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Old 01-27-2016, 09:23 PM   #1141
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Baron, thanks for your posts, how about some more advice?

I found an opportunity to buy a Sherwood A965 with a P965 for $500, about 4 years ago, and jumped on it. Amazing upgrade from what I had, for one hell of a price.

I still love the sound, though last year or so (maybe 2?) I helped my brother replace his Yamaha and we decided on the Marantz SR7007. Upon installing it, I started thinking I should buy one too, it seemed to hit certain notes or had a quality of sound that I preferred to my separates (keeping in mind, different speakers, though both rooms had concrete floors and similar dimensions, about 600 sq ft).

But home theater spending can never end if you keep upgrading, and I've switched out pieces enough that I really don't want to do so yet again unless the difference is truly worth it. I wasn't wanting to drop another $2K on a receiver when I was happy with my (cheap) separates, even then and still now.

I understand the Amp is still considered very good (and maybe you'll comment otherwise) but perhaps I should be considering a different processor? Thoughts? Maybe wait still for the next advancement? I already have a dedicated video switching system so that is not a reason I'd upgrade.

I guess I'm asking if there are current upgrades you are aware of which give great value compared to what I have?

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Old 01-28-2016, 10:49 AM   #1142
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Projector screen was installed yesterday. We ended up building a wooden frame on the back so that we could attach it to the bulkhead.

Spoiler for size.

Spoiler!
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Old 01-28-2016, 11:06 AM   #1143
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Projector screen was installed yesterday. We ended up building a wooden frame on the back so that we could attach it to the bulkhead.
Spoiler for size.
Love you fill your wall with the biggest screen possible. My guess is about 100"-110" 16/9.
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Old 01-28-2016, 11:31 AM   #1144
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Love you fill your wall with the biggest screen possible. My guess is about 100"-110" 16/9.
Great guess. It's 106". This one in particular: http://www.amazon.ca/AccuScreen-Acou.../dp/B008OOA5F4

I got it for $300 from Costco.ca, but it doesn't appear to be available on their website anymore.

It's only a 10' x 15' room, so we thought "what the hell, let's go big or go home".

Projector is a BenQ HT1075.
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Old 01-28-2016, 11:52 AM   #1145
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I found an opportunity to buy a Sherwood A965 with a P965 for $500, about 4 years ago, and jumped on it. Amazing upgrade from what I had, for one hell of a price.
Sherwood Newcastle! I went to school with that guy. You didn’t want him on your team in gym class, but he sure was a whiz in math class.

That is a very good amp from what I can see in pictures. Keep it.

Note that Sherwood is owned by Korea’s Inkel, which is no slouch in the world of OEM electronics parts.

Another thing to note with the A965 is that it has the UL certification. So? That isn’t very common on many consumer amps (Cambridge Audio, Outlaw, and Emotiva, for example)

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…perhaps I should be considering a different processor? Thoughts? Maybe wait still for the next advancement.

If your current set-up works, and you’re satisfied with it, leave things as they are. No HDMI on the P965 so perhaps look to upgrade. If you want to consider a processor upgrade:

(1) keep the amp and buy a used prepro that has HDMI and the features you are looking for. That one I highlighted a few posts back should fit your needs, I think;

(2) keep the amp and buy a new prepro; and

(3) buy a used AVR (such as the Marantz you mentioned) that has the features you want. You could sell the A965 to offset the purchase of the used AVR. I don’t think you’d get much money for the P965 just because it doesn’t have HDMI.

I always lean to options like (1) and (2) because I like to keep the heat generating parts of the amp separate from the fancy circuitry of the surround sound boards.

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I guess I'm asking if there are current upgrades you are aware of which give great value compared to what I have?

For amplifiers? Amps haven’t changed in decades, so your Sherwood is fine. At that price point, you will find very few that are better IMO and probably a lot more that are inferior.

For home theatre? I really don’t know honestly. I don’t follow it too closely. But I think the pace of tech advancement has slowed. In the preamp/processor market, the models seemed to change after several years whereas the AVRs changed annually, if not sooner. The newer technology will show up in AVRs first because that is a larger market.
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Old 01-31-2016, 09:41 AM   #1146
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There are so many routes that you can take, but it seems to me that you should find a used AVR within your budget. Just ensure it has the pre-outs so that you can add external amps in the future if that’s what you want.
Thanks for this post Baron - it's tremendously helpful. I'm looking for a better AVR that provides me an upgrade path.

