A little background about myself: I've always been a DIY Home Theater enthusiast. However I recently became a professional in the Audio Video community. Starting in 2005 I spent 2 years at Dish Network as an advanced technical agent. I left Dish Network last year and moved on to building Custom Home Theaters for a company here in the Tulsa area. I recently parted ways with my employer and have left the Custom Audio/Video Industry, at least temporarily. Given that I'm no longer in the trade, I feel less guilty about giving away Trade Secrets.
In this PLOG I will go over the details of my personal Home Theater, the decisions I made with regard to equipment and install, and why I feel my Home Theater is pretty damn good even though it cost me thousands less then those I built professionally.
First, and equipment list:
Projection
Infocus IN72, 480p projector.
Why did I choose this projector? A couple of reasons, 1st of all - price. This projector cost me $450 after rebate. Its lamp is on the pricey side, however. It has a rated life of 3K hours. I could write a review, but Bill Livolsi over at Projector Central did such a fine job I think I'll just quote him a bit:
QUOTE
Visible pixelation can be a concern with lower resolution projectors. However, on the IN72, visible pixelation in white text and subtitles is no longer visible when sitting farther than 1.6x the screen width from your screen. With regular video material, that distance drops to 1.25x. This is noteworthy, as most 480p projectors have visible pixelation out to 2x the screen width or beyond.
Many home theater projectors rated at 900 ANSI lumens actually deliver about 300-400 ANSI lumens once calibrated for best video performance. The IN72 delivered a much brighter picture than this. Our test unit measured 625 ANSI lumens in high lamp mode and 478 ANSI lumens in low lamp mode. This is a considerable amount of light, plenty to easily illuminate a 120" diagonal screen and beyond.
Rated at 2000:1 contrast, the IN72 performs elegantly with dark material. Shadow detail is clearly differentiated and easy to make out, even in very low light scenes. Black level is pleasantly deep, and the grayscale rarely crushes, though 0 IRE and 10 IRE tend to blend together without careful calibration.
Color on the IN72 is good. Colors are rich, with saturation on our test unit set at a well-balanced level out of the box. One notable quality is the lack of red push, which means that bright red areas never appear oversaturated.
Many home theater projectors rated at 900 ANSI lumens actually deliver about 300-400 ANSI lumens once calibrated for best video performance. The IN72 delivered a much brighter picture than this. Our test unit measured 625 ANSI lumens in high lamp mode and 478 ANSI lumens in low lamp mode. This is a considerable amount of light, plenty to easily illuminate a 120" diagonal screen and beyond.
Rated at 2000:1 contrast, the IN72 performs elegantly with dark material. Shadow detail is clearly differentiated and easy to make out, even in very low light scenes. Black level is pleasantly deep, and the grayscale rarely crushes, though 0 IRE and 10 IRE tend to blend together without careful calibration.
Color on the IN72 is good. Colors are rich, with saturation on our test unit set at a well-balanced level out of the box. One notable quality is the lack of red push, which means that bright red areas never appear oversaturated.
Audio/Video Receiver
Marantz SR5600
QUOTE
The Marantz SR5600 Digital Surround Receiver is a high-performance, high-power home theatre receiver that offers outstanding home theatre surround sound quality, outstanding video conversion and multiroom with multi-source flexibility. It features DD-EX, DTS ES, Dolby Pro Logic II, Circle Surround II and a HDCD decoder. The 7 times equal power amplifier section, with high current discrete output on all channels will stay each power attack of a film and offering excellent sound quality on music playback from DVD or CD as well. Highly accurate 192kHz/24-bit audio D/A converters handle the analogue to digital conversion, resulting in more faithful sound quality. The SR5600 is built to Marantz standards with refinements such as video conversion, a metal faceplate, video off mode and high grade components. Experience your movies and music in dynamic Marantz style.
Of course, anything Marantz is going to be quality, but this is a great receiver. Why did I choose it? Price, again. This was a display model at my former employers. When the SR5001 series was released, he upgraded his floor models and I benefited. This beauty set me back only $300. Hard to argue with that one... This receiver provides video switching and up-conversion to Component Video, so it also functions as my video switch.
Speakers
Jamo E500 5.1 surround combo. Why? Yet again, price. These were a "truckload" deal my boss got. He bought a whole truckload of them for dirt cheap a few years back but by the time I began working with him he had given up on selling them (the dozen or so sets he had left were just collecting dust in storage). I picked up a NIB set from him for $125.
Coming next time:
Putting them all together in a room that still has to function as a Living Room
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