Yesterday my wife caught me cruising the Axiom Boards again - she shook her head and brushed on past. Good speakers are the last piece of my Home Theater as I now am in the active "saving" mode. Later in the day we were driving and she asked me if I had ever considered buying a piece or two at a time. I thought about it a minute and then told her, no, I never had as I wanted to take advantage of the home theater discount. I guess my question to the group is how many of you "went large" and bought the entire set up at one time vs. how many "pieced" together the system?

Don't deprive yourself. Your package discount could potentially be wiped out by inflation anyway. Don't forget about the factory outlet store.

Piece, out

Piece by piece for me. The first time I went "big" I ended up with an HTIB. It was my first purchase and I didn't know much about what was available. Since then, I've added components as I could afford them. I still change things from time to time.

I have a piecemeal system now that I would be embarrased to list. The "best"piece is an old 8" M&K dual push pull sub. It gives ok bass - the descriptions in here of the 500 leave me....as Dave said in some of those old Wendys commercials "I yearn wanting more". As for the factory store, I have calculated an Epic 60-500 set in Black Oak from the factory - same system in Warm Cherrywood from the Custom vinyl and same system in Natural Cherry from the Custom Wood store. Then calculated the difference in each. When I get bored with that, I cruise back through the forums looking for some tidbit I might have overlooked before...........hence the wife shaking her head bit. Of course, she might be right, I could be "losing it".

No, you're totally on the right track

My system came together in three chunks.

For Christmas of 2003 my wife 'surprised' me with the VP150 and a pair of m22's. A pair of Energy Take 5's and a Kenwood sub held down the rest.

In the Spring of 2007, I surprised myself with a pair of M80's and an SVS sub. M22's became the surrounds.

And recently, I bought myself a pair of QS8's. The M22's are now doing time in our bedroom as a 2-channel system.

Whether you do it all or slowly depends on your budget, what you want to do, and what sorts of speakers you have lying around.

If you're going for a full-bore 5.1 setup and you already have decent other speakers, I'd say it's perfectly fine to do it a piece at a time. If you have no other speakers and are starting a home theater from scratch, you might as well do the whole thing at once.

You never know, there are a few oddballs out there that don't like the way Axiom's sound, and it's a lot cheaper to return a pair of M22's than it is a full 5.1 system.

I got mine all at once as well. The way it works at my house with things I want that CAN be pieced together a bit at a time like speakers is this... I buy the fronts, and my wife says, "That's nice." I talk about getting the center or surrounds and she says, "Why? Those other speakers sound good by themselves."

It is a scam being run by wives everywhere. They act like they are giving you "pre-approval" to go ahead with the big purchase as long as it is spread out over time only to come back to you later with their crazy logic to make sure that you never get a chance to complete your system!

My wife wasn't sure about any of this until I had my first theater, and that was just junk pieced together comparatively. Then when we sold that house and the home theater was written in by the buyers as a "must have" I told her that it was OK because I wanted to do it "right" next time.
Well, V2.0 had the hardware I wanted (including my Axioms) but not the location. I am now in V3.0 with the same good hardware, and when asked if I would ever upgrade again, I said "Sure. I'll need a new 1080p projector and an HDMI receiver..." I don't feel the need to upgrade the Axioms at all, and even if I wanted to jump to M80 fronts, it would be a hard sell even for me because I like the M60 fronts so much for my space.

Get it all, never upgrade again!

You nailed it....it is a conspiracy. When I said that I have never had good speakers, she said what about the polk system you bought? These are seiously small speakers - a left center and right all wired to a "sub woofer". I think the system was called M3 or something. I tried explaining that I just agreed to that due to the WAF. Her response was "those speakers sound plenty good". How can you even begin to rebut that logic? You may have the best strategy - to do it all at once so that I can't be tripped up later. That is sort of why I called this "living large". I always ask myself what would Joe Montana do in this situation? He would GO LONG, of course....

That's one of the things I truly liked about Axiom when I was looking. Because they have little inventory, they don't HAVE to sell you all at once and can have a much lower price piece-by-piece, while still offering some reduction for 5 items or more. I went once piece-a-month. It was a great progression.

I was lucky, I bought the VP100 and QSs. Once hooked up they made my mains sound so bad my wife was the one that said I should get better front speakeers(not that I didn't already know I needed them), I went for the M22s, it took all of 2 weeks for it to come together.

Piece it all together or buy it all at once, as long as you get what you want, it is all good.

My sales pitch was based on replacing a pair of 1980s vintage Genesis speakers that I got right after college with M22s. 'Honey, look how much smaller these speakers are.' I even let her pick out the color to match the decor. When I ordered them, I snuck in a VP100 and acted surprised when it arrived. I explained that it must have been a package deal. Once she heard the huge improvement in sound quality, the QS4s were an easy sell.

I say get the whole thing at once. Chances are your wife will be convinced once she hears them.

