up my new tv, hooked up my DVD player to the tv with s video. I set up my stereo to get the audio from my DVD player and even decided to hook up a little 2.1 computer setup to my subwoofer out on the stereo. When I was done with this crazy setup, I marveled at seeing 7 speakers and one (tiny) subwoofer connected and ready to play my DVD's on my brand new tv. I sat there and was just in aw at how much of an upgrade this was while watching The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings. Even as such a complete noob of a system, I knew I would strive for that feeling and home entertainment.

My other time was when I was finally was able to acquire enough money and connections for my first build. I had just moved into a friend's house and was able to get a Onkyo DTR 7.2 receiver a M&K subwoofer(from a friend of the family), along with a Polk CS center speaker(new off NewEgg), Accoustic Research fronts and some 1970's Shures(from my dad ). I had a friend help me bring everything in and I quickly set it up. He didn't think it was worth it to spend that kind of money and stuff that will probably just sound the same.

I had him even just hook his iPod up to the stereo and play one of his favorite songs. Almost immediately he just looked stunned. We sat there in amazement about how great this sound (even from a weird combination) setup. He confessed that he must have heard that song a hundred times and right there on that couch, he was listening to that song as if it was for the first time. He heard things he never heard before. We spent the next five hours or so just listening one after another our favorite songs to experience them again for the first time. I remember listening to Tool - Latalus and feeling the music more than ever. The Beatles - Come Together.

That feeling brings back why I love music that feeling. I now need to go home, turn off the lights and just listen to some music.

I'd say my best moment came after I installed a Buttkicker LFE on the floor joists in the basement below the living room. I put in my new Blu-Ray copy of Master and Commander and was blown away by the canon fire during the battle at the beginning of the film. When Lucky Jack yells "FIRE", it feels like I'm right there with the seamen who are operating the canons. It has become one of my all-time favorites because not only does the film have great sound, but also great picture, acting and script. It has since been my go-to demo for friends and family and never ceases to wow.

My Home Theater experience is yet to happen. James Cameron's 2D TITANIC (Sept. 10, 2012) and an affordable priced 3D Avatar-Theatrical version (Oct. 16, 2012) will come out on Blu Ray discs. Avatar 3D has only been available as Panasonic Promotion exclusive. A person can have the finest Home Theater in existence but without friends and family to share the experience. You might as well have an old CRT color TV from the 1960's.

...when I came home from work early one evening and caught my wife watching Glee... at reference level...

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

My greatest home theater moment…

I had just gotten the sound set up and had spoken to my elderly mother about it as I was getting it together.
She had said that she would like to come over and see it, and in particular she wanted to see Mel Gibson’s “The passion of the Christ”.

Mom’s eyes were pretty bad and she had a very difficult time enjoying TV. When she came over to see this movie she was so excited when she saw the 100” picture.
The huge size of the screen helped her to see more clearly and that is something. The film left all of us in stunned silence. At her age and with her health problems it meant a lot to her, both the movie and especially the subject of the movie.

Mom’s gone now, but it is so easy to answer the question “What was your greatest home theater moment ever?”. I can still see the look on her face when she saw the huge screen come to life and can almost hear her say “Wow!”.

Heh, I don’t care if I win now, it was fun just calling it all to mind.

Thanks, AVS.

I have two, one for my personal home theater (as directed by the OP), and a second which is what kicked off my desire for a home theater some 15 years later.

1. My personal moment when everything clicked was when I unboxed my Epson ProCinema 1080UB and set it temporarily on my bookshelf. I have a two-story family room, with one side completely blank white wall. It took about a year to convince my wife to give a projector a shot. We were coming off of a 63" Sony rear projection (standard def), so anything smaller than the 73" Mitsubishi DLP was smaller in size. Once I fired up the projector, my wife's jaw immediately dropped just seeing the test pattern. "It's HUGE!" We then inserted Jurassic Park on DVD, and suddenly there was no need to go to a movie theater ever again. 2 subs powerfully recreated the T-Rex introduction, and the 7 speakers tied to my Denon AVR-988 literally roared to life. When I needed to go to the kitchen and make popcorn, I realized that I could still see everything perfectly fine from the kitchen. Excellent! Since that moment, it's been home theater for everything. Gaming, TV, movies, computer.

