Home theater revisited

Yes I remember, we been down this road before.  But this time is different.  Having done a fair amount of research, I have actually placed some orders! The System I am planning is 3.0; rear or side speakers are practically impossible without more than I want to tackle. Wireless rears require power which is not conveniently located and pulling speaker wire is out of the question. 

I also decided to skip the subwoofer.  I am not a bass head and all of the medium priced AVRs that I considered require powered subwoofers, meaning another switch to be turned on and off when I want to use the system.  Powered subwoofers I have looked at seem to have a low level hum when on but not in use.

I ordered a Denon e-300 avr here:   http://tinyurl.com/n4c7fkn

And three of these (L/R/C):  http://tinyurl.com/n53e7f5

Along with a couple of various cables.

CrestWave audio is a new company started by the Technical whiz from Ascend audio and this is their first product and they received just outstanding reviews.  Small but well balanced including the highs and bass.
I plan on using short stands for the L/R speakers on the carpet and mounting the Center unit on the wall on a shelf behind and just equal to the top of the TV.  Maybe a wall bracket but the shelf will be easier I think.  Crest Wave offers in-home audition for 30 days or a full refund, and free shipping one way.

And unlike most, I am also planning to use the TV, not the AVR, as the source switch and feeding audio signal from the TV to the AVR via a TOS link optical cable.  I still have to recheck but I believe the TV will pass 5.1 audio out.  Failing there I have the option to connect components in the traditional way using the AVR as the switch.

I shopped the Amazon showroom (BB) and just completely wasted an hour and 1/2.

It remains to be seen if I want to tackle a Harmony Universal remote for all the components but the cable remote is not programmable.

Deliveries are expected Thursday/Friday.

Just as an aside, I ordered the AVR Tuesday 7/30 around 9:30am.  It's out for delivery today Wednesday.  Amazon  is amazing!

I suspect this to be a somewhat daunting task.  I have discovered that using the TOS link to feed the AVR works for the TV but anything else connected -Blu ray audio - gets down mixed to 2C, so that option is gone.  Using the Audio Return Channel requires several setting changes on both the TV and AVR but that still is a possibility so I'm going to start there.

Last night I watched the first movie on the new system.   Yes, John, it worked the first time I turned it on!  I heard aspects of the sound I hadn't heard before and I am quite familiar with that particular DVD. 

I have decided to add a subwoofer to round out the experience and it should arrive next week.. I have not yet attempted any EQ efforts or any tweaking at all, thought I'd wait for the sub, no sense in doing it twice.

All in all, so far, a worthwhile effort.

No pic yet.  Maybe after the sub arrives.  But thanks, I was surprised when I pushed the Blu Ray button.

It's the Panasonic 55"GT plasma, 2 years old.

That's good news, Bill. Too bad you can't poast a sample of the sound. 

Just to tie up some loose ends here.  The subwoofer arrived yesterday and I used the Denon auto EQ program to balance all the speakers.  I found when done that the center channel was weaker than I wanted so I manually adjusted it. 

The learning curve with this stuff, at least for me, is very steep!

The other thing that was up in the air was wiring the system to work with my cable TV box.  I finally found a TOS link on the cable box itself and used it to feed the AVR and left the HDMI from the cable connected to the TV.  The BlueRay player is plugged into the AVR and the AVR to the TV via HDMI 2.  And, amazingly it all works.  I have not yet begun to explore Internet resources like Pandora yet but it's on the list.

Nice.  Having good sound certainly makes a big difference in enjoyment watching TV.

I have access to Pandora and a few other goodies, but I find myself stuck on Netflix. I haven't tried Hulu Plus yet, as I find Netflix to be the best deal on the net.