I’d like to replace my ancient stereo system with one of those home theater in a box things - this one interests me:
Part of the reason I’m looking at the one above is because it’s also got a VCR - we still have tapes we like to watch every once in awhile.
Anyone have anything similar? Can you tell me the pros and cons, anything I should watch out for? We’re not gamers, and we’re also not frequent movie watchers, but I do like the idea of being able to watch concerts on TV and my music DVDs with a system that would offer better sound than the little TV speaker does. I also don’t want to spend more than about $500 because it’s just not worth it to me.
Go with the Sony you linked to. For your purposes, it is perfect, and the price is right, and you are not buying a piece of Sh*t. My wife and I invested in a home theater system, plasma screen tv the works, we know we will never, or hopefully never, have to replace it. My motto is go big in the beginning, save down the road. $500 is plenty…Ge the Sony, then go out to dinner, you’ll feel much better
It looks like sound is important to you so If you already have a VCR and DVD player maybe you should think about keeping those and concentrating on the sound system - for instance this 6 channel Onkyo system ($499 at circuit city) looks much more robust and will have greater longevity than the Sony system. You can then upgrade your DVD and VCR players when you come into some extra cash. Or you can get the 6 channel Onkyo HT-S777C from Crutchfield for $699 that comes with a 6 disc DVD player.
The thing I don’t like about the Sony system is that you’re getting basically a bunch of little TV speakers plus a subwoofer. Plus there aren’t a whole lot of extra inputs and outputs.
Thanks for the replies so far - all we need to hook into this system, though, is the TV and satellite box, and I know that won’t change, so the Onkyo might be overkill. I do agree the Onkyo systems are better, no doubt, but are there any with smaller speakers? We really don’t have room for large stuff in our living room anymore - when we moved we brought my husband’s 6’ Magneplanar speakers with us, but there’s just no place to put them any more. All his other stereo stuff is in storage too, and we’re using my crappy 20-year old rack system instead, because it fits. Our living room is long and narrow with a very high ceiling and an alcove for an entertainment system so it’s a bit of a problem.
And it’s funny about the Sony - I’ve looked for opinions on Circuit City’s and CNET’s sites, and you see comments just like wenonahbone’s and Yookeroo’s - either the folks were very pleased or really unhappy - it seems like there’s no middle ground.
There’s this system from Onkyo ($269) but you still need the DVD/VCR.
It looks like your space issue is critical so one option would be to go ahead and get the Sony - you can’t beat the compactness of it - and if it turns out you don’t like the sound, you can always get a nicer speaker package.
I have no personal experience with Cambridge Sound Works but they have been around for some time and offer more alternatives. They might be an option and possibly someone here has a set. When I was researching small speakers I found good reviews on the Athena Micra 6 small speakers. If you do a search you should be able to find a couple of reviews.That is a pretty good price at Buy.com as they are sold at Best Buy for around $500.00.
As an aside, do any of these things come with multiple phono inputs? I’m thinking of replacing my amplifier, and this might be a good solution. However, I’ll need to input my tuner, CD player (though if the DVD player will play CD-Rs then this isn’t an issue), TV, VCR, and at least one auxilliary for MP3 player, computer, MD player or whatever. So that’s a minimum of 5 inputs needed.
I have the Cambridge Soundworks 510 and it’s excellent. The first movie watched was “Master and Commander” and the battle sounds were amazing. Litttle pricey though - $750.
I have a new Onkyo NR-801 and it accepts about 6-7 inputs. You might check the Onkyo SR602 or the SR502 which is a bit cheaper. There are other companies that make recievers that will accomodate your input needs. Denon,Yamaha and Harmon Kardon are a few.
Something like the Onkyo I linked to above might be good. It has a CD input you can use for your computer, a tape in and out (what I do is run stereo RCA-to-miniplug cables out to the front of my receiver (an old NAD) and plug them into my MD for recording or playback), 2 VCR ins and 1 out (you can use the in/out for regular VCR and use the extra in for anything else, say, the TV), and the DVD input that will handle your DVD/CD player.
