I'm a college kid on a budget with a love for music and home theater. I'm slowly building my system through friends and various deals I can get through my employment with Best Buy. When I first started working there, I thought that was the best home theater could get. Very soon, I realized I was very wrong. When I saw the setups that my friend was building and going to high end audio video stores, I decided that I wanted more. This is a work in progress for surround sound and stereo music listening in a bedroom setup. I get most of my music from my pc hard drive through winamp, and the rest from an old 6 disc cd player I got from my girlfriend.
Planned future upgrades:
1. Belkin power conditioner
2. Monster cable bi-wire speaker cables
3. Samsung 50" DLP
4. Denon or Sony DVD/SACD player
5. More powerful center channel
6. Possibly a 2 channel amp for the main towers.
7. Martin Logan Aeon i towers (future dream)
Feel free to leave suggestions or tips. Any help is most appreciated.
Awesome towers that I got from a friend. These were replaced by his Martin Logans. Frequency Response: 30Hz-20kHz Drivers: 2x 5.25" Aluminum Cone Woofers, 1x 1" polyshell dome tweeter, 1x 10" side-firing subwoofer.
Sapphire SC
This is the matching center channel to my towers. Just acquired this for Christmas.
Pioneer CS-M755
I use these as my surround speakers.
Yamaha NS-C125
This small center channel has been moved to the rear center location since the addition of the new Sapphire center channel.
Yamaha RXV-1300
The RX-V1300 is a full-featured home theater receiver ready for all formats and for custom installation. Major features include 6-channel discrete amplification (100W x6), Yamaha's Digital ToP-ART design concept, Quad-Field CINEMA DSP, 25 surround program, SILENT CINEMA, and learning-capable/present remote control. It delivers high power to six channels and provides DTS ES, Neo 6 and DTS ES Matrix 6.1 decoding as well as Dolby Digital 6.1 and Dolby Pro Logic II decoding.
Pioneer DV-47A - L337
The most bad ass DVD player I have ever seen!
Harmony Remote 676
I picked this up in a contest our department won my first Christmas with Best Buy. It's a great remote that will control anything that can be controlled with IR commands. Everything is programmed from the harmonyremote.com website and managed with a profile page that keeps track of all the equipment in your system.
System edited: I took out the old component rack that I had because it was getting too small and too difficult to mangage the wires when something changed in the system. I went for the glass and metal stand to allow for a larger tv later and the space to fit all of my components. This has helped very much with the sound of the system having the same amount of space between the speaker and the wall on both sides. Newest additions: -Audigy Platinum Sound Card in the Media server with digital coax output to the receiver. -2 more sets of analog audio cables to fill out the 5.1 outs from the Elite to the receiver. It's nice to finally get that surround effect on the SACD's. -PS2 for Christmas from my girlfriend.
You can mod your player and make it even better. Modwright does it. I was considering a Pioneer 45 or 47 but decided on the Denon 2900. I am very happy with my player. I also am into movies, i bought a Transparent Cable HP component cable and was blown away!! for a 100 bucks used on A-gon it is worth every penny. Another cost effective purchase would be power cables. I have some coming this week. I had the chance to demo a low end PS Audio power cable and couldnt resist buying three nice ones. I wasnt expecting such a large boost in performance but i was floored. literally. do you put a blanket over your tv during listening? if not give it a try, free upgrades that work. Just my two cents. Justin
System edited: I have added the Pioneer DV-47A and changed out all the audio video cables to some Monster Cables. This player has a fantastic picture, even on my analog tube. As soon as I get a DLP for this setup I will be able to see how the progressive scan looks. This system was built initially with audio in mind, so that's what I'm concentrating on right at the moment. I have been very pleased with the audio quality of the standard cd's and music DVD's that I have and will be testing DVD-A and SACD this week. All in all, a great addition to the system.
I bought the DV45a on eBay and the seller never sent it. After getting my money back from Paypal, I puchased a Pioneer DV47A from a fellow audiogon member. As soon as it comes in I'll post how it sounds.