2. In high school, I had a rich friend - you know, the kind who has everything. We were in his basement playing Mario Kart 64. He had a huge subwoofer, 3-bulb projector, and a 5 speaker setup. The sound was great, but we cared mostly about each having approximately 45" of screen to play with. 30 seconds into a battle match, I managed to hit him with two red shells, a starman, and I even ran him over when he turned into a rolling bomb. He was so pissed that he ragequitted (before ragequitting was even a word). That evening ignited my drive for a home theater, and 15 years later, I've been able to recreate it at my own home!

The best moments were in 2007.

After a couple of fits and starts - including a bad experience with a 52" LCD unit, I resolved to try front projection. I knew it would be expensive, but I set out to learn. That was when I found this site and started reading.
I had to create a hybrid theater/den room. There was building and sawing and painting involved. In that process I picked a Sony VW60 projector and Onkyo 805 receiver. I got a gray, motorized screen. The BluRay and DVD players were standard stuff.

I am a big dish satellite enthusiast, so I also hooked it up to a C-band satellite receiver.

I remember at that time National Geographic was one of the free stations I could pick up ( you have to pay for it now) . I had seen that show before on my 27 inch CRT. It was something about mountains. They were showing Alaskan mountains, New Zealand mountains, and South American mountains.

Fully expecting the front projector experience to be disappointing, when I flipped it all on, I looked at those mountains on my ten foot screen, and my jaw dropped. It was spectacular.

Nature shows have been my favorite since then. For that I go to PBS or get DVDs. Nova is a wonderful PBS show as well. It was grand that the project not only met y expectations, but exceeded them.

BIGMouthInDC and I worked on my theater last summer. A lot of the work when building a theater is in the first stage, which is the framing, wiring, soundproofing, and drywall (and green glue, and drywall again!). A the end of all of that work, you are looking at a room which resembles a big gray box. From there we worked on the soffit, stage, and riser. Again a lot of work, where some of the shape of the room starts to appear, but the colors are still plain. Wood, MDF, gray walls and floor. Then came the time where we built all of our fabric frames. We chose to use a Red/Black color combination. We ripped all of the pieces to make our fabric frames, glued them together, gave them a bevel, and then had to cut GOM and insulation for each one. Finally we were able to stretch the fabric tight and start fastening the GOM to the frames. After all of that time, and all of that work, we finally had a stack of frames ready. Each section of wall was several different frames of either black or red, along with red trim, all measured to fit exactly between our column areas.

When we started to put up each section of wall once piece at a time, it was an overwhelming feeling of excitement fastening each frame into place. It was like seeing a piece of art, where a cover was slowly removed. When that section of wall was finally done, and we could visually see all of the panels and trim perfectly fit into that wall, it was that moment that the room popped into reality for me. It looked just like we had planned.

I visually documented this exact moment here on AVS. I was as excited taking the pictures as actually doing it. Here were the posts of my "moment" as it was happening.
(Where it started)
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1350179/making-the-bacon-race-theater/630#post_21113803
(Continue to scroll down, or view the next 5 posts below)
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1350179/making-the-bacon-race-theater/630#post_21113805
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1350179/making-the-bacon-race-theater/630#post_21113808
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1350179/making-the-bacon-race-theater/630#post_21113810
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1350179/making-the-bacon-race-theater/630#post_21113812

This was my favorite moment building my theater. Even when it was all done and I watched my first movie, it didn't have the same dramatic effect that putting up these panels did. I just looked at it and thought, "Wow, I can't believe this is mine!"

