Home theater draining my wallet. When does it ever stop?

Jayce1971

I really should have just bought another bose lifestyle system, and been done with it. Sold it to help purchase seperates and build a real home theater. Have managed to find really great deals, but one thing seems to lead to another to another. Does this ever end? Or am I stuck always wanting better sound, definition, volume, etc? Don't get me wrong, I am loving the whole "putting a new room together" thing. It's just when WAF decided to intervene with a request for a hooker furniture home entertainment cabinet... Oh, lordy! And $3-4k rewire job, (although it's the best money spent... family's safety must come first). No end in sight for the foreseeable future. Truth be told, I'm glad that it's something the whole family will be able to enjoy, otherwise it would be hard for me to justify.

Jayce1971

Yes, I'm past that. Was probably the only 12yr old kid that had Empire grenadiers, Kenwood integrated amp, and B&O Beogram 3400 in their bedroom!

Rivrrat

It ends when you decide you're happy, or you realize you've gone insane with upgrade fever.

gudnoyez

So far I'am convinced there is no end, be it HT or 2 channel.

Inspector 24

It stops when you either run out of money for good, or decide you're satisfied.

Good luck!

schwarcw

Jayce1971 wrote: »

Yes, I'm past that.

Don't worry, you will come full circle!

polklifer

I had an excellent HT setup, I went and saw Avitar at the Imax..I never turned on the HT again, couldn't compare to the real thing, like going to Cripple Creek thinking it is Vegas

Inspector 24

You need better home theater. It takes a decent amount of gear and setup to beat a good commercial theater. All comes down to being willing to spend the time and the money getting it and making it work.

I never go to a theater unless it's a movie I'm too anxious to wait for on Blu Ray, my setup beats every big theater I've been in. My friends AND my wife agree. She doesn't even like paying to see movies, it bugs her that the picture never looks as good as it does at home and the sound is usually crap, volume too loud, unintelligible dialogue, ect ext There's only one place that I've found to have better picture quality, it's the Cinemark XD with the 4k Barco projectors, and another theater with Dolby Atmos does have better surround effects, but the sound otherwise is no better than home and the projectors are ****. But at $14.00/ticket, we figure that's 3-4 blu rays we could be buying, we get to pause the movie whenever we want, bathroom, snack, water, or a chat break, no crowds, no parking, no annoying a-hole or ditzy girls on their phones, and maybe the best of all, we get to leave out pajamas on.

ViperZ

I haven't touched my theater for 3 years since we moved, but last month upgraded from TV to projector/screen. The whole upgrade to a good used 1080p projector cost me around $1.2K. I am super-happy with what I have and not planning to upgrade in the future for another few years until 4K will become mainstream. It does cost a lot to build a good theater, but you don't have to do it in one shot. It may take years of slow upgrades, and I actually enjoyed those years building a theater system that I have now.

Inspector 24

My thoughts as well. My room was a constant evolution for about three years, buy, sell upgrade. I did it a lot.

Now it's pretty solid and I'm happy with it but of course have little tweaks here and there.

Tornado Red

You're done when....your wallet's drained first, then your bank account(s) emptied, then your credit card's tapped out, then you break open the kid's piggy bank, then even your grandma won't lend you a buck, then you're hiding from the repo man....then you're done...or so I've heard.

Inspector 24

Tornado Red wrote: »

You're done when....your wallet's drained first, then your bank account(s) emptied, then your credit card's tapped out, then you break open the kid's piggy bank, then even your grandma won't lend you a buck, then you're hiding from the repo man....then you're done...or so I've heard.

Also applies to Crystal Meth.

George Grand

You came to the wrong place for sane advice.

oldmodman

My spending, on either my Hi-Fi or my cars will end with my death.

Jayce1971

George Grand wrote: »

You came to the wrong place for sane advice.

I'm sure, but as long as it's like minded advice....
Ordered the entertainment center today. Heck of a deal on it. Only thing, it's over 10' wide. Had not planned on this when piecing together home theater. Mains are going to be waaaayyyy far apart in this room, (essentially, in the corners). I don't think that this will be a problem, as long as I can get them equa-distance from the T.V.? Will definitely have to toe in, as will be now about 35* off center. Hoping that the large center channel speaker will assist in creating a realistic soundstage. Or, I may have to split the two flanking bookshelf/av racks apart, and go corner mount. Either way, we'll figure out some way of making it work.

Not what I would have chosen, but it has WAF stamp of approval, (and it's her anniversary present, {to hold my system, lol}).

billbillw

My HT obsession ended when I got everything working the way I wanted it to, then I shifted focus to my 2-ch rig

jhracer3

i've found that I tend to be much more content with my setup when its very well organized into a nice cabinet, with all of the cables perfectly managed, boxes sync'd etc.

when that stuff isn't done (like when I was trying to use the space in my entertainment center instead of a dedicated stereo cabin), i would always be irritated by it, playing with it trying to get it to look nice. and since I was moving things around and tweaking them, i was always thinking, oh, since I'm disconnecting this, maybe I should upgrade it to this instead, etc. i haven't had to touch any of my components in almost 4 months, and i haven't felt the itch to upgrade during that time.