Stilljoe's Home Theatre

[Stilljoe]

Here's my living room home theatre - gallery link at left.

The HT features the following equipment:

Panasonic TCP50G20
Pioneer VSX-9130TXH
Sony BDP-BX1 (Costco version of the BDP S350)
Rogers HD Cable box
Polk RM 6900 HTIB
Sinclair Audio 310S Subwoofer
Sonora Stand

The dedicated room in the basement is almost ready, but the equipment isn't - right now it has a Samsung 26" CRT HDTV, my old Denon AVR, and a pair of very battered Boston A100s. Upgrades (Axiom speakers and another plasma) will be coming slowly until I finish paying my son's tuition. One more year to go!

[ejusted]

Originally Posted by Stilljoe

Here's my living room home theatre - gallery link at left.

The HT features the following equipment:

Panasonic TCP50G20
Pioneer VSX-9130TXH
Sony BDP-BX1 (Costco version of the BDP S350)
Rogers HD Cable box
Polk RM 6900 HTIB
Sinclair Audio 310S Subwoofer
Sonora Stand

The dedicated room in the basement is almost ready, but the equipment isn't - right now it has a Samsung 26" CRT HDTV, my old Denon AVR, and a pair of very battered Boston A100s. Upgrades (Axiom speakers and another plasma) will be coming slowly until I finish paying my son's tuition. One more year to go!

Welcome to the forum!!!
You have a great system and some good ideas for upgrades. Personally I would get an avr with HDMI so you can take full advantage of your new screen. Keep us updated with your progression. I am sure the guys on here will have tons of suggestions.

[bguzman]

Hello Stilljoe and welcome to the Galleries.
Very nice set up and very clean also. It's always nice to have a plan since upgrades are inevitable with this sickness, um I mean hobby . Awesome score on the clearance receiver. If you notice my thread title, just about everything in my setups was clearance or open box witch results in a substantial savings .
Now for the suggestions. If possible the surround speakers should be to the sides, or slightly behind, the listening position as shown here,

It might be to late for the living room, PITA factor of moving speakers, but keep that in mind for the basement. Just remember have fun and enjoy your HT first, then obsess about all the variables as little as possible.

[Stilljoe]

The basement room is coming along - well, the room is really done, but the equipment is starting to come now.

Added in the last couple of months:

Panny TCP50S30
Pioneer VSX 9130 TXH (from upstairs)
Axiom QS4s (2)
PS3 Slim 320
Cisco Explorer 8640 DVR (rental)
Chairs!

Retired:

Denon AVR 1705 (free to a good home!)

Already in the basement were my old Boston Acoustics A100s and a Sony BDP-S370 and the treadmill - ugly but necessary.

The Bostons I have had for about 27 years. The woofers have been replaced as has one tweeter that blew. They still sound damn good, but they look like hell.

Still to come:

2 more QS4s
Axiom LCR - at this point I'm thinking M50s and a VP100
Subwoofer
and down the road a piece, a projector and screen.


Added to the living room:

Denon AVR 1712

I'm very impressed with this receiver. This is my first experience with Audyssey and my initial impression is that I like it better than MCACC. Too soon to say really but I think it's set the surrounds louder and there seems a bit less mid-bass. Sounds clean.

Of course that might just be I have a shiny new receiver - of course it's clean!

Pics added to the gallery shortly.

[Stilljoe]

Rebuilding and updating:

My wife and I had the pleasure of a drive to Dwight in May.

It was further than I remembered from Ajax (just east of Toronto) through Barrie, Orillia and Huntsville, but easy driving, no traffic issues. Close to three hours drive between 120 and 130 most of the way. Ah, that's km/hr - call it 75 - 80 mph.

At the Axiom factory Noreen gave us a tour while Ian set up the demo room for A/B blind testing of centre channels. I learned some things I didn't know (the woofers are assembled in Dwight - I assumed they were from China like the tweeters).

When Ian was set we're given the demo room, a bunch of CDs and DVDs in addition to a few we had brought with us, and a remote control to switch back and forth between centre speaker A and B. I wanted to decide between a VP 150 (as recommended by Brent) and a 160. The rest of the system, M60s, QS8s and . . . I don't know which sub was behind the curtain.