My absolute favorite home theatre moment was showing my brother my first set up. I put on the Terminator disk where in one of the first screens a car is dropped by a crane in a junkyard. Well of course we had the sound cranked up, and of course my nephew had to walk in the room with a glass of pop at the same moment the car crashed! Well, again of course the glass of pop ended everywhere as his arms ended up flying over his head in surprise!!

Lugging my 5 foot tall 90 pound each speakers up 20 stairs because I was to giddy to wait for help from friends.

My favorite HT moment came not with Blu-Ray, HD, 7.1 or any of the new, knock your socks off equipment that I now have. (though there are plenty of those moments)

My greatest moment came at the advent of DVD. I was about to buy a LD player from Circuit City, when the salesman says "look, I can sell you an HD player now but there's this new technology called DVD coming out soon and L.A. is one of the seven test markets, you should wait...". Remember Divx? Isn't it ironic that it was a CC salesman who turned me on to DVD given what would happen just a year or two later?

Anyway, so I buy my DVD player in May 1997 and a mass market Sony receiver and 5.1 Energy budget system (all I could afford at the time) and start watching movies with my just-out-of-college-aged friends. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for someone to say "hey what's with the black bars?"

At the time I still had my VHS collection so I cued up several movies that I owned on P&S VHS and OAR DVD. Going back and forth I showed them all of the picture they'd been missing while watching the P&S versions (not to mention the nauseating panning and scanning back and forth across the frame!). I must have shown that to over two dozen friends, all of whom ended up buying DVD players within 2 years, and many of whom now have more-than-average-joe HT setups and only buy OAR. I know it doesn't sound like much now, but back in 1997, when OAR's success was FAR from a foregone conclusion, this was a major victory for me!

My moment came right after I had just finished installing all of my gear. Panny projector..128" screen , speakers..all of it!! I got everything ready..invited my wife down for a private demo.. put on her favorite movie...she sat down ..I played the demo. Everything was going fine..she seemed like she was enjoying the moment..I had that big "look what BIG DADDY did" grin going...demo came to an end ..lights came up..I looked at my wife to ask her what she thought? (silence).....well? (still nothing)....honey..what do you think?...well?...Without even turning to look at me, she calmly smiled and said.."Is that the biggest screen you could get???

Of course at the time I thought my home theater system was incredible and had no idea what it was really lacking, but ignorance can be bliss. It was about 10 years ago and I had just moved back home from college with some recent purchases for my system. At the time my receiver was about a year old, yamaha rx-v596, had a pioneer elite 5 dvd changer, the klipsch quintet system with 10" sub, and had just purchased rf-3's as a graduation gift to myself. Because I understood the difference in quality between dolby digital vs. dts signals, I always tried to find the few dvd's that had dts encoding. Gladiator, already being one of my favorite movies, and still is, was a great find and had to enjoy this with my brother for the first time.

So we diligently set up my system in my parents basement, acoustically not ideal but would do, and after about an hour or so everything was in place. We sat on the couch and when the movie is about to get going the dts opening comes on, at a good volume, and the detail of the piano followed by the rich bass waked both of our senses right up. The powerful start of the movie with the battle scene actually forced us to turn the volume down as my mom thought there was really a war going on. That was my greatest home theater moment, enjoying a great movie on a mediocre system that I thought was great at the time.

Since then, I've had many other great moments, and kind of feel like I do every time I turn it on these days. I'm still pushing that same yamaha receiver, and probably will as long as I can, love the natural sound it produces. Since the purchase of the rf-3's I've added the rc-52, and rs-52's, and most recently a polk psw-505. Until I bought my blu ray player I didn't believe the hype but what a difference it makes, along with a 50" LG plasma. Before I used to push my system to see what it can do, now my system pushes me!

It's funny that I ran across this today, as i was just thinking about this this morning. I built my theater starting about 10 years ago - 18x25 room, curved front wall, soffeted ceiling, risers, 110" Stewart Firehawk, SIM2 Domino projector, all Paradigm 7.1 surround. The room was awesome and my friends, family and I had enjoyed many many hours of movies in there. Unfortunately for the last 3 years it's sat relatively empty and totaly unused due to a divorce - she got the house, and I've got a whole lot of gear that will someday be put to use.

