darth_tumor...

woot, finally close to completion of my new home theater setup! not a dedicated theater mind you, it's in a living room, but it'll be sweet nonetheless. equipment and price list:

-panasonic th-50pz85u $1845 shipped buydig.com
-onkyo tx-sr705 $473 shipped ecost.com
-svs sbs-01 5.1 speakers with pb10-nsd sub $999 picked up from svs warehouse
-apc h-type 1kva power conditioner/surge suppressor/voltage regulator $265.5 shipped pcsuperstore.com
-xbox 360 premium regular price (fail on paying full price, not 360 itself. i love it.)
-ps3 40g $275 best buy
-pace 775d hd dvr set top box for armstrong cable
-misc. lengths of hdmi cables from monoprice.com, around 3-4 bucks each
-speaker mounts from partsexpress.com
-raceways to hide cables from home depot
-14awg speaker wire wrapped in white pvc (to match color of baseboards) from monoprice.com
-auralex gramma isolation riser $49.95 shipped from bhphotovideo.com
-logitech harmony 550 remote $89.99 from best buy
-ps3/360 hooked up via cat5 cable to lynksis wireless g router $50 from best buy
-nice dark wooden a/v rack from target $100 with frosted glass shelves, enough shelves to hold all my shit

i'm sure i'm forgetting some misc. shit but that's about the gist of it. waiting for tv, receiver, power conditioner, cables, and some other shit to get here. obviously i have the speakers (sitting in boxes on my living room floor) and i got the isolation riser today. i'll post pictures once i start installing everything and when it's done. should be fun! i can't wait to get all this shit hooked up and start watchin bluray movies and playin games on it. picked up a few blurays off of amazon-got cars, happy feet, black hawk down, i, robot, and live free or die hard-figured that'd be some good reference material. also got digital video essentials by joe kane on bluray to dial in the picture as much as possible.

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scutzi128

Thats a nice setup you got there...I hear those svs speakers are very good for their price...let me know what you think of em.

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XBL & PSN GT: Bison Lover

dommo_g

Did you change your mind on the TV, or you still getting the same one.

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darth_tumor...

yeah, i've read many reviews and asked a lot of people's opinions on them that are far more knowledgable than me on the subject, and i haven't really heard a single major negative thing about them. the speakers themselves have excellent clarity and spacial dynamics, remarkable fullness to the sound, outstanding accuracy over the entire frequency range, a punchy but non-fatiguing treble range, a pleasant, open midrange, and bass that is tight and extends clear down to 80 hz without sounding strained or thin in the mid-bass frequencies (80-around 150-200 or so hz). the fact that extend clear down to 80 hz means that you can use the thx-recommended lfe channel crossover (80 hz) without having any gaps whatsoever blending from the sub to the sats, plus you don't have any localization (being able to tell where the bass is coming from, typically this happens when the sub is crossed over at 100 hz or above-what frequency this begins to happen at largely depends on your sub and room acoustics, usually it's at 110 hz and above). the sub has tight, powerful, concise bass, all the way down to 20 (!) hz. that's the kind of bass that you feel thumping in your chest, not necessarily that you hear. the fact that it can go down this low given it's modest price tag ($429 by itselt, pb-10nsd) is phenominal. this sub is capable of some serious output. the flared front port is almost big enough for me to fit my fist in-meaning it's big as shit! it's a 10" driver with a 300 watt rms digital b.a.s.h. amp (conservatively rated mind you-this thing is easily capable of pushing 400 or more watts during demanding passages in music or movies). they were able to get so much output out of a relatively small driver by making the enclosure big-and i mean big. it's not a small sub at all. there are bigger certainly (when i went to pick it up, i checked out the warehouse real quick and some of their cylinder subs are as tall as my gf who is 5'2"), but it's not small by any means. the fact that this system is so good for any kind of music, be it rock, pop, jazz, rap, etc, and for any type of movie, at this price point, is unreal. the sub is musical enough that it can handle classical music, jazz, whatever kind of music you can throw at it that requires tight, controlled bass, yet it can reproduce explosions, gunshots, even thunder, very accurately and with outstanding sound pressure levels.

the speakers and subs themselves are extremely well built. the cabinets are a one-piece design with rounded edges. they're fairly big and pretty heavy-svs invested the development dollars in the sound, where it counts the most, not necessarily in the looks of them. they're a flat black finish. i personally like the look-kind of spartan, it's almost like they look like they are their to get the job done and take no prisoners. they can be blended into a room's decor if you get creative enough (provided you have a significant other that you have to please-i do, but she's more concerned with sound quality than looks of a speaker, yay for me) but they're not real tiny satellites like some lower priced speaker packages out there. there's nothing wrong with small satellites, like those from orb audio, but they can't fill a room the same way bookshelves or towers do. they still go by the law of physics, and small drivers sometimes just can't push enough air to fill a large space with sound effectively without sounding thin and sort of metallicy. there is really nothing in the $1k price range that even sounds close to as good as the svs set. you'll have to spend generally at least probably 2 grand if not more to get a better sounding speaker, and even then, it won't be a night and day difference as it is between a cheap-o speaker set and the svs. i'm quite sure i'm going to love them, and i will definitely be sure to post up my impressions of them (i'll probably end up creating a seperate thread for my impressions of everything). i got some good demo material that'll really put the speakers through their paces. here's what i got on bluray:

