Home Theater/Game Room Thread

Adebisi · Dec 21, 2016

Double post

Another question: God help me, I've used up all my HDMI connections on my TV. What's a solid HDMI switch that doesn't cost much?

Flipmode · Dec 21, 2016

Adebisi said:
Double post

Another question: God help me, I've used up all my HDMI connections on my TV. What's a solid HDMI switch that doesn't cost much?

You need to get a receiver with hdmi passthrough. Like 6-8 in and 1-2 out. But then you'll have to do a proper sound system.

Picasso3 · Dec 21, 2016

That sounds like exactly what he was wanting

meStevo · Dec 21, 2016

Shonuff said:
There are no Atmos specific speakers, so you can use prexisting ones. We had a 7.1 set up, and added two speakers mounted in front, in the ceiling and facing down, and an Atmos receiver. Total spend was $3,600 for those three pieces, and it was worth every bit. As one reviewer said, this is as close as you'll get to IMAX at home. Even if there's not alot of Atmos ready content, if you have a good receiver, they upconvert everything to Atmos. And the upconversion is pretty dang close to the real thing. Everything sounds so precise, because it builds sound objects and moves them around. It fills the room more.

I can't speak highly enough about it. Go to a showroom and check it out. I've heard stereo systems that were 70-100k that didn't sound this good. The improvement in technology means that 7k in total equipment gets you pretty close to what the super high end systems could do, but for 1/10 the price. Regular surround sound is now obsolete.

Oh I know and I love it, just don't have that kind of money invested / available to be invested in my home theater. We tacked on these to our setup and are running 5.1.2.

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/pionee...00000924979&adid=22222222627000071374&veh=sem

They could probably be dialed in better, and if anything it added some nice height to our floor-mounted setup (2 towers, center, 2 rear, 2 upward firing).

The whole thing sounds great for what it is though, and they help a lot.

Shonuff · Dec 21, 2016

meStevo said:
Oh I know and I love it, just don't have that kind of money invested / available to be invested in my home theater. We tacked on these to our setup and are running 5.1.2.

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/pionee...00000924979&adid=22222222627000071374&veh=sem

They could probably be dialed in better, and if anything it added some nice height to our floor-mounted setup (2 towers, center, 2 rear, 2 upward firing).

The whole thing sounds great for what it is though, and they help a lot.

Are you still getting a good Atmos experience at that cost? I dropped 800 on both of mine, and am floored. I'm not the type of guy that upgrades every year (the last time I did was seven years ago), so when I upgrade, I go big.

meStevo · Dec 21, 2016

I wouldn't call it good to anyone who knows better. I'd certainly miss the upward firing speakers if they were missing though.

My other hardware -
My 7 year old Energy Speakers and Klipsch Sub
An Onkyo NR747
Sony towers I picked up from a friend - SS-7000P
the linked ATMOS addons.

Video/audio sources are Xbox One S and apps from our 65" KS8000.

w/ 2 toddlers I take what I can get over time. Will probably mid-life crisis up a nice dream home theater at some point.

Shonuff · Dec 21, 2016

We just watched an upconverted Tomorrowland, and it sounded amazing. The sound objects have a sort of "mass" to them, it feels like they are really in the room. When the robots came in shooting lasers, the lasers were vibrating around the room, and I thought we were under attack. It's that real.

kegkilla · Dec 22, 2016

Shonuff said:
We just watched an upconverted Tomorrowland, and it sounded amazing. The sound objects have a sort of "mass" to them, it feels like they are really in the room. When the robots came in shooting lasers, the lasers were vibrating around the room, and I thought we were under attack. It's that real.

That sounds pretty nice but I don't think you'll be getting the complete movie theater experience until you hire other black people to watch with you and yell out "DAMN!" and "AW HELL NAW!" at the appropriate times.

McQueen · Dec 22, 2016

I need a new receiver that does 4k, and I'm looking at the Yamaha RX-A1060. Is there anything else I should be looking at in that price range ($1200ish)? If I can get something better for less, great. If there's something substantially better for a reasonable price increase, also great.

Julian The Apostate · Dec 22, 2016

Amazon.com: Denon AVR-S720W 7.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD AV Receiver with Built-In Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: Home Audio & Theater

I bought this recently and im happy with it. Not sure if it would fit your needs though.