My story actually starts well before I was born. My dad always had a massive collection of slides dating back to my parents wedding in the early 1960's, their honeymoon, building the family home (which is still the family home), and on to chronicling the childhood years of myself and my 4 sisters. Through the years we've all left Wisconsin and scattered across the country - Ohio, Utah (then) Colorado, and now with myself, Los Angeles.

We always used to "joke" that the only time the whole family ever came home at the same time was for funerals and weddings - and since we were all married, my long-distance sisters coordinated a week during the summer to all be home with their kids and husbands. We always enjoyed seeing Dad's slide shows when we were kids, but unfortunately the slide projector had died long ago, so knowing that this mass visit was coming up, I had an idea. I grabbed the slide collection from my parents house to scan them and put them onto DVD. This turned out to be a pretty massive undertaking - I forget now but I remember scanning literally thousands of slides on my flatbed scanner with a slide adapter. Needless to say, the scanner died soon after. Ooops!

So now I guess I have to describe my family. At the time it was my parents, my 4 sisters + 4 husbands + 7 nieces/nephews ranging from 5-22 years old + 5 of their friends, myself & my now ex-wife, plus our neighbors from while we were growing up and their 3 sons who were in tons of the slides. This was fairly soon after I'd finished building the theater (and finishing the rest of our basement - complete with my shop, my office and an exercise room), so it was fun to see the reactions of my sisters when they saw the results of about a year of nights and weekends of work.

We had 28 people in a room designed for 6. The smallest grandkids were piled onto my parents laps in the center seats while everyone else raided the house for whatever seating they could find, and the rest snagged whatever carpet space was left in the end. The next couple of hours were a long-overdue visit to our past and each of my sisters and my parents left with their own DVDs of all the slides.

At the time, I could go down there and enjoy that room whenever I wanted - movies, video games, sports...explosions, car chases, killer robots and zombies. It was always about the action on the screen and how good the room sounded. But 3 years later, 2000 miles away and what seems like a lifetime ago, that stuff was cool - but it wasn't the coolest. Sitting in the back of my beloved theater looking over everyone...seeing the smiles and pointing, hearing the laughter and knowing what it meant to my parents to have us all back in one place, that was way cooler than anything in HD or DTS.

The room is no longer mine, the memories always will be!

Enjoy your rooms - and always remember that they're more than construction materials and components.
Edited by MrSquid - 8/21/12 at 12:39am

Here's me: classic long pockets/short arms -- that is to say I'M CHEAP! Now please note, these "long pockets" are not to be confused with "deep pockets" -- that is to say that whatever (very limited) money might ever have been found at the bottom of those long pockets was never accessed without great resistance and discomfort, I mean, given the short arms and all. Anyway, so cheap I'll stretch a dime razor until it yanks whiskers out of my face -- you get the idea. Cheap in every area EXCEPT the all-important home theater arena! Now what purpose to all the hardship if not the obsession of a vice?

It would seem some decades ago in another life, I had my good system of the moment -- represented the high water mark to that date. 40" plasma ($5K back then!!!), full surround sound -- 5.1 channels! Tall floorstanding speakers! Dual subs! It was a thing of unparalleled beauty... of which I still retain some of the connective wires in a drawer someplace...oh, and the plasma...stopped working a few months back -- repair/replacement cost about equal now, I suppose -- wow.

Of course all this equipment crowded an incongruously microscopic rented house space, but at least I had that gorgeous gear! Wanted the whole family to be awed by the level to which I'd risen in life, represented of course by dazzling crisp highs, mellifluous buttery warm mids, not to mention thunderously intimidating low frequencies! Well, when I say the whole family, wasn't really counting on Mom coming along -- she was getting on in years, had her hearing aids, and perennial irritability, but what do you know? -- she insists she wants to come.

