Home Theater/Game Room Thread

Siliconemelons

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It wont be that far away - and it looks like 2.0 is 5 meters or about 16.5 feet. So I think a 15ft cable will be quite enough - I figured it would be cheaper to get a long USB vs a long HDMI - and putting the PI inside the table with the buttons.
 

Siliconemelons

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Buttons + Joysticks, Raspberry Pi 3 w/ case, power cord, sd, hdmi ordered and RetroPi downloaded and ready.

Now to get to ikea to buy that stand before or near the time all that stuff arrives :) oh and I need to pickup a little USB to put the roms on. I think this will be a fun project - get to do some drilling and such and some computer tinkering- hits all the man buttons :p
 

Julian The Apostate

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FML, I'm hooked now. I got in Andrews Jones speakers, a SVS SB2000 sub, and Dennon head unit about two weeks ago. I really like how they sound but now I'm hooked and spent a few hours this weekend looking for my end game setup. I'm gonna get this setup piece by fucking piece. Sub will be last.

Tower Systems
S3000i
 

Siliconemelons

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I have a 100$ 12" Sony sub open box from BB for like 75$ - that's my sub... lol would something in the 350$ range yeall talking about be much better? do they have more range or something?
 

Jysin

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FML, I'm hooked now. I got in Andrews Jones speakers, a SVS SB2000 sub, and Dennon head unit about two weeks ago. I really like how they sound but now I'm hooked and spent a few hours this weekend looking for my end game setup. I'm gonna get this setup piece by fucking piece. Sub will be last.

Tower Systems
S3000i

Careful once you go down that rabbit hole. It starts meager, then you end up deep 5 figures in gear! =D

Never heard of those speakers in your links though. You'd be best taking your own media to a proper hi-fi / home theater shop and doing some blind tests.
 

Jysin

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I have a 100$ 12" Sony sub open box from BB for like 75$ - that's my sub... lol would something in the 350$ range yeall talking about be much better? do they have more range or something?

Its always hard to explain to people. It's something you need to experience. Most of the cheap subs (and I'd class the $350 as cheap too) end up sounding like a sub in a box. Boomy / boxy, however you want to describe it. I am on the far end of the spectrum with a Paradigm Signature Sub25. Every single person who has heard my HT comments on it and how its better than any theatre or home setup they have ever heard.

What astounds me most about my sub, in particular, is its ability to have such a great dynamic range even at low volume. You can feel infrasonics sitting in my couch, regardless the sound level. Of course, when listening at reference levels, it shakes my entire house. But it's clean sound through and through.

Home Theater & Sound Equipment Review -- Paradigm Signature Sub 25 Subwoofer (5/2009)
 

Siliconemelons

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Right, I don't think I have really exped a "better" sound out of a cheap speaker in a box like my sub, or even an expensive sub.

But wow that sub, 4k and 115lb - lets quote Jurassic Park (that I am sure sounds awesome on that! haha) "If its heavy, its expensive!" lol

So I think I am mostly where I was on the sub thing, anything that I am going to buy - 100-200$ is not going to be significantly better than the little Sony that I already have.

Nor do I think my amp is going to drive anything super crazy, its just a Denon 5.1 - and my surrounds are polk OWM's - I had TSi's but the wife wanted a streamlined look so I did a 7 speaker setup on the walls with crown hiding the wires heh.

-- As for the arcade set up. I got retropie on the rpi3 easy as cake. I think getting the MAME roms working properly may be a different story - I haven't finished making my controller setup - I just cut and assembled a beta idea of what I wanted - and its not done yet - so I have not used the arcade buttons on the rPi3 yet.

I am going with more of a bench that's able to be used while an adult is sitting at the couch - younger kids it would be like a stand up. and with 2 players.

Anyone happen to have a torrent for some nice roms, the one I downloaded the SNES ones were all jacked up file extensions and didn't work and the MAME is kind of confusing... the roms are not individual files? Not that I have looked into it that much.

Also, I am just going to build the Rpi3 into the controller bench thing... a long USB was 4$ a long HDMI is 6... and simpler to just plug in a HDMI and go- ill have to wire some power also into the final version of the game table.
 

Intrinsic

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Right, I don't think I have really exped a "better" sound out of a cheap speaker in a box like my sub, or even an expensive sub.

But wow that sub, 4k and 115lb - lets quote Jurassic Park (that I am sure sounds awesome on that! haha) "If its heavy, its expensive!" lol

So I think I am mostly where I was on the sub thing, anything that I am going to buy - 100-200$ is not going to be significantly better than the little Sony that I already have.

Nor do I think my amp is going to drive anything super crazy, its just a Denon 5.1 - and my surrounds are polk OWM's - I had TSi's but the wife wanted a streamlined look so I did a 7 speaker setup on the walls with crown hiding the wires heh.

-- As for the arcade set up. I got retropie on the rpi3 easy as cake. I think getting the MAME roms working properly may be a different story - I haven't finished making my controller setup - I just cut and assembled a beta idea of what I wanted - and its not done yet - so I have not used the arcade buttons on the rPi3 yet.

I am going with more of a bench that's able to be used while an adult is sitting at the couch - younger kids it would be like a stand up. and with 2 players.

Anyone happen to have a torrent for some nice roms, the one I downloaded the SNES ones were all jacked up file extensions and didn't work and the MAME is kind of confusing... the roms are not individual files? Not that I have looked into it that much.

Also, I am just going to build the Rpi3 into the controller bench thing... a long USB was 4$ a long HDMI is 6... and simpler to just plug in a HDMI and go- ill have to wire some power also into the final version of the game table.

Search for the No-Intro ROM packs. They're a pretty good consolidated group of working ROMs for almost each system out there.
 

Siliconemelons

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Holy crap MAME roms are a big pain in the butt, esp with RetroPie...

I really do not want to mess with the TON and TON of detailed technical information that can happen with various MAME versions etc.

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.

I got 2 new USB joystick encoders coming because the 2 player 1 usb encoder thing kinda sucks- gatta do some Linux hacking to get it to work as 2players not just 1.

I got old school PacMan, DonkyKong, TMNT and Turtles in Time working so I am getting more happy with this project - and ready to tackle a proper rebuild my arcade deck.
 

Siliconemelons

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depends on if you have an ultra rare game, but the system even in good working order is 100$ commonly on ebay with usually a game or two.
 

Shonuff

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We just added Dolby Atmos to our home theatre. OMG, this feels like it's close to IMAX quality. The feeling you get when you listen to it is like the feeling you got when you first heard surround sound, or saw HD programming.

We'll never go back to regular surround sound.
 
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Shonuff

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What hardware did you add to get you there?

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.
 

Shonuff

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The funny thing is, I read a few articles on this, and didn't know much about it. I saw all of the hype and dismissed it. Then I listened to a demo and knew within the first minute I was buying it. I dropped $3,600 on the spot. I never do stuff like that. But it is literally that much better than regular surround sound. My mancave is imperfectly shaped, but because it relies on sound objects versus bouncing off the walls, you can get close to perfect sound in an imperfectly shaped room.
 

Armadon

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Yeah Atmos is pretty cool. Xbox one and windows 10 are putting it in after the new year. Can't wait for that. I play battlefield 1 with Atmos and it sounds so damn good. I'm running a 5.2.4 setup right now and I'm thinking of making it 7.2.4 but I can't imagine it sounding any better then it already does.
 

Adebisi

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So every now and then I like hooking my laptop up to the bigscreen in the basement for controller friendly PC games.

What comfortable solutions are there for someone who wants to play some keyboard and mouse on their couch?