Because of the top-end brightness of the RTi10s, I'm sort of shying away from mainstream brands at this point (my understanding is that most Pioneer/Yamaha/new Onkyo are themselves a bit forward on the high end).

I'm looking at the NAD 748 now ($400 used). Full set of pre-outs, low on features, but apparently deceptively powerful for its moderate claimed output (40w x 7 / 80w x 2). I've only got a 5.1 system and it supports bi-amping the fronts, then get a separate stereo amp for the fronts down the road.

Do you think this would give me much of an improvement? Or would I be better off finding the cheapest AVR with pre-outs I can find and getting a separate stereo amp sooner than later?

ETA: Alternatively I can get a Rotel RSX-1058 for $500, or a Harman Kardon AVR 3600 for $200, both with a full set of pre-outs.
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Old 02-01-2016, 11:01 AM   #1147
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Originally Posted by MickMcGeough View Post
I'm looking at the NAD 748 now ($400 used). Full set of pre-outs, low on features, but apparently deceptively powerful for its moderate claimed output (40w x 7 / 80w x 2). I've only got a 5.1 system and it supports bi-amping the fronts, then get a separate stereo amp for the fronts down the road.

ETA: Alternatively I can get a Rotel RSX-1058 for $500, or a Harman Kardon AVR 3600 for $200, both with a full set of pre-outs.
Mick, there are no right or wrong answers. Ultimately, only you can decide what is best for you based on what you want out of your system.

But, I would find a used AVR that satisfied my features requirements, has the pre-outs to support external amplification, and – most importantly – works with the speakers I already have. If your intent is to use external amps, then it really doesn’t matter what the AVR does power-wise.

Ignore the HK2600; it doesn’t have pre-outs.

I think the Rotel may be too old (2009?). Even if it has the features you want, I wouldn’t pay $500.00 for it.

So that leaves the NAD. In order to get a good idea of what you need for power (assuming you use an external amp to the NAD), I’ll add some math to the mix.

With your speakers, I know that their sensitivity is 89 dB/1W/1m. For every 3 dB increase in sound pressure level – or “loudness” – the power requirement doubles. So…

At 1m:
1W 89dB
2W 93dB
4W 96dB
8W 99dB
16W 103dB
32W 106dB
64W 109dB
128W 112dB

And so on.

Keep in mind that “normal listening” for movies is 75-85 dB, so you do not require much power, and even 89dB is “loud”. However, music and movies can peak between 6and 25 dB above reference (for movies, reference is about 85 dB).

In your case, let’s stick with your Polks. Given:

Sensitivity = 89dB
Listening position = 2.5m
Desired listening level = 80dB (this is loud enough at 2.5m)
Amplifier Headroom = 15dB

Your power requirement is 25W.

Let’s say you sit at 4m in a large room and you like the listening level at 90 DB. Then, your power requirement is 637W. Based on that, you probably need a pro amp(s). But, consider a set of speakers with a higher sensitivity. Plug a speaker with 97db/1W/1m into the equation and the power requirement is 101W.

If you want, I can churn out some numbers based on your situation (listening position and desired listening level).


As for Bi-amping: unless you remove the crossovers from the speakers and go with an active crossover external of the speakers, you will not see many benefits.
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Old 02-01-2016, 11:38 AM   #1148
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We are considering some art work for our house as we have some large wall space to fill.

We also have a small TV in this room that I use a chromecast to entertain kids, etc. as I generally don't like having a TV in this room. That said, the other day the TV was left on and the chromecast was scrolling through some nice pictures. It's a crappy old TV, so I couldn't tell if the quality was bad pictures or bad image. I suddenly wondered about putting a big thin screen up on our wall vs. art and having pictures always scrolling.

If I'm spending a few hundred on a picture (home sense, ikea, urban barn, etc. type of styling) mounting a thin TV might only be a few hundred more.

However some concerns.
1. Power usage, what a waste of power?
2. expensive still?
3. wires/source, etc. Could always do powerline ethernet to the TV, but... still, I hate mounting pictures on walls and they don't involve power cords.
4. Hockey games, is there anyway to get flames games / sports games without having more cables? Ideally it be best to just have a power cable and a network cable going to the TV. Or the whole thing becomes quite the project and I'd just stick to a stupid picture.
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Old 02-01-2016, 11:56 AM   #1149
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4. Hockey games, is there anyway to get flames games / sports games without having more cables? Ideally it be best to just have a power cable and a network cable going to the TV. Or the whole thing becomes quite the project and I'd just stick to a stupid picture.
If you already have cable,
  • Slingbox
  • Maybe Shaw Home Gateway, they said they were eventually going to turn on DLNA not sure if they ever did
  • PC Tuner card w/VLC (or other software)

If you don't have cable I can PM you some options
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Old 02-09-2016, 06:31 PM   #1150
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The BenQ seemed to be the best option amongst many not-so-great ones. It looks nice, has the reach needed, and didn't cost literally hundreds of dollars. We'll update on how it works.
Spoiler!