So,we listened to Michael Jackson (for my wife), Ricki Lee Jones, Jon and Vangelis, Kevin Ayers, and Holly Cole. Unfortunately we couldn't get the Elton John SACD (Madman Across the Water) to work - I still haven't heard that in multi-channel.

I took a few notes - minimal really - and let them behind, so from memory:

Speaker A: "fuller" sound; is it louder (no - I know Ian level matched them). Speaker B: voices sound very good, overall sound (by comparison) is somewhat "muffled". Back and forth; speaker B might be a bit smoother on Holly Cole's voice.

Off axis (by quite a long way, maybe 50 degrees out from centre) speaker A still sounds "fuller", but it's not so aggressive - in fact it's maybe a bit recessed. Speaker B really didn't change much that I noticed, so it was consistent but overall less "there" than A.

Interestingly, my wife and I were absolutely in agreement. Both centre speakers sounded "good" but different - in conversation with Ian afterwards, we discussed "similarly good".

And in case you didn't guess, we drove home with a nice Boston Cherry VP 150 - speaker A.

A thoroughly good day overall. Thanks to Ian and Noreen for being good hosts. I'll be back for more Axiom goodness.

So, we made it home. Set up at home is a small dedicated basement room, 11X17X8. Carpeted floor over Dri-Core, "soft" suspended ceiling, and drywall over lots of insulation (for heat loss, not soundproofing). Front speakers are Boston Acoustics A100s that I've owned for about 30 years, surrounds QS4s. Upgrades since my last post are rears on-wall M3s, sub is an SVS PC12 NSD. I've been doing without a centre to this point.

I hooked up, ran MCACC (Pioneer VSX9130 TXH), and popped in a Blu-Ray I've been saving for this: Apocalypse Now.

Impressions:
1. Wow. Maybe MCACC is happier when a centre speaker is connected? somehow this has brought the surrounds to life. Okay, call it new speaker euphoria.
2. As you'd expect, the Bostons sound quite different from the centre. I'll address this later in the year (Christmas? Honey?) with M50s or M60s.
3. I think maybe the 150 stood out in the A/B test because it doesn't sound like an M60, whereas the 160 does, so it was more seamless?

Updated pictures in my gallery.

Oh yeah. I built a cabinet to house the new speaker at an appropriate height. In the pics.

And, there's a reason I have to wait for the towers: a new family member. She'll be keeping me from too much time downstairs for a while, I think. Also in the gallery.

[mtbub996]

Hello Stilljoe and welcome to the Galleries.

[Stilljoe]

Two new pictures in the basement gallery:

new display and front speakers;

the dog loving the HT carpet (all wood floors upstairs!).

The Axioms sound just like I'd hoped. Cleaner than the old Bostons and with better power handling, they can keep up with my need for volume. I'm very impressed.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Nice upgrades Stilljoe and beautiful job on that cabinet. Did you build it yourself or was it a re-finishing job you did?

[Stilljoe]

Thank you sir. That's built from scratch; one sheet of oak ply and a few oak boards. It's not as evenly finished as I would have liked - the water based stain didn't agree with the ply very well - but without close inspection, it's fine and goes nicely with the Axiom finish.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by Stilljoe

Thank you sir. That's built from scratch; one sheet of oak ply and a few oak boards. It's not as evenly finished as I would have liked - the water based stain didn't agree with the ply very well - but without close inspection, it's fine and goes nicely with the Axiom finish.

Well...it looks terrific!

[croseiv]

Hi Stilljoe. Nice rig sir.

[Stilljoe]

Couple of new pics in the gallery. I drove back to Dwight over the Christmas break and traded in the VP150 for a 160.
Not sure why I decided to do this, since on the A/B test we chose the 150, but I had an itch.
After a week and several movies, yep, that was a good switch. During the A/B we only listened to music, stereo processed by Pro-Logic. For movies, I'm definitely happier with the 160.
Sonnet in the picture was about 50 lbs; she's now almost 2 years old and weighs about 90. She's lying by my feet now listening to Who's Next.