Had sister there -- can't really keep her STILL long enough to let the magic unfold, but maybe here just a taste (-possibly half hour?-) of home theater transcendence. So sister going to be anxious to get it over with, Mom has the hearing aids and complaints growing louder, but younger brother was going to be there too -- he was competing with incubating a nascent system of his own, so I imagined for him this was going to set the goal to aspire to!

The moment had arrived -- everyone gathered, knees knocking together in my cramped space. All the amps on, speakers restless at the starting gate. Already had a section of my STARGATE laserdisc cued up. Then we were off! A little preliminary footage, then the first firing of the STARGATE! Now when I tell you that I myself was impressed with what I heard in that moment, you should know that I'd witnessed this divine passage countless times, knew what to expect -- that crackling, that pulsating dynamic energy feeding through the speakers and dominating the room! But here it was for the whole family to witness!

Oh, it was LIVE baby! The sound had a freshness, an astounding BEING-THERE sensation I'd never captured before. WE WERE TRANSPORTED! I was hearing that crackling like it was in the very room! How could this be? -- was it just the intoxicating effect of purveying my audio acumen to family (and by extension my practically unnatural life-success and world-beating general excellence!) that was creating this wondrous new audio dimension?

My brother was the first to throw the wet blanket on the party: "Your amp is sparking over here!" From dear Mom: "Something's burning!" My sister: "Is it supposed to do that? It's not going to start a fire is it?" Lights on, all equipment off in a mad panicked scramble. A layer of smoke hovered on the room like the acrid aftermath of a flash-fire fried dashed dream. Yes, seems my two weeks old, $2000 amp had given its all trying to impress the family -- the little champ that tried had blown a faulty capacitor trying to shine like never before and erupted into STARGATE impressive sparks in the effort. Now that was something.

The amp was warrantied, but I resolved I really really did need a truly no holds barred system -- that one was just not going to suit my needs, don't you know. So there really is no end possibly, but I'm zeroing in on it. Own my own home now -- right off installed four dedicated twenty amp outlets and a 240 volt one. Currently have literally over a ton of ultra high-end speakers, about half a ton of amps. At this stage of life, starting to contemplate what it's going to be like not to be able to hear it anymore....but there's always visual upgrades! -- just directed some penny-pinched funds toward a sweet 70" 3D LED TV. Love buying TVs now -- set them right beside my boxes of old audio gear in almost every room (taking offers on a once top-of-the-line laserdisc player!...anyone? -- how about a fantastic EXPENSIVE caput plasma? -- might make a great table-top!)

One of these days I'll have the family over again to check it all out while Mom is still with us -- she really has gotten much cheerier with medication. Sister won't hold still -still- but you never know -- had some limited success bringing a 46" LED TV, blu-ray player, two speakers, and small amp to the mountain cabin on our trip two weeks ago -- of course she said she was going to read a book through my showing of the computer animated UP, but what do you know? -- at one point pulled up a pillow and sat through the flick, and seemed to actually enjoy the experience! Brother ended up buying alot of my old gear (not the amp!), so I'm still providing a mark to shoot for with my present system.

And throughout it all, coming to AVS for the answer to all my questions -- two days ago asked and answered (thanks AVS members!): how come my new 70 inch won't show a 3D movie through my three year old processor?

Technology marches forth, and the dream continues.....
Edited by Emaych - 8/27/12 at 4:49am

Ten minutes later, I'm still laughing.

My greatest home theater moment is rather recent. I ended up building an HTPC, and it was my first computer build ever. Being my first time it took a few hours to get everything hooked up since I was very nervous about messing up. When I finally got it to boot properly it was an awesome moment, but the best was yet to come. I finally started ripping my dvds and blu-rays, and setup PLEX on the HTPC. I finally had a beautiful interface to browse my movies and tv shows whenever I wanted. This put a huge smile on my face and made the hours of frustration and terror of building my first computer completely worth it.

Ding Ding Ding!

Awesome. How rewarding is that?