Most of the home theatre is operational. Here's a picture of the arm as it currently sits. Ignore the patch job on the wall. I had to move the arm up and over because the original placement was slightly off centre and too low to get the picture framed up nicely on the screen without keystone. As it is now we have it nearly perfectly filling the screen with 0 keystone. Spoiler for size.

Can post some more pictures as soon as we get the room tidied up a bit. Still finalizing some stuff. Watched Mad Max: Fury Road as our first movie in there. Blew our socks off.

Next step for me is figuring out how we want to control everything. The equipment is located in a closest behind us so for now we're just reaching backwards with the remotes with the door open. Have some provisions in place to do control with IR extenders, but open to suggestions.

Here are a couple pics of the screen with a still from Mad Max. One has the main overhead light on that's literally 6 inches in front of the projector, other with all lights off.

Spoiler!
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Old 02-09-2016, 08:35 PM   #1151
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Looks good. Just curious why you didn't ceiling mount it?
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Old 02-09-2016, 08:52 PM   #1152
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We had provision on the back wall already for cables and I wasn't sure exactly how to ceiling mount with our suspended ceiling system. I've heard anecdotally that a ceiling mount is more like to transfer vibrations through the floor, but I have no idea if that part is true.

Mostly it was about our ceiling system. Didn't do any research into how hard or easy it is to mount with a ceiling like ours, but I can't imagine it being easy. Maybe I'm wrong.

Turns out this arm is pretty sweet. We had to drill our own holes in the mounting plate, but beyond that it's been great. The arm can extend a bunch and can angle up or down 5 degrees. The mounting plate can slide side to side by an inch or so each way. It has 3 knobs for adjusting the angle on all 3 planes. Once I moved it into the proper mounting position on the wall it was very easy to get it pretty much perfectly aligned.
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Old 02-09-2016, 09:04 PM   #1153
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It does look like a serious arm! I do get a little bit of ceiling shake with mine, but since it is just the wife and I it isn't much of an issue. If I had 5 kids running around above me, it might be a different story.

I think with a drop ceiling you just mount a long arm to whatever is solid above(floor, or joist) and come through a hole in your ceiling panel.

The only problem with a big screen like that is it makes it very difficult to watch tv anywhere else. I go visit my dad and don't want to watch any movies on his skimpy 55" LCD! I'm totally spoiled now.
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Old 02-10-2016, 10:20 AM   #1154
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Next step for me is figuring out how we want to control everything. The equipment is located in a closest behind us so for now we're just reaching backwards with the remotes with the door open. Have some provisions in place to do control with IR extenders, but open to suggestions.
I bought this remote for a setup like yours (Same projector, components in a built-in shelving off to the side) It is amazing, it sends RF to the hub (which is placed near all the components) which then sends the IR signals (I can keep the remote under the blanket, no need to aim). There is no noticeable lag and it comes with an small IR extender if the hub does not have line of sight to the projector. Also, it can be customized to do almost anything ie:

- Pressing power 2x to actually turn off the projector completely
- I customized it to get to netflix on telus with one button (channel 422, press ok, hit right button twice to select my profile, hit ok)
- Same with craveTV

It sets up using only a smartphone and comes with an app to control your setup.
It can also control home automation (smartbulbs, etc.)

The one downfall is no back lighting, but the buttons are in logical places so its not really necessary.

The remote is often on sale for $109, as well.

TL;DR:
Buy the Harmony Home remote when its on sale.
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Old 02-10-2016, 10:33 AM   #1155
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I've got a Harmony 650 and they are great. The Home would work better for your situation with hidden components. Just being able to program sequences and macros is totally worth it though. Not sure how I got along without it before.
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Old 02-10-2016, 11:30 AM   #1156
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I wasn't sure exactly how to ceiling mount with our suspended ceiling system. I've heard anecdotally that a ceiling mount is more like to transfer vibrations through the floor, but I have no idea if that part is true.
I installed a ceiling mount in the joist above the suspended ceiling. Then cut a hole in the ceiling panel. Worked out quite nicely.

