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Registered: March 13, 2007 | Posts: 4,596 |
| Posted: | | | | Hey guys & gals,
I have a co-worker who is looking to upgrade his Audio/Video equipment. He is looking for a Hi-Def TV, preferably LCD in the 50" range, a decent receiver and speakers for surround sound and probably a blu-ray player (not sure if he wants to go full Hi-Def yet) or a DVD player that can upconvert to 1080p. He is in the U.S. and has $5,000.00 in his budget.
I'd appreciate any suggestions you audio/video gurus might have.
Thanks | | | My WebGenDVD online Collection |
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Registered: June 12, 2007 | Reputation: ![High Rating](/images/Ratings/Small/1.png) | Posts: 2,665 |
| Posted: | | | | I'm starting to look for a bigger TV also so i'll be interested in the suggestions. I can recommend the PS3 for the Blu-ray player. I picked it because with the Blu-ray standards flux i figured Sony would keep the firmware maintained better/longer than many of the standalone players. It has worked well. If he'd looking to buy soon let me note Amazon is having a sale. Got this e-mail from them last night. Quote: Dear Amazon.com Customer, As someone who has shown an interest in TVs and HDTVs, you might be interested in our top deals at Amazon.com. Through June 6, get a free TiVo HD digital video recorder with select Samsung HDTVs. Through June 10, we are offering 24-month financing on our most popular HDTVs from Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi. Or, shop our huge selection of HDTVs from all the top brands at incredible prices.
To top it all off, we offer Free White-Glove Delivery on all 27-inch or larger HDTVs purchased from Amazon.com. | | | Bad movie? You're soaking in it! |
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Registered: March 13, 2007 | Posts: 736 |
| Posted: | | | | Receiver (just bought it this week): Onkyo SR-705 7.1. Has 3 HDMI inputs and can do Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. It is also THX certified. $519 at Amazon.com.
Agree with tweeter on the PS3 for Blu-rays. I also use a Blu-ray drive (only $130) in my computer system. Using my video card's 2nd display adapter via HDMI, I have it rigged through the Onkyo and can output to the TV using PowerDVD 8 Ultra. It also can handle Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. |
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Registered: May 19, 2007 | Reputation: ![Highest Rating](/images/Ratings/Small/4.png) | Posts: 5,917 |
| Posted: | | | | When getting the TV, find out all the makes and models being sold in your area in store. Go look at what you like best, second best, and so on - then go home and look up the reviews on those models.
I did that but had my iPhone with me so I looked up the reviews at the store. Based on them, I shied away hard from my #1 choice and ended up going for my #2. |
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Registered: March 18, 2007 | Reputation: ![Highest Rating](/images/Ratings/Small/4.png) | Posts: 6,449 |
| Posted: | | | | I'm partial to Olevia LCD. Maybe not the absolute best, but good value for the money and decent reviews. If money is no object, the Sharp Aquous (sp?) iand Sony Bravia are the only ones that consistently catch my eye. | | | Thanks for your support. Free Plugins available here. Advanced plugins available here. Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. |
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Registered: March 13, 2007 | Posts: 1,242 |
| Posted: | | | | Quoting Dr. Killpatient: Quote: When getting the TV, find out all the makes and models being sold in your area in store. Go look at what you like best, second best, and so on - then go home and look up the reviews on those models.
I did that but had my iPhone with me so I looked up the reviews at the store. Based on them, I shied away hard from my #1 choice and ended up going for my #2. I'd suggest this one as well Max. Best to try and get the sales rep to display same content on both / all screens at the same time if possible whilst in the showroom. But do bear in mind, some showrooms may have a deal going with certain suppliers to sell their wares, so might tweak certain models to look better picture / sound wise to obtain a sale. So I would also look at reviews on the web as well. Same for the sound equipment. Best places to go if any are around would be the small independants, they might be a bit dearer, but at the end of the day they would be after giving customer satisfaction as a high priority, (they'd want a returning customer after all), and would even handle the installation in most cases as well. Steve |
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Registered: March 13, 2007 | Posts: 2,692 |
| Posted: | | | | Things to consider - look at Plasma as well as LCD. I was originally only considering LCD but after going in to a Shop that had the all on display (with large floor area) so I could see exactly what they looked like from 8 feet away I went Plasma.
For Plasma the two best makes are Panasonic & Pioneer.
Also, these things are big. I made sure that the delivery would carry it up stairs and then take my old 28" widescreen tv away. Don't go to a 'el cheepo' place which won't do this.
Look at what the TV looks like - then go home and look at reviews.
- and bear in mind that shops always configure the TVs for 'shop' view not 'home' view.
