Home Cinema: Let the fun begin.

[Steve]

The time has arrived where the purchasing is almost ready to begin. I am currently designing my own cabinet to house all the goodies I'm going to buy. Here's the list so far:

NAD T742 AV Receiver in Titanium Finish
Front Speakers: Aaron ATS-5 Series II in Beech finish. (30-200W)
TV: Got that
DVD: Got that it's a Toshiba. And will double as a CD Player for awhile.
Sub: Aaron SUB 120. 120W Active with Dual 10" Drivers.
Centre Speaker: Undecided but probably go Aaron as well.
Rear Surround: Same as Centre Speaker.

[LEXX]

HMMMMMM, nice m8. Good to see you went the NAD amp, you won't be sorry.

[Barefoot]

mmmmm,home theatre. :D

How bigs the tv Steve?

[WOLF]

Steve as long as your AMP has DTS sound, its ALLLLLLL good.
You havn't heard anything untill its in DTS!! :shock:

[Steve]

Steve as long as your AMP has DTS sound

Yup sure does.

[Dave]

Steve,

Let us know how it turns out, I want to do a home theatre setup as well in the near future but not sure what to buy. Was looking at the packages that have everything in them but Im sure they cant be as good as buying components seperately like you are doing.

Do you mind me asking what kind of $$ you are looking at for your setup?

Cheers,

Dave

[Steve]

Dave,

The NAD T742 AV Receiver is $1000. It doesn't have all the fancy modes like Hall, Rock, Live, etc etc...They spend the money making the interior components the best possible quality. The 742 is the cheapest model they make. Some of them can range into the $10,000 range.

The ATS 5 speakers from Aaron are $1300 for the pair. And they are Aussie Made and World Class speakers.

The Aaron Sub is $700. And I haven't yet priced the rear speakers as they will come at a slightly later date when I have money again. I got alot of advice from Adman as knows a hell of alot about it.

My music is more important to me than purely home cinema which is why I chose to buy a NAD receiver vs Something like a Pioneer or Sony. Although I'm sure they would perform ok too. Just a personal choice for me.

Check out www.nadelectronics.com for NAD info.

[WOLF]

Steve,
I have been into the HomeTheatre craze for years and have quite a good set up.
Did you ever consider the YAMAHA AMP's?
They are in my opinion one of the best AMP's on the market!
I have the YAMAHA RX2095 AMP $3500,SONEY LCD PROJECTOR $16,000,RICHTER SPEAKERS $9,000,PIONEER DVD $700,XMS DVD JPEG PLAYER $200,JBL SUB $3000,SONEY MINIDISC PLAYER $1200. These are component systems that I have slowly built up over the years.
The wife hated me spending the $$$ but as soon as I cranked it uo the cracked a FAT.

By the way if anyone is interested I am selling a SHARP LCD PROJECTOR that I have just upgraded from.Cost me $12,000 selling for $2000 ONO. 8)

[Steve]

8) Sounds great WOLF! Problem is I like most things I am working on a budget. If I ever win lotto I'll build a new house and buy only the best. :wink:

[Steve]

Maybe I should privately import it and get it all cheaper! Opps! Sorry couldn't resist! :lol:

[omaroo]

I used to love my NAD pre-amp years ago. Made and designed in Australasia, they used to hand-pick low-tolerance (like ~1% caps, resistors, etc) but reverted to ~5% components after they sold out. I reckon IMHO they haven't been as good since. Haven't looked at them lately though......

Talk about Australasion design of high-quality gear, remember Perreaux? A New Zealand company who made pre-amps that were arguably second to none in the world as far as design went. Another top-notch performer, believe it or not, was the Dick Smith pre-amp kit!

[Steve]

That might be true Chrispy but they now manufacture 1% tolerance components when 10-15 years ago you had to search for them by testing individual components. But saying that I am not sure what NAD uses now.

[omaroo]

Steve - hand picking is exactly what they used to do. It was really top notch gear.

[Steve]

Well no matter, I'd still rather buy NAD than some mass produced Pioneer/Sony/whatever that Harvey Norman sells.