But yes, it transfers vibrations. Fortunately if I'm watching downstairs it means nobody is tramping around upstairs though.
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Old 02-10-2016, 02:02 PM   #1157
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I bought this remote for a setup like yours (Same projector, components in a built-in shelving off to the side) It is amazing, it sends RF to the hub (which is placed near all the components) which then sends the IR signals (I can keep the remote under the blanket, no need to aim). There is no noticeable lag and it comes with an small IR extender if the hub does not have line of sight to the projector. Also, it can be customized to do almost anything ie:

- Pressing power 2x to actually turn off the projector completely
- I customized it to get to netflix on telus with one button (channel 422, press ok, hit right button twice to select my profile, hit ok)
- Same with craveTV

It sets up using only a smartphone and comes with an app to control your setup.
It can also control home automation (smartbulbs, etc.)

The one downfall is no back lighting, but the buttons are in logical places so its not really necessary.

The remote is often on sale for $109, as well.

TL;DR:
Buy the Harmony Home remote when its on sale.
I picked up the Harmony Ultimate Home, which is the same sort of deal but with a better remote (including backlighting).

I can't recommend it highly enough. It started out at something like $349 but it's regularly on sale under $200 now. The RF is great and it comes with 3 IR transmitters including the hub. I love it because I can move devices into closed cabinets that my 7 month old can't get into.
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Old 02-10-2016, 02:17 PM   #1158
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I picked up the Harmony Ultimate Home, which is the same sort of deal but with a better remote (including backlighting).

I can't recommend it highly enough. It started out at something like $349 but it's regularly on sale under $200 now. The RF is great and it comes with 3 IR transmitters including the hub. I love it because I can move devices into closed cabinets that my 7 month old can't get into.
I was torn between the two, it came down to the fact that I wanted physical number buttons. How do you like the touchsceen? I've heard mixed reviews.
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Old 02-11-2016, 02:01 AM   #1159
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Love the theater's guys! For the issue of seeing all those plugs on the wall below the screens, there are some good solutions to hide those, a small box cabinet you can build under the screen, also allows you to hide any current or future electronics, cables you might need out of sight.

That was my goal to clean up the view before I moved to Iceland and didn't get to complete my end goal.

These rooms are so much joy, so glad to see more people getting in to it!
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Old 02-11-2016, 05:04 PM   #1160
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Love the theater's guys! For the issue of seeing all those plugs on the wall below the screens, there are some good solutions to hide those, a small box cabinet you can build under the screen, also allows you to hide any current or future electronics, cables you might need out of sight.

That was my goal to clean up the view before I moved to Iceland and didn't get to complete my end goal.

These rooms are so much joy, so glad to see more people getting in to it!
We're likely going to go with a couple TV bench type deals from Ikea for the front of the room. They would serve three purposes: hide the cables, provide some storage, and raise the front towers up to be closer to screen height. I like the idea of the towers being a bit higher provided it doesn't create a bunch of nasty vibrations. I was thinking we could do a unit on each side of the sub, and Ikea stuff would probably fit the budget nicely considering we'd need two of them. It would also serve to visually anchor the screen in the room a bit and hopefully cut off some or most of the ghost image you can see slightly below the screen on the wall in bright scenes. It's not really bothersome, but it would be nice to get rid of it.

I am really happy with how we decided to mount the screen. It's somewhere around 14" off the back wall hanging from the bulkhead. With the centre channel behind the AT screen all the voices and stuff come directly from the middle of the image. It's really terrific.

As for controlling everything, I'm currently leaning towards just getting an extender kit like this Sewell from Amazon. I've used a kit like this from Monoprice which was fairly cheap and worked pretty well and my parent's house, but that particular one is out of stock for the next couple of months.

I ran a lot of cat5e in the basement and right up at the front left of the room I put in a custom wall plate using some keystone jacks that has the subwoofer cable, a cat5e data cable, and a phone jack on it. I've heard that, with these repeater kits, you can fairly easily cut the wires on the receiver/repeaters that come with the unit and splice it with some cat5e to get really long runs. I had a vague plan for many months to repurpose that particular phone jack for sending the IR signal to the equipment.

As for a remote, we got a Harmony 650 a couple months back on sale for a really good price. The Harmony with the RF hub seems like a pretty good solution too, though. I'll have to think about that one.

I'm personally reluctant to go with a touch screen remote or something that encourages using a tablet or phone for a remote. I just really prefer the tactile feedback of buttons. Does the Harmony app work well?
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