One reason why I want to replace my current DVD/VCR is because the VCR doesn’t work with our satellite box. I just spent all morning searching and can’t find a single VCR that will! Which means that I might have to suck it up and get a DVR recorder, but seeing as how we would only want to record stuff 2 or 3 times a year, that seems like a lot of overkill. It’s always something …
mack, thanks for the link to that other Onkyo. And Toddly Cambridge Sound Works has an excellent reputation. Now I just need to figure out what I can do about the VCR problem …
Ok, I’m confused here…exactly how can your VCR not work with your satelite box? Your satelite box should have at the very least a coax output which will go into your VCR. Now if your VCR/DVD player doesn’t have a video output of some sort, and only has coax, I can see how you’d have trouble hooking it up to a reciever or home theater system. But if it’s a combo unit, I can’t see it not having at least a composite video out.
It’s not the hooking up that’s the problem - it’s tuning in the channels when you want to record something. Your standard VCR will tune to, of course, all VHF and UHF channels, and cable channels 1-125. Our satellite channels, though, start at 100 and go up to 899. Therein lies the problem. Some VCRs have a cable eye that will work with satellite boxes, but ours is a Philips and so far I’ve only found VCRs that support RCA, Panasonic, Toshiba and Sony satellite boxes. Even Philips doesn’t make a VCR that supports their boxes! How wrong is that?
I think you’re making it more complicated than you have to. On your satellite box, there should be a video out…most likely either a yellow, or s-video. One of those will plug into the back of your VCR, then on your VCR, you set the video input to like “Video 1” or “Aux”…then you’ll see whatever channel you’re tuned into on the satellite box. If you don’t have one of those two options, you can go from the coax out on your satellite, to the coax in on your VCR. In that situation, the signal will be on either channel 3 or 4 on your VCR. With either one of these options, you must be watching whatever you want to record. Some satellite recievers will have a feature that will automatically change the channel at a certain time. So you can use that in conjunction with the timer on your VCR to record a certain program at a certain time. It’s just a pain in the ass.
I think what you’re trying to do is have something that will let your VCR set the channels on your satellite reciever. That’s not gonna happen. When you have satellite, you have to give up the notion that you can use your VCR the same as when you had regular cable, or over the air signals. There might be some strange brand of VCR-satellite reciever all in one option, but I’ve never heard of it. You’re better off (depending on what satellite service you have) just looking into a DVR option. DirectTV has a pretty good system. I think you can get a 40 hour model for about $100 at Best Buy. The advantage to that, is the DirectTivo boxes usually have two inputs from the satellite dish. So you can watch one thing while recording another, or recorde two things while watching something you recorded earlier. However, depending on what type of dish you have, and the cabling of your house, this may require more wiring, or a differnt type of dish.
This is how ours is currently set up. And the VCR only tunes up to Channel 138, so we cannot record anything above it. Believe me, I’ve tried, and no go - called the manufacturer and everything. We can record network stuff, since the satellite company has kept the channel numbers for local TV stations the same as they’d be over the air. I’ve not tried your other method, I’ll give that a shot if I’ve got the connections you’ve mentioned. The manufacturer did not mention that option to me at all, they pretty much told us we’re out of luck, and so did the folks at Crutchfield.
All we want to be able to do is record any channel we like and currently we cannot do that.
We certainly have :). Living in the sticks sux sometimes. We can’t get broadband either unless we want to pay large sums for Direcway. Not.
Yes, we’ve come to that conclusion. I called them last night and they’ll give us a combo satellite and TiVo box for $115, including coming out to put the second input in. It’ll be an extra $5 a month too, which I’m not all that happy about, but I think the husband will like being able to pause and replay his football games.
The good news is that it frees me up to keep the current VCR/DVD for awhile longer and just get a receiver and some speakers to complete the home theater idea. The bad news is that gives me waaaay more choices - too many!
There’s still something I’m missing from your explanation romansperson. Your TV doesn’t tune above 125 or so, but you can still watch the higher channels from the sat box. The sat box acts as a tuner for the higher channels, and puts them onto some signal which your TV can understand - either modulates it onto channel 3 or 4 on a coax cable, or outputs it on a composite or S-video cable. Either of those should work for a VCR that’s been purchased in the past few years. What do you do on your TV when you want to watch sat channel 400?
Unless of course the sat box uses Macrovision[sup]TM[/sup] - then all bets are off. That’s the copy protection that DVD players use to prevent you taping the DVD onto a VCR.
Forgot to mention - what you definitely won’t be able to do is tape one show while watching another. The sat box will only tune a single channel at a time, so you can only watch the show you’re taping.