-cars
-black hawk down
-live free or die hard
-happy feet
-i, robot
-ratatouille
-independence day
-mr and mrs. smith
-chronicles of narnia
-castaway
-phantom of the opera
-hd scapes (some demo material from various scenic hd programs, like window:hawaii, antartica, et, it was like 4 bucks from amazon so i figure what the shit)
-digital video essentials on bluray to calibrate the tv properly

holy sam hell i can't wait to set this up! dammit i need that tv soon!!! receiver came today, well built unit, nice looking brushed black aluminum front


didn't change my mind on it. ordered the panny th-50pz85u from b&h photo and video (a much more reputable website) for $1895 including free white glove 5-7 bus. day delivery. buydig.com screwed my order all up and dicked around for a week before they even shipped the damn thing, so i just cancelled it. luckily, i found it at b&h for only $50 more, and they threw in free white glove delivery for me. i've used b&h in the past and i know that they will fullfill their commitment and deliver my tv as promised. i trust them for any kind of purchase.

the panny 50pz85u has by far the best black levels and shadow detail out of any flat panel in the $2500-3000 retail price range. the samsung plasmas, especially the xx550 series, may have slightly more accurate colors, slightly less video noise, and slightly better video processing, but the panny 85u clearly rules the day in this price class. the only tv that will really best it this year is going to be, yet again, the pioneers. the pdp-5020hd is the successor to last year's highly acclaimed pdp-5080hd, widely regarded as one of the best flat panels ever. the 5020 50" 1080p plasma will have better blacks than the panasonic, and better colors and video processing than the sammy. it's definitely a step above the panasonic. however, pio eliminated all of the 768p models and anything below 50" from their lineup this year. the official pioneer press release for the 2008 pioneer kuros states a retail price of about $4,000 for the 5020 and that's the cheapest pioneer plasm this year. it's certainly a great tv, but to me, it's not worth about double the price of the panasonic. the black levels of this year's panny 85u is about the same as the blacks in last year's pio 5080, but at a much lower price point. that's why i consider them to be the value leaders in plasma right now. the native contrast ratio of the 85u is 30,000:1-and that's the more conservative of the 2 contrast ratio figures. the dynamic, which is what most manufacturers go by, is 1,000,000:1, although that figure means practically nothing. the native is what you need to go by generally, although it still is difficult to compare across manufacturers since everyone uses a slightly different method to measure contrast ratio. it's really only truly useful within a company's own line of tv's. it's kind of like wattage with a receiver. for $1895 shipped for a high quality 50" 1080p plasma, i think that's a great price personally. heck, even a couple years ago, you had to pay well over $2k-2500 for a half decent 42" 768p plasma.

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Vissionary

holy shyte darth lol

any pics of the setup?

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SOT - We'll pull your endocrine system out of your body and make a hat out of it.

darth_tumor...

haha glad you like it. it's really actually nothing compared to a real home theater-but on a budget like what i was working with, i honestly think i got about the best equipment i could that i'll be happy with for a very, very long time and will not go obselete on me in a few months.

no pics yet, unless you want pics of speakers in plastic bags on the floor, a 32" lcd on the fireplace, and the 705 sitting on my diningroom table haha. hdmi cables from bluejeanscable got here today, waiting on speaker cables, power regulator, and a few other tidbits. today, i'm going to be finding the studs to mount the speaker brackets to, moving the a/v rack and sub to their proper locations, and running the raceways up the side of the fireplace to behind where the tv will be. i'm thinking it might be finished by this weekend, depending on when the tv gets here. ideally, i'd like to have everything hooked up and installed so that when the tv does get here, all i have to do is plug it in, calibrate it, and then begin the break in process.

i'd be more than happy to take some in progress pics if you'd like though. just let me know. certainly i'll be taking plenty of pics once it's finished up.

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scutzi128

lol I got that hd scape thing too but i have not even watched it...It was cheaper for me to get it because my order was not enough to qualify for free shipping without it

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XBL & PSN GT: Bison Lover

darth_tumor...

haha nice, way to play the system there. what other blu rays do you have?

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scutzi128

Its actually HDDVD but for blueray I have 300, Underworld Evolutions, Talladega Nights, The Departyed and Shoot Em Up.

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XBL & PSN GT: Bison Lover

darth_tumor...

not a bad lineup at all man. how's underworld evolution? i'm real tempted to pick that one up. interested in selling anytime in the near future?

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