Tell me about your Home Theater Setup

[guzziguy]

I'm not sure I can see a way to do this that doesn't strike me as just wasting $$ unless you're willing to shop used. All of the prepackaged systems I've heard have left me seriously wanting. And for HT I'm just not that picky either...

I was afraid that this would be the answer. That's why I asked. Oh well, I'm just doing initial research now and learning stuff fast. Thanks.

I'd also recommend going 2.1 and looking at some of the dvdievers from NAD, Arcam, Onkyo, etc. Trying to get BluRay in there now will seriously cut into the SQ as would 3 more speakers.

I'll look into these things.

av123 has a fantastic deal ($1,500) on an X Series 5.0 setup that you would be hard pressed to beat at any price. All you might need is a sub but certainly not necessary.

You can can a Pioneer PDP-5020FD for just under $2,000... 50" plasma, fantastic set. Again, you will be hard pressed to beat this TV at any price.

As for a receiver any of the Denon line will do. The 2809 or 3808 are excellent choices.

The Oppo BDP-83 would be the last link in the chain and at about $600 you can't go wrong for a truly universal player.

That would put us around $5,500 if you buy new. That would leave plenty of room from a nice sub, cabling and whatever else you might want/need

You can also go the projector route and still end up well within your budget. Something like the Sony VPL-VW40 or VW10 and the Optoma HD80 would do well for projectors and a 100" screen from Elite Screens or DaLite would fit perfectly. A screen and projector would run about $3,500 tops.

I already have the TV. This is for our smallish bedroom and this system would totally overpower it. But thanks, I'll consider it if I ever get a large room for a HT setup.

Scroll down a bit zach, it's now a $1000 budget

I see that my budget is going up. It's no surprise, but I still don't see it at the $5K range for a bedroom HT. Oh well, back to the drawing board. I have plenty of time.

[grawk]

For bedroom you could pretty easily get away with one of the mini 5.1 systems, I'd think. Those are pretty doable for $500, leaving money for a bluray player. I'd check videogon for recommendations.

[morphsci]

Here's a good price on a NAD unit at Audio Advisor.

[Grand Enigma]

Samsung HT-BD2ET Blu-ray HTIB - $700 or so

[guzziguy]

Zach, I mentioned that exact system in my OP. Are you serious about recommending it? Have you heard it?

[guzziguy]

In researching it more, I wasn't able to find a blu-ray HTIB that supported the latest blu-ray Profile 2.0. So for the meantime, I'm going with this Samsung HTIB and will later add a blu-ray player.

When I add the blu-ray player, this receiver will do 5.1 surround sound but will not be able to process Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio. Can anybody tell me what I'll miss by not having this? I figure that if it turns out to be that important to me that I can also by a receiver that has it or even move this system to the guest BR and start anew with a blu-ray based system. The features and price of this one were just too good for me to pass up.

[Blackmore]

HTC=WOM

[Dusty Chalk]

Can anybody tell me what I'll miss by not having this?

Absolutely nothing.

[LFF]

Can anybody tell me what I'll miss by not having this?

The companies would like you to think that you'll be missing out on uncompressed, pure, dynamic sound.

The truth, and this is just my experience, is that you will not be missing out on much. I have checked the bit rates on both blue-ray and dvd movies and in most cases, the DVD will have a higher bit rate. However, I don't know if the encoding algorithm is different and whether or not a lower bit rate for Dolby/DTS HD is actually better than any other digital encoding scheme.

[guzziguy]

The companies would like you to think that you'll be missing out on uncompressed, pure, dynamic sound.

The truth, and this is just my experience, is that you will not be missing out on much. I have checked the bit rates on both blue-ray and dvd movies and in most cases, the DVD will have a higher bit rate. However, I don't know if the encoding algorithm is different and whether or not a lower bit rate for Dolby/DTS HD is actually better than any other digital encoding scheme.

After setting up and listening to the new home theater, I agree with your and Dusty's opinions. With a regular DVD, it sounds pretty good. It's a true "huge" improvement over the TV's sound system. However, I suspect that it's not nearly good enough to discern a difference between 5.1 surround sound and Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio. Either way, it's unlikely that I'll know in the near future as I have no HT upgrade planned other than the bluray player.

Thanks again to everyone for their advice. My wife and I are deliriously happy with our HT setup.

[tkam]

I have checked the bit rates on both blue-ray and dvd movies and in most cases, the DVD will have a higher bit rate.

When your comparing bit rates are you sure you aren't just seeing the regular dolby digital or dts streams (ie not the lossless ones)? I find it hard to believe that dolby truehd and dts ma have lower bitrates than the regular tracks on dvds. Honestly I think it's impossible.

[Hopstretch]

When your comparing bit rates are you sure you aren't just seeing the regular dolby digital or dts streams (ie not the lossless ones)? I find it hard to believe that dolby truehd and dts ma have lower bitrates than the regular tracks on dvds. Honestly I think it's impossible.

Even if Luis was inadvertently measuring the core DD or DTS tracks on the Blu-ray disks, they would almost certainly be higher bit rate. Because Blu-ray has so much more storage capacity, even the lossy streams are typically encoded at the codecs' maximum bit rates of 640kbps for Dolby and 1.5Mbps for DTS. On DVDs, DD is usually choked down to 448kbps and DTS to 784kbps to save space. The maximum bit rate for TrueHD and DTS-Master Audio is 18Mbps, the same as uncompressed PCM.

Short answer, the lossless formats do sound better -- in a decent system, in a decent room, at near reference levels. But I think you'll be perfectly happy with core DD and DTS in your application, Ken.