Home Theater Setup Questions

[Heihachi]

Hola Yall,
I'm a poor college student that is a slave to home audio. I'm SLOWLY building my audio collection. So far I have a nice tv going.(Sony 32 inch XBR) A dvd player that's giving me dts/dd out and I have a Sony reciever.(Sony str-845) Now I temporarily have 2 aiwa speakers running to get ANY kind of sound out of my reciever. Now my question is if I should go ahead and buy the 500$ Energy take5 package with 8 inch subwoofer, or take it one step at a time. Should I buy that system or buy quality stuff one by one. I pretty much would want the take5 package but what is better? I can buy one speaker for about as much as $200 at a time. So I would most likely get a center speaker first, then surround, then woofer, and last my front speakers. WHAT SHOULD I DO!!!?????

[Leon]

Package deals are usually cheaper than getting them separate. I would just wait it out and save up for:

Energy Take 5
Klipsch Quintet
Mirage AVS-500

http://www.energy-speakers.com/products/take5.html
http://www.klipsch.com/
http://www.miragespeakers.com/products/avs.html

[Heihachi]

One more question. I'll probably end up getting the Take 5 Package. They have the Take5 package w/ 8 inch woofer for $500. Should I settle for that or get the Take 5 w/out woofer for $350, and spend a little more dough on a better/larger woofer?

But then again.. does the Quintet sound better or the Energy's. Anyone got the info on that?

[Edited by Heihachi on 03-09-2001 at 05:52 AM]

[ArkiStan]

Originally posted by Heihachi
Hola Yall,
I'm a poor college student .... So far I have a nice tv going.(Sony 32 inch XBR) A dvd player that's giving me dts/dd out and I have a Sony reciever.(Sony str-845)...

Yeah... a POOR college student with one kickass home theater setup to be more exact.

[ChIcKeN_HaWk]

and I'm very impressed still after a year and a half. I paid around 400-450 for the 5 speaker system (without sub) and I bought a 12" infinity sub and it's like being at the movies. Something to think about.

[Leon]

Originally posted by Heihachi
One more question. I'll probably end up getting the Take 5 Package. They have the Take5 package w/ 8 inch woofer for $500. Should I settle for that or get the Take 5 w/out woofer for $350, and spend a little more dough on a better/larger woofer?

But then again.. does the Quintet sound better or the Energy's. Anyone got the info on that?

[Edited by Heihachi on 03-09-2001 at 05:52 AM]

You should go by Good Guys and listen to them. I listened to the Quintet and the Take 5's there. I'm not a big fan of the Klipsch "horn" technology, but that's just me. You might like them better. Go and test them out.

[Heihachi]

Take 5 It is. Now the question is if I should buy the 5 speakers and 8 inch sub for 500. Or buy 5 speakers for 350 and get a separate woofer. Any suggestions?

[Leon]

I hear that the Subwoofer is pretty decent. If you want to save some money, then I would just go with the whole set.

[Heihachi]

Thanks Leon,
Take 5 Package it is w/ Sub. Would you happen to know the website that sold it for $500?

[ufcrusher]

FYI, Good guys is currently selling Take 5 speakers for $249.99, which is half off. (SUCKS FOR ME) That said, hearing is completely subjective, so you should go and listen to all of the different speaker packages. There isnt that much in that price range that is any decent. You can get the Take 5's, Quintets, or the RM6300's. Although I can only think of one quintet package that I have sold in the last 2 years. Its a Klipsch, enough said, EXTREMELY TINNY thanks to its Tractrix horns. Of those three the Take 5's are the best bet. Next level up in Sat speakers brings you to the $1000 range, where you get the RM6600 and Micro9000. After that you get to the $1500 range where you get the Encore's, RM7500, and Micro 10000. Your other alternative, is to build a system, which in my opinion is the better way to go. Remember that your center is your most important speaker, and thus the smaller centers you get with the sat's have a large detrimental effect. You could go with an EXLC center, EXL16's (fronts), EXL15's or EXLR's (rear) and an EXLS8 for your sub. It would price out for about $1000 or $1150(with EXLR) for the entire package. Much better than any of the sat systems. THe main thing that you should do is get rid of that receiver. Its a chip amp and peak rated piece of garbage. True disposable electronics! You want to go with a discrete amp and continuous power rating. I.e. - a Yamaha, Denon, SOny ES, Harmon Kardon, upper end Onkyo, Integra, etc. If you are worried about cost you could always go for a B series sony. You can step into one of these receivers for about $400 - $500. Best bet in my opinion is the RXV620 when it comes out. Yamaha has pulled its three lower units (396, 496, 596) for a mid line change with MAJOR improvements. First, DTS will be added to the 396 replacement (others already had it). More opticals will be added to each, and they will now be assignable. 5 channel stereo is also being added to all three (although not 100% sure on the 420.) Add in component video switching on the 620 and it will be the best bang for the buck, hands down. But if you want to stay with Sony, here goes.