[froop]

Krix are also a great loudspeaker, and made in South Australia. I've got their Lyrix Gold as mains, bought for $1500. They also import them to the states where they sell for US$1500 :D

But if you want a real kickin' home cinema, check this out:

http://www.royaldevice.com/custom3.htm

[raven]

i have the rx v995 yamaha. its rated at 135w x 5 0.04%thd its not the best/worst but a very good all rounder. yes it does have DTS and alot of other things that i still havent used. to lazy to read the manual. hey it does sound gr8 when cranked up

[omaroo]

Steve

NAD still is really good gear. I was just caught up (indirectly) in the sale of the original company years ago. I remember there being a ripple through the industry when the lower spec components were initially used. The gear was really poor for a fair while. I have good reason to believe that they upped their game again during the late 90's.

[zzzz]

check out http://www.theloudspeakerkit.com
You can buy speakers there that you can build yourself.
They use very high quality components and will offer a lot better value for money than commercial speakers will.

I will be buying some as soon as my current ones die or are relegated to another room :)

[omaroo]

zzzz

I remember a Yamaha power amp from the early 80's that was shaped as a four-sided pyramid. I think it was all black with just the white Yamaha logo on the bottom LH corner, and a little red power light on the right. That was it. Minimalist splendour at its best.

I had a Crown class-A amp at the time that was worth a damn fortune and didn't need two amps - otherwise I would have bouth the Yammy as well.....

[Steve]

Thanks for that link Zach. Got me thinking about centre channel and rear speaker options now.

[CrazyNuts]

For all of you who are looking at buying NAD keep in mind that NAD and ONKYO share the same components yet ONKYO is a few hundred dollars cheaper and looks better.

I got this info from an Authorised repairer for ONKYO and NAD

[Antz]

I got an Onkyo amp, I got no complaints, don't know about the neighbours though :mrgreen:

[Steve]

Looks ok to me.

[Steve]

Hey Nutter which Model Onkyo is a few hundred cheaper than the NAD 742? Not disputing the fact Onkyo is good gear. So I can get one the exact same for $700. BTW it must come in silver!

[Steve]

Nutter,

Just found some specs for a similar priced Onkyo TX-SR501. Says it's under $1000. Thanks for the input. I know have more to research. :lol: Might as well before spending up all my money.

[CrazyNuts]

I've got the TX-DS 797 from a few years back. it's 6.1 but has inputs for 7.1

It does me well with my Cerwin Vega fronts and JBL Studio Series Centre and Surrounds.

I don't know much about the NAD range but yeah...the TX-SR501 you can pick up for about $800. If you haggle...you can probably pick it up for $500 or so.

My amp retialed for $2700 when i bought it. I haggled Harvey Norman down to $2010 and i got it on 24 months interes free too :D

[Steve]

Just doing more research. The more I look the more confused I get! :?

[Sam]

you could just go op shopping hheheehehehe

on full base we cracked the roof, seriosuly, each amp is running different speakers some for bass and some for treble all hooked up to the one cd player

[Sam]

and a srobe light is in there for good measure

[Sam]

what ever happened to cerwin vega??

[CrazyNuts]

They are still arround. Harvey Norman carries them.

[zzzz]

I will be using a DSE amp. :)
http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/40cea5a309319fd8273fc0a87f9c075c/Product/View/A2760

These are $130 on sale and are an absolute bargain if all you want is two channels.

I have done the home theatre things with 5.1 speakers etc and am over it.
Since I moved I haven't even hooked up the rear speakers at all...

[TJ]

we got a quote for a 7.1ch $120k system.
THX paint was extra.. so we just got the THX cabling for the time being. :mrgreen:
ended up getting a system that was a LOT cheaper.
but you can tell it is cheaper... nothing like a good tri-beam.
those looking for projector systems should really spend the extra $$ on a good quality screen and really look at the projector in operation before purchasing. same with the digital box - we have had 2, one "dodgy" brand as a temp while waiting for the "good" one. went back to the original in the end because of the good one's really screwed up menu/channel changing arangement.
we have a yamaha amp + sub which is a good combo.
but really if you get half deacent audio stuff you can hardly notice when it is setup right, the eye candy takes most of your attention. :P