Home theatre systems
I've got surround sound systems setup in the lounge, HT room and I'm busy building a system for my bedroom. The flagship installation is my dedicated HT room which is about 6.5m long and 4.8m wide.
This is a cropped digital photo of an image from Shrek on my 126" projection screen, notice the birds in the upper left of the image.
HT room
This space has got a dual video setup, and a 7.1 surround sound system. For normal everyday viewing I use the 42" Samsung LCD rear projection TV as the main screen.
When I want the real cinema experience, I move the RPTV and unveil the 126" diagonal widescreen high gain front projection screen coupled with a Sanyo PLV-Z1 LCD widescreen projector.
THX logo as projected by the PLV-Z1.
I've blanked out the window behind the projection screen and have black-out sheeting and curtains controlling the light in the room, so viewing conditions are pretty dark.
The projected image is pretty good, but the Z1 does perform better with a smaller screen. I'd recommend not going bigger than about 100" with this unit. I'll probably upgrade the Z1 to the PLV-Z4 or better when the lamp dies.
Scene from LOTR:TFOTR as projected in my HT room.
See the full picture below and manipulated to show the background detail.
Pretty damn good for a projector rated at 900 ANSI lumens. BTW the pics were taken using a crappy 3.1MP HP still camera at its worst resolution which is VGA 640x480.
Audio
The heart of the sound system is my Yamaha RXV-1400 amplifier, coupled with the Yamaha S1500 DVD player, driving Kef Q9c, Q5i mains and four Q1i's for surround and surround effect channels. LFE is taken care of by my Yamaha YST-SW315. I've got Monster M1 bi-wire cable running to the main speakers with the A+B channels of the amp providing discrete signals, effectively also bi-amping the Q5's. Acoustic Research flat bi-wire cable connects the surround speakers (yeah, I know bi-wiring the surrounds is a bit much, but I had the cable spare), and normal AR flat cable runs to the surround effect speakers. Interconnects are mostly AR Pro-series II, but I've managed to get a Master Series component cable which I have running from the DVD to the RPTV. Filling in the gaps is a Yamaha CD-585 five disc CD player, a Philips 6-head nicam VCR and a Stanton T.60 turntable. (Yep I've still got some vinyl).
My satellite decoder is a pretty old, mk1 DSTV with 1 meg memory.
I've got the RPTV and the projector wired for VGA so I can use my Mac-mini as a HTPC media centre. This works great since I've got a wireless-g network installed with my iTunes library on the Iomega external network HDD. I want to get an Intel Mac-mini sometime since my 1.5Ghz PPC doesn't have an IR port and Frontrow.
TV Room
My secondary system is based around the Yamaha DSP-A595a workhorse. Its paired with a Sony DVP-NS300 and speakers are Mission 702e's, 700's, 70c1 and a Yamaha YST-300W for bass. This is a scheewt package and I still think that the Missions sound better than the Kef's, though the Kef's definitely have better power handling at high volumes.
The 702e's are bi-wired using AR flat bi-wire cable and the surrounds are on AR flat too. Interconnects are AR Pro-series II.
Bedroom
I've just got hold of a 40" Samsung LCD monitor for a very good price. It's HD ready with 1366x768 resolution and great connectors. The only weak point is a lack of HDMI input, put there is DVI, so that won't be a train-smash later on. I've got the PS2 and the 9-series Philips DVD hooked up to it at the moment with temporary speakers, which is OK for late night viewing. I've been looking at the Yamaha sound projector to provide surround sound. I'm probably going to go with the YSP-800, I actually like the YSP-1000 better, but the 800 has sensible connectors and the price is right, doubly so since the 1000 has discrete video processing. At some stage I'll have to get a proper stand for this setup, one that will give the sound projector enough height off the floor to give sound beams a clear path to my ear elevation.
Picture quality on this screen is great. I've used the AR Pro-series II interconnects here too.
Upgrades
As usual HT setups are never quite done. There's always some extra piece of equipment that will fit in just great. There is a bunch of stuff I'm looking at and the most likely to be bought new addition has to be the Yamaha sound projector for my bedroom.
Next up is a replacement for the Sanyo projector, an economic choice is the PLV-Z4, but the PLV-HT10 sounds like a great machine, unless of course someone want to donate a 100" HD LCD screen to me ;-).
One of these days I'm going to have to build a muffler/cooling box for the projector, and get some aircon in the HT room.
Looks like I'll be getting some extra long lengths of RG cable to take DSTV into my bedroom, as well as some IR remote extenders soon.
Of course none of these things are any use without reliable and accessible power. So my next house is going to be properly electrically wired to support the loads of power points I need.
One of these days I'm going to have to splurge on the recliners and cinema seating I've been thinking about for the HT room, maybe expand he amp power to include some bass shakers in the seats.