Sony's are divided into three categories. The ES's which have 5 year manufacturer warranties, are supposed to be continuous power rated, have discrete amp's and are their Elevated Standard line up (used to be A series). (start at $799) Next step down is the B series (Bridge series) which has the STRDB940 and 840. These machines are discretely amplified but are peak rated. Its sonys attempt to bring some better quality into a more affordable package. (start at $399) Or you get the E series, which are peak rated and chip amplified machines. The upper two E series amps 845 and 945 are a mix between chip and discrete amp's meaning they have individual amps for each front, but the center and rears are still on a single amp. (that said, when we ripped one apart, it for some reason looked like they may have started discretely amping the upper two, but we still have not gotten an official sony notice to that effect) So you should only buy a B series or ES sony.

The KV36XBR400 you have is a very nice display, nothing really bad to say about it, but it does have an EXTREMELY high incidence of requiring repair. In fact, the two XBR's are notorious for this. Your sales person should have warned you about that. Most probably they did as part of their pitch to sell you whatever extended warranty they were trying to hawk. 3 of my customers have already thanked me for ensuring that they purchased the extended warranty because all 3 of their sets have had some problems.

Well I hope that helps. If you want to know anything else, go ahead.

One last Caveat, almost all of the equipment I listed has NO WARRANTY unless it is bought at an AUTHORIZED retailer. This unforutnately means no web site deals. Check each manufacturers web site for details. Additionally, as for the speakers, I only listed the ones which are sold where I work. There are a lot of others out there. Energy and Mirage are actually owned by API, and under the same umbrella, although they keep them completely separate and use different designs. Infinity has supposedly returned to the realm of decent speakers. You could always go with some nice paradigm's or martin logans.

[Edited by ufcrusher on 03-12-2001 at 03:30 PM]

[Leon]

$249 is a STEAL!!!!

[Heihachi]

249.99? That sounds off. Why would Good Guys be selling it for so cheap? Aren't Good Guys a bit expensive on their prices?

[ufcrusher]

Actually Good guys sells everything right at MSRP or lower. As I said, you cant buy things from non authorized resellers, as there is no manufacturers warranty. As for the price, its just for the speakers, not the sub...and it was killing me this weekend. It cut my commission to nothing.

[Heihachi]

So crusher... would you say I should buy the take 5 at Good Guys then by a separate woofer?

[ufcrusher]

At that price its a steal for such great speakers. Definitely would go ahead and buy it. In fact, that price is just a little more than I would have had to pay to buy the speakers myself.

FYI, I double checked with Energy yesterday just to verify their warranty information, and their response was as follows:

I have redacted the letter to remove names and other information that had nothing to do with the warranty question. Anywhere I have edited I have placed brackets to show the edit. My email question to Energy was what the official warranty was for goods bought from unauthorized resellers. Did it have a warranty or was it like the other products that I sell and have no official warranty.


Hi [UFCRUSHER]
You are correct in that policy. We tell customers that their customer service will be zero, their service and after sale support will be zero, we tell them we do not supply these retailers with product so the goods have conspicuous origins, and more. But, some people don't listen and they buy anyway. We have been making great strides lately to reduce the amount of these online retailers by cutting off their supply chain. All of our product has internal and external serial numbers, so we know who bought it originally.
[Fill information]
Please believe me, that I keep an eye on the net, and on Ebay all the time, and we are doing everything feasible to stop the sale of our products by unauthorized retailers. We are in business to support dealers like Good Guys, and will continue to support you in any way that we can.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at any time.
Best Regards
[ Energy Speakers Representative ]
Energy Speaker Systems


That was the email I received in response to my inquiry. Which is why it is important to only buy from authorized resellers. As i have said many times before, I too like to get the lowest price, but I have seen first hand from the manufacturers what they will do if the product is not bought from an authorized dealer. Sometimes it pays to gamble, such as when you can get 2 of the product for the same price, but when its only minor savings, it never pays.

[Heihachi]

Still shocked on why Good Guys is selling the take5's for only $250. I suppose then I'll get those and pay more for a larger than 8 inch woofer.

[ufcrusher]

FYI, its only the TAKE5 (black) and I am not sure how long that price is going to be valid for, so you should go get it as soon as possible.

[Heihachi]

Thanks for the Info

[Heihachi]

I went to Good Guys ... and when I asked how much the speakers are.... they said a WHOPPING $599 NOT including the 8 inch Woofer. Then when I asked if they were going to sell them for $250... HE looked at me as if I was CRAZY.
FYI.... thanks a lot crusher.

[Heihachi]

Oh yea, btw... I found the website that has the package for $500 including the SUB. They also have a 2 year protection warranty on them by the website. One thing I got out of this is that Good Guys can eat a JAJ.

[ReddogaNate]

http://www.audioshop.ca

They generally have the cheapest prices around for the Take 5 system, have them throw in the 10" Energy sub. Talk to Marc or send him an email there. They have some of the best service around.

[Heihachi]

Originally posted by ReddogaNate
http://www.audioshop.ca

They generally have the cheapest prices around for the Take 5 system, have them throw in the 10" Energy sub. Talk to Marc or send him an email there. They have some of the best service around.

The link doesn't seem to be working??

[ReddogaNate]

http://www.audioshop.on.ca

Sorry,
I always forget the .on

You can either instant message with Marc during their business hours or send an email and he will respond usually the next day. The price is in canadien currency but includes shipping. Also it will be cheaper to purchase there because Energy is based in Canada.