(And I bought a Panasonic Plasma) | | | Paul | | | Last edited: by pauls42 |
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Registered: June 12, 2007 | Reputation: ![High Rating](/images/Ratings/Small/1.png) | Posts: 2,665 |
| Posted: | | | | And a good universal remote should be considered also. I have a Harmony 880 (Harmony has several different ones). Relatively inexpensive and i've yet to find a piece of equipment not in their online database. | | | Bad movie? You're soaking in it! |
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Registered: March 14, 2007 | Posts: 1,338 |
| Posted: | | | | Im a big fan of this set-up... Samsung 50" 6 Series LCD - $2300 Samsung Blu-Ray BDP 1500 - $400 as far as the audio goes... it depends, if your friend is not picky i would recommend the matching samsung HTIB, I've put it through the paces and for the price its a great little unit that matches the look and feel of the other components Samsung HTIB HT-AS720ST - $565 If he is more picky about audio then he will want a dedicated receiver and I would go with Yamaha RX-V663BL - $500 Yamaha 5.1 Speaker Set NS-SP7800PN - $600 If he is pickier about audio then that, the $5000 price range for the entire thing is not really realistic... I have left room in both for whatever cables, brackets, tax, etc he will need to pay for as well... also since I used Best Buy as my example (its work for me, I have the stuff memorized) - I would also point out that using either of the audio examples he would save $100 off the BR and $100 off the audio if he purchased it with the tv. and in closing... Tweeter made an excellent point... he should add a harmony remote ![](/images/emoticons/smile.gif) | | | -JoN |
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Registered: September 7, 2007 | Posts: 265 |
| Posted: | | | | Your friend should certainly consider using a large portion of the budget for audio. Having a huge screen with crap audio isn't going to give the experience he wants. He can easily find a great looking LCD display for under $2500 allowing for the other 50% of the budget for audio and extras. $5000 might not sound like a lot but with some poking around it's easy to fit something pretty good into that range. Amazon is a good place to start.
For screens I'm partial to the Samsung line, they have great picture quality (up there with Sharp) and are typically a little less expensice. Also, LG makes some good ones.
Samsung LN46A650 46-inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color - Just under $2000 at the big river.
Audio is going to be a really personal thing. People who generally like a brighter sound will like Infinity... Klipsch and JBL are the two leading supplier of sound systems for commercial cinemas. They would be a good place to start for that "authentic" theater sound. Definitive makes excellent products, as does Polk Audio. Polk has some awfully damn impressive packages for under $1000. Just depends on exactly what he wants and what his preferences are in terms of sonic likes and dislikes.
He can get really good receivers for under $600...In that price range he'll get a ton of power and will give him a good amount of connection options as well. Onkyo, Denon and Pioneer all have good equipment that can be bought online in that range which will give him the newest audio codecs and HDMI connections as well.
So far he'd be looking at roughly $3500 for the display, receiver and speaker set. That leaves almost a third of his budget for Blu-ray, maybe a new upconverting DVD player, a new remote (yes, the Harmony ones are incredible - the 1000 is about $350 at amazon, full touch screen!, plus there's virtually no programming involved). That still gives a lot of room for speaker cable and other connections. PureAV offers a good line of cables and connections that are reasonably priced and perform very well. To boot, they are typically considerably less than Monster (if he doesn't want to pay that premium).
Really, $5000 can get you a lot, especially when you search out deals online. Best Price Audio/Video has some excellent pricing and very good customer service. I ordered from them a few times and I've recommended them to a number of people. |
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Registered: June 27, 2007 | Posts: 2,049 |
| Posted: | | | | I will only comment on the audio portion of the Home theater.
If you have a medium Budget there are only two receivers worth buying:
Onkyo 606 (3 HDMI Inputs, HD Audio) Yamaha 663 (same specs)
as for the blu ray player, there are currently only two out that's worth buying:
Panasonic DMP-BD30. (Profile 1.1, plays DIVX and hast bitstream audio for the HD Formats) Samsung BD-P 1400 (I have that one and am very happy). It has only Profile 1.0 and doesn't play Divx but I am pretty sure that you already have a DVD Player that can do that. It also outputs Audio in Bitstream mode.
Forget the PS3 as a Blu Ray Player. It can only output the HD Formats in PCM. The quality of the sound is way better when you have it delivered via Bitstream and the Receiver decodes it. (As the two mentioned above do).
I work in an electronics store. So I know all this equipment very well. | | | Check out my Youtube channel under https://www.youtube.com/user/alittleolder |
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Registered: June 27, 2007 | Posts: 2,049 |
| Posted: | | | | My suggestions take about $1000.
So he can spend another $1500 or so on speakers. I have some suggestions there too but I am not sure if those speakers are available in the states.
That leaves him $2500 for the TV.
That would make a fine Home Theater. | | | Check out my Youtube channel under https://www.youtube.com/user/alittleolder |
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Registered: June 27, 2007 | Posts: 2,049 |
| Posted: | | | | Forget the Samsung BD-P 1400. I saw at work today that we already carry the "Samsung BD-P 1500". They made a lot of modifications for the better.
If he want's to save some money he can still get the 1400. I would figure it get's even cheaper now. | | | Check out my Youtube channel under https://www.youtube.com/user/alittleolder |
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Registered: March 13, 2007 | Posts: 181 |
| Posted: | | | | if you can shop vanns.com sales, you can get some azing prices. i got 2 mirage omnisats to use for surrounds at $99 apiece. Now im in a pickle because just went 7.1 and need 2 more surrounds, but they re $299 a pop. oops. |
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Registered: March 19, 2007 | Reputation: ![Highest Rating](/images/Ratings/Small/4.png) | Posts: 6,018 |
| Posted: | | | | Funny - when I go there, they list 249.95 each...
Got interested because I have 5 omnisats as well - just LOVE these speakers!
Cheers, DJ |
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