AladainAF · Dec 25, 2016

The last two things to finish off my home theater is upgrading my 1080p projector and my black diamond zero edge screen.

I'm going to be getting the 120" screen.

As for projector, I'm leaning toward the Amazon.com: Sony VPLVW350ES 4K (4096 x 2160) 3D SXRD Home Theater/Gaming Projector: Electronics

Any suggestions or reasons to not go for this projector?

AladainAF · Dec 25, 2016

Julian The Apostate said:
Amazon.com: Denon AVR-S720W 7.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD AV Receiver with Built-In Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: Home Audio & Theater

I bought this recently and im happy with it. Not sure if it would fit your needs though.

Denon makes solid receivers, and I recommend the above. I am running a DENON US with the atmos upgrade and am also very happy with it, but it's probably overkill for most setups.

I also traded in my PB13 Ultra with the new PB16 Ultra. PB16-Ultra

Got 90% off because of the tradein, so it was a no brainer. PB13 Ultra was amazing, but this 16 is off the CHAIN.

Shonuff · Dec 26, 2016

AladainAF said:
The last two things to finish off my home theater is upgrading my 1080p projector and my black diamond zero edge screen.

I'm going to be getting the 120" screen.

As for projector, I'm leaning toward the Amazon.com: Sony VPLVW350ES 4K (4096 x 2160) 3D SXRD Home Theater/Gaming Projector: Electronics

Any suggestions or reasons to not go for this projector?

That's a good projector. I looked at a demo on it a few times. I just prefer the 80" flat screen in my mancave, because the kids use the room a lot. When I ran a projector and screen, the bulb didn't last long.

Picasso3 · Dec 30, 2016

Adebisi said:
Double post

Another question: God help me, I've used up all my HDMI connections on my TV. What's a solid HDMI switch that doesn't cost much?

https://www.amazon.com/Tendak-Split..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=85FSX6PPEEJC91Q6KFEW

saw this on deal of the day.

Picasso3 · Jan 2, 2017

Brunswick brookstone 2 pool table seems to be in great shape for 1k nearby on CL but it's 700 to have it professionally moved so i'll probably do it.

Am I in for a disaster? It's a 3 piece slate and i'm hoping to reuse the felt, it looks fine.

Armadon · Jan 5, 2017

Xadion said:
I finally found a good torrent pack that has good rom zips that are not mystically split for some really stupid reasons into various CHDs, VHDs, ROMs and BIOSs each with various MAME version codes and rip versions with child and parent dependent roms etc.

Which torrent pack did you use? I'm trying to get MAME working and half the games are missing CHD's. I have no idea what those are or where to find them. I used emuparadise but shit just doesn't work on a lot of games

Siliconemelons · Jan 6, 2017

Its one off IPTorrents - its still not 100% that it works.

MAME is really particular - RetroPIE has I think 3 different MAME emulators - so its best to try with each of them if the rom you have will work- so I just used the one that has the highest compatibility number and just tossed a bunch of games I wanted in, tested and deleted the ones that didn't work- later on I will try things out on the other 2 options and see if I happen to get more working.

Later, if I care... I will do what you are spose'ta'do.

Pick an emulator, then download this config file or something, download this rom check program- it will then take whatever rom you want and configure it to "work" with the emulator you have chosen and the config file you provided it.

There are 2 (3) decent ones on IPT - the one I used that's just a bunch of zips (keep them as zips) and one that is a bunch of CHDs... but no 'roms'/zips...then there is another torrent that has the matching roms/zips for those CHDs (chds are the harddrive images of the games) some emulators don't need them? some do? I don't know lol.

Julian The Apostate · Jan 6, 2017

I have a Denon AVR 720 receiver with a 5.1 speaker setup. Anytime I play music with the build in Bluetooth it always plays in 2.1. Is there anyway to have music play in 5.1?

Picasso3 · Jan 6, 2017

On my old onkyo there were always different play modes and you could set it to all channels

Pasteton · Jan 10, 2017

Why are these 4K projectors so expensive ? More specifically i suppose are these short throw laser projectors, they all seem 15k+. Is it just the newness factor or is there some tech/materials in them that's incredibly expensive to produce or obtain, that justifies the 6-25k price range as opposed to older 1080p projectors that are a tenth of the cost? Trying to decide if waiting will result in a 90-95% price savings or if these things will always cost as much as a car

Home Theater/Game Room Thread

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