Well....It is a tough call. I bought a Sony 52" LCD just before Thanksgiving. By the way, the big boxers do not honor the refund on the incremental difference if a competitor has a lower price on Black Friday. They can and will on Saturday....but not Friday. OF course I had to stand in line for an hour to find that out. Last week I bought the new Yamaha 663 from J&R on their preorder deal that they were offering over on AVS. That upgraded me to Pro Logic IIx. That in itself is a serious improvement. So now I am beginning the saving regimen for the speakers. I have a while to think about it....so I will probably lurk some more in the meantime..........

Piece by piece here. I think it's funner that way,I thought I was done until they brought out their amp., always something to look forward to.

Hmm... tough call indeed. Will she stand or will she cave?

Me, no WAF, it will be piece by piece and exactly what I want.

Piecemeal--it's been a long journey. Pretty much done with the speakers now, unless I upgrade the surrounds. (I think I just set of my wife's "frivolous purchase" radar...) I started with a surround receiver (used it in stereo), then bought M50s, bought QS4s, then my wife got tired of not being able to hear dialog, and bought a VP100. I was given a pair of M80s by a group of friends and family a year and a half ago (eee!), and I just got my EP350v3. The M50s are now in the computer/baby/junk room. All of my speakers other than the QS4s are in Vermont Maple custom vinyl.

You've got good freinds Ken!

I bought 4 QS8s 18 months ago (just missed the discount by 1). When it was time to upgrade my mains/front/sub, that would have been 4 speakers and would have missed by 1 again. I decided to buy all factory outlet (to save 10%), then bought an additional sub to make it 5 pieces (another 5%). So, I wound up getting a $600 total discount doing it this way.

But, if your wife is willing to let you get a piece or two now, I would certainly jump on that offer!

Not all wives fail to understand/appreciate home theater. I guess I'm just lucky. My wife loves home audio & theater as much as I do. She loves both the music and the equipment. I think her ears are even more critical than mine. I've read that women generally have more sensitive ears than men, and I think it's true. She'll pick up on differences between speakers and when she points them out I can usually hear it too, even though I didn't before.

I knew she was something special back in High School (yes, yes, we're HS sweethearts) when she used to love helping me wire & re-wire various amps, speakers, & subs in my car. Ahh memories...

She was the one that pressed my recent QS8 purchase. "Would you just order them already? I'm tired of the M22's back there! They're too directional.".

Just a few weeks ago she was commenting on how it really was time to upgrade our 36" SD TV to something bigger & HD. Standing at the local big-box electronics store, I commented that a 50"-56" would be about the right size for our den. Her only comment was, 'are you sure that's big enough?', as she's pointing to a 73". I won't go any further with where the conversation went from there....

She's also recently made comments that our Pioneer AVR is getting a little old too, and that I ought to figure out how to replace it with something better soon.

Sounds like your wife is a keeper! Good for you!

I think I'm in Love with your wife!

I purchased all the speakers at one time but would not have hesitated to purchase piece by piece.

Obviously your wife needs to talk to my wife and help her understand priorities. I knew when the guy rolled the TV out of the back room at CC - just by the size of the box that I was in way deep. After looking at the 52" Sony since Thanksgiving, I asked her the other day, again, what she thought of the TV - now? Response - "it is still ridiculous". For me, when I watch a good High Def program like Discovery or some the the ESPN events, my mouth is still agape at how good it looks. Now, I want the audio to produce a similar, involuntary reaction......Rob

That seals it. All at once, in deep...

If she gets really mad and throws you out, you've still got the HT.

Well......truth is she is great and getting married to her was one of the best things that I ever did. Having said that - I read in another thread one of the guys wife made the comment that if she had closed her eyes she could have sworn Celine Dion was in the room. I may have to try the same tactic - only use a movie with Sam Elliot in it. If I could convince her that Sam was in the room, she might insist on a second center and a second sub!!

My wife is absolutely great. I'd never ask her to change anything about her. However, she doesn't have 'an ear' for music. She likes music would be happy listening to in on a clock radio. Same with movies. Surround effects don't impress her and she didn't care that the sub was shaking things up.

Or did she????

A few months after getting our new speakers, she went to spend the weekend with her Mom. When she got back, she told me that they rented some movies and that she could hardly bear to watch them as something was wrong with the sound. Nothing was 'wrong' with the sound, she was just listening through the 'so called' stereo speakers built into her Mom's TV.

I never heard anything but positive talk about our Axiom system since then.

Kinda piece by piece...M22 and VP150, then M80s, 1 QS8 and stand, now the VP500V3

My wife loves to watch movies on our Sony and Axioms....the other day she ask..why don't you hook up Satellite in the Theatre room so we can watch hockey there in hidef on the 52Sony instead of the 37Sonicview. And now she is sad because the flames lost.

This is eerily akin to what I've been doing. I have a list of configurations sorted by price including the HTR required for the day when $spouse and I argue^H^H^H^H^Hdiscuss how much I can spend.