[DaleNixon]

I am by no means a home theater expert. I've gleaned what little knowledge I have from the Internet and a few audiophiles I've met.

The first protip I ever got from an audiophile was "NEVER BUY BOSE". I couldn't believe it as I had always thought Bose speakers were the best. Apparently not.

Over the years I've assembled what I consider to be a very competent budget home theater system. We had some discussion about home theater sound in Tim's lolps3 thread. I decided this stuff could use its own thread even if it's just a place to show off what you've got!

Here is my current setup:


Receiver: Harman Kardon AVR525 – I have bosses who go through electronics like I go through toilet paper. They tend to sell me their “old” stuff at very reasonable prices. I recently scored this receiver. It doesn't have all the HD surround formats, but it does a great job with DTS/Dolby Digital/Pro-Logic I and II/etc. This thing made my setup sound worlds better than the old RCA POS receiver I was using.


Front and Sourround Speakers: RCA Pro-LX55 – RCA isn't exactly known for making quality speakers. These are throwbacks from the Optimus home theater days. These speakers sound incredible for the price! I don't believe in “giant killing” bookshelf speakers that blow away big floorstanding models; these are not that. These speakers produce amazing highs and decent upper midrange. The secret is inside:

The midrange speaker cone is made out of Kevlar. I think that means it is bullet proof or something. The tweeter sits on top.

The Linaeum tweeter on top is a dipole tweeter. I've been told that's what makes these speakers so strong in the highs department. Also, these tweeters project 360 degrees of sound. That's like way more degrees than a normal speakers dudes! These are pretty popular with modders and DIYers because they rip the Linaeum tweeter off the top and build a much better speaker around it.

These speakers are solid and heavy and they have really good binding posts. I would love to replace them with some expensive towers, but they sound so awesome and can be found on ebay or possibly in some backwoods Radioshack for like $40 - $100 a pair. Not pictured are my surround speakers because they are the exact same as these!


Center Channel: RCA Pro-C55
Not much to say here except it also has the Kevlar tweeters and you can see the Linaeum dipole tweeter in the middle. Having a matched center channel is really important for reasons I can't explain or understand.


Sub Woofer: JBL Sub 150
A 150-Watt sub woofer I bought from a Vietnamese restaurant that was closing. This sub really isn't that great. It gets the job done and stays out of the way though. It falls apart at very high volume levels. The explosions in Burnout Revenge on the 360 sound great!


Television: Toshiba 57H83
Rear-projection CRT HDTV's are ridiculously cheap compared to the newer technologies. They don't do 1080p and this one doesn't even have an HDMI port (it does have DVI). The picture is gorgeous. I run the 360 at 1080i. I've got next to no input lag, my black levels are outstanding, and there is no ghosting or macroing or any of this other stuff the newer digital models have introduced. I will upgrade someday, but I'm more than satisfied with this set for now. Action shots to come later! Oh yea, this thing doubles as a shaving mirror unless you block out all light in front of it. That's what black-out curtains are for!


Cat: Armando
This guy really complements the setup. He freaking loves the Wii bios and Kororinpa makes him approach and stare at the screen for some reason. If any of you ever hear yowling and meowing during our Gears of War matches it's probably Armando trying to convince me that I should put down the controller and pet him.
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[DaleNixon]

Thanks Toups! Man I'm sure there are some people around here who can humiliate me with their superior setups! *cough* Shaper *cough*

If anyone's looking to build a budget home theater, the speakers below (Insignia NS-B2111) have gotten quite a bit of praise on the audioasylum, audioholics, and avs forums:


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[DaleNixon]

[DaleNixon]

Man I wouldn't insult McDonald's employees like that!
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[DaleNixon]

Alright that was pretty harsh. I work with a guy who also happens to work at BestBuy. He's no idiot. He can also get me those ridiculously overpriced Psyclone cables for like 1/10th the price you pay in store.

Dudes I'm fed up with my media pc as it keeps crashing and muting itself at random when I try to watch something. I tried reinstalling Windows Media Center and it crashed during the install :/. I've given up on Windows and decided to make it a Linux/Mythtv box. Sure, I could have done that from the beginning, but I wanted the thing to "just work" when I first got it. Now I want it to work properly.


3 days of uptime and counting. It's amazing how some problematic hardware seems to stop behaving badly when you throw Linux at it.
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[DaleNixon]

I've built Gentoo boxes from scratch, but I've never really gotten a mythtv box off the ground before. I think the most difficult part will be getting the correct timings for my tv in the xorg.conf. I'm using ATI's proprietary DVI->component adapter. From what little I've found using google, I may have to go to straight DVI to get it to work without too much of a hassle. It was the other way around with Windows!

Thanks km, I may be hitting you up with questions once I get this thing further along. Right now it's just sitting there being a samba server.
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[DaleNixon]

Hey km, care to share your ModeLine values from your xorg.conf? I'm having absolutely no luck getting something that isn't psychedelic garbage to show up when starting X.

[DaleNixon]

Yea I've looked all up and down that page and the avsforums and various other places. Believe me, if I had built this box myself I would not have put an ATI card in it. It's a Gateway FMC-901 that I inherited. I think I'm going to go ahead and buy an Audio Authority transcoder. I need it for the Dreamcast VGA connection anyway.
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[DaleNixon]

My home theater got one hell of an audio upgrade last night. Toups was present. I will post pics when I get things all sorted out.
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