Last updated: October 24, 2004
If you love movies, sports, quality TV dramas and comedies, and music concerts, a home theater is not just an extravagance, it can provide you with truly moving entertainment at home as good or better than going to the movie theater or a concert hall. No more expensive popcorn, people talking, or cell phones going off!
A home theater consists of a number of things - obviously a screen (television, flat panel or separate projector and screen), video/audio sources like DVD player, satellite or cable, CD player, etc., amplification and signal processing (separate components or a combination 'receiver'), and speakers (2 to 7 plus a sub woofer).
Our Pioneer Elite 510 TV with old Mission 737 front stereo speakers,
Acoustic Research
center channel (on top) and subwoofer (at left).
Buying audio and video components these days has become more complicated than buying computers! With so many audio and video standards, different connection types, and a myriad of brands to choose from, you have to be careful. So far, we're very happy with our choices.
Here's a picture of the new receiver!!!!!
Look at the back of this MONSTER:
Below is a list of our components.
| Component | Model | Features/Benefits |
| TV | Pioneer Elite 510HD (53") | Rear projection widescreen (16:9 format), HDTV capable, built-in line doubler (crisps up standard video inputs), tons of inputs, vast amount of configuration options, multiple screen 'resizing' options, 'side by side' dual picture video, etc. Many projection screen TVs suffer from poor 'convergence' - getting the red/green/blue colors to align evenly throughout the screen. Most projection TVs offer a 'center convergence' control to adjust a cross of white (you adjust it so no red or blue fringes are visible). The Pioneer offers an amazing 72 separate point 'advanced convergence' setting screen allowing individual adjustments for 72 separate points to ensure even color convergence across the whole screen (for each screen format shape too!). |
| Receiver | Pioneer Elite VSX-49TX | Very powerful audio/video receiver with Dolby Digital, DTS, Pro Logic II, THX Ultra 2 and many other processing modes. It's a 7.1 receiver (supports *7* surround speakers plus one or 2 sub-woofers). It can also convert any video input into a single output format, making connections to the TV much easier. It can also self-calibrate the audio setup with an included microphone! This is an amazing feature. |
| DVD | Toshiba 4700 | Progressive scan DVD player. 'Progressive' means it outputs the video non-interlaced (at twice the normal scan rate) which makes for a crisper picture. Requires a TV capable of accepting a progressive signal though. The audio connection to the receiver is a single digital coax cable (this just looks like a well shielded audio cable). |
| Front speakers |
Mission 737s (20+ years old! |
These speakers are bigger than book shelf types but not huge. They're on their own stands either side of the TV and provide accurate and clear mid and high ranges. The bass is a bit weak, but that's compensated for with the subwoofer (see below). If you like listening to CDs, be careful if you're considering those tiny front surround speakers. They may be OK for movies, but might not sound that great for music. |
| Center speaker | Acoustic Research CS 25 HO | Don't skimp on the center channel speaker! All movie dialog and center sounds come through it. If it sounds thin or inaccurate, you will REALLY notice. The one we have is good, but sometimes the dialog does not sound completely natural. |
| Subwoofer | Acoustic Research SW 30 | Subwoofers don't all sound alike! Compare several in a store. There are passive and powered subwoofers but don't bother with a passive one if you can avoid it. The passive one connects in line with the front stereo pair and filters out low range signals for itself and passes on the rest to the stereo pair. It's not powered and is unimpressive. Powered subwoofers are great, but cheaper ones sounds muffled. Our one is great, and has a 100W amplifier inside. |
| Rear speakers | Boston Acoustics Micro 80x | Boston Acoustics makes great home theater speakers. We almost got a Boston Acoustics front, center and subwoofer package but decided to re-use the old but good Missions. Side note: The Boston Acoustics 90c's are remarkable very small speakers and can serve as good fronts. The 80x's were inexpensive and are perfectly adequate rear surround speakers though (and a lot less expensive than the 90c's). |
| Speaker wire | Monster 2R/CL & XP | The front left, right and center speakers are
connected with the 12ga (thick!) 2R/CL wire. The rear surrounds
are still connected with the Monster XP which is harder to upgrade
(under baseboards and carpet).
Don't use anything smaller (higher number) than 16 gauge. The XP cable is cleverly packaged so it's very flexible, unlike a lot of thicker cable. |
Notes / explanations: