Well, the pieces are in place and everything is plugged in, and I've had a chance to set up and then enjoy my new home theater for a few days. I think it's a bargain-priced HT for its performance, and what flaws and limitations it has, could easily be fixed with a simple tripling of the money spent so far.
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The room:
23x16x9ft (20ft ceiling entry hallway right beside)
Bay window in front, 2 more windows on RHS of room, horizontal venetian blinds on all
Main seating close to middle of room facing one wall, dining area right behind
Audio cabinet in right front corner
Baby grand in left front corner
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Equipment:
(audio)
2x M3Ti mains in top left & right corners mounted on wall
VP100, upside down, on end table, 2ft above ground
HSU TN-1220HO (500W), behind audio cabinet [bought used; they're discontinued now!]
Panasonic SA-HE200 HT receiver (200W per channel, can handle various digital formats e.g. 6.1) [from a now defunct on-line retailer]
Panasonic 5-disk DVD/CD/MP3 changer (CV37, non-progressive scan) [from costco?]
cost (est) = USD 275+240+700+300+120 ~ USD$1700 incl. tax
When listening to music, the analog output from the DVD is used (so we can listen to MP3s), but for DVDs, the digital optical output is sent to the receiver. The main/centers are set to "Small" and the cross-over in the receiver set to 150Hz.
(video)
Optoma H31 projector, on coffee table in front of sofa [from costco.com]
Da-lite Insta-Theater 73" 16:9 portable projector [from B&H Photo]
cost ~ 1300+400=USD$1700
S-video is passed from the DVD to the receiver and then to the projector. No particular reason to include the receiver, since it doesn't have on-screen menus, so when I remember I'll re-route without it. Don't anticipate any change though.
Connectors/wiring all Radio Shack or cheaper (total <$100)
Grand total audio/video cost: ~USD$3500
Not bad considering that the audio cabinet cost almost $2K on its own (it's Ethan Allen).
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Material auditioned:
Music: various classical; various Sting; Frank Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti
Movies: part of Finding Nemo; Star Wars IV; Sleepy Hollow
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My overall impression from this setup is that it is "adequate" for a non-snob. That is, my wife and kids think it's great, and although I can easily point out all sorts of flaws in the sound and video, if I'm not careful I'll end up actually enjoying music and DVDs on this system instead of finding faults.
Audio quality:
For music, I turn off the center channel and store the VP100 on top of the audio cabinet. Usually the volume is set to -55 to -45, but sometimes when I want it louder I go to -40. The music quality is superb. The combination of TN1220+M3Ti covers the entire frequency range effortlessly. At these listening levels I don't sense any limitations. The balance (bass to treble, left to right) gets a bit off when you leave the main listening area at the room center, but usually I wouldn't care since it means I'm busy doing something else anyways. With the VP100 on, however, I found that music maybe sounded a bit worse, perhaps because the VP100 feels a bit lightweight compared to the natural deep warmth of the M3Tis. I think an M3Ti in the center might have been a better choice if I wanted to use 3.1 for music.
For HT, the VP100 is in place and Center is "Small". The volume is typically around -30. The special effects are handled wonderfully, but you know, I do start to hear distortions in the soundtrack, especially in voices, at these volumes. The theme music from "Star Wars IV" also started to sound tinny (I assume it's not the DVD itself to blame). So at high volumes, the sound is good but it's not perfect. Why? I think the weakest link is the Axioms (sorry!). The room is, I think, too big for the M3Tis/VP100: it's 3300 cu ft, with another equally large volume room right beside. I'm open to the possibility that the cheap electronics are adding flaws to the sound, but I doubt it since with the volume at -30, the receiver has plenty of power in reserve. Or maybe it's the cables. [derisive snort!]
How about the soundstage with 3.1 vs 2.1? As has been discussed previously, the center channel makes a huge difference compared to 2.1 for HT. When I moved around rear half of the room while watching the movie, I found that the dialogue stayed with the screen and the sound effects remained correctly positioned left/right. With center off, when you move away from the middle you get closer to one of the two M3Tis and the soundstage is ruined. Even when seated centrally, the center speaker allows independent control of the volume of the dialogue, so you can hear better what's being mumbled on screen without going deaf with the special effects.
My next audio upgrade, if I ever make one, would likely be to add QS4 L/R surrounds and maybe a rear surround too, all on stands so that they could be put out of the way when not being used for HT. That would add $600 of speakers, plus a few hundred $ in stands to the cost of the system, and would mean some more setup required and additional temporary exposed wiring. But I suspect it would really clean up the sound, with those additional 6x 4.5" woofers in the QS4s almost doubling the existing woofer area in the existing 2x 5.25" and 2x 6.5" of the VP100+M3Ti, and add 6 tweeters to the existing 3. If I ever do this, it wouldn't be for at least a year.
Alternatively, I wonder if I wouldn't be happier if I just stuck with M3Tis for center and future surrounds too. Maybe the slight tinniness at high volumes in the 3.1 in HT is because I'm used to the warmth of M3Ti+sub, and the VP100 just aren't a perfect match for them.
How about the TN1220 sub? It handles all the bass like a champ, both music and sound effects. I read here about Sheik Yerbouti having some serious bass and boy, it's like I'd never listened to this album before. Amazing. And we all know the sound effects in Finding Nemo and Star Wars. I won't be wanting for more bass: I followed the instructions from HSU using the BAS test disk with a Radio Shack SPL, and this guy is so throttled back it's almost embarrassing (maybe 25% on the main volume and 3/20 in the receiver). Talk about power to spare.
Video quality:
First of all, the Insta-Theater projector screen is great. It pulls up quickly and easily to arbitrary heights, making adjustments easy, and goes back easily too. It collapses into a fairly light, portable tube about 6' long, so it can go into the closet when we're done with it. And boy, 6' diagonal is a pretty big image!
We watched both during afternoon and after supper. With the venetian blinds shut and no other light control precautions, even on this sunny day the light/dark contrast was adequate, even in the dark scenes in Star Wars. It was maybe similar quality to my 27" Sony. (More quantity of course.)
As it got dark outside, the contrast became quite stunning. Not surprising for this technology, but I didn't realize how much better the light/dark contrast is compared to a CRT.
At our standard viewing distance, the picture quality is fine. With my prescription glasses-enhanced vision, I can make out the gaps between pixels (screen door effect) at 12', but it's not distracting and for me goes away entirely just a few feet further back. When I flip my vision across the screen I can make out the rainbowing. I think the Optoma has a 4x color wheel, which is supposedly pretty good, so I suspect that I would have found 2x to be unacceptable. But if I don't try to look for it, I can get used to it, and the rest of my family doesn't notice or care (a bit like the harshness in the sound!). In 5 years when projectors now costing 8K will cost 1K maybe we'll upgrade. The bulb will be due for replacement then anyways.
The Optoma projector's cooling fan is audible when the audio is low, but when a movie has music or normal volume dialogue going it's only marginally distracting.
The relatively low resolution of DVD (480p) becomes apparent in the in-movie subtitles, but that's in the source material anyways and I wonder if a much better projector would look that much better. Sitting further back (16') eliminates any perception of the low resolution to me.
Interestingly, Finding Nemo looked perfect, probably because it's mostly bright pastels and smooth color transitions. I think that's probably a no-brainer, that certain kinds of movies tend to look really good on projectors.
I did notice a few times there were digital decoding problems on Star Wars IV. (Didn't notice any in Sleepy Hollow or Finding Nemo). My guess is they were caused by the DVD player decoder, not by the projector, but I don't have proof. It's a brand new DVD so I can't imagine it being dirt or a scratch on the DVD itself. But by and large I didn't notice problems that I'd blame on the projector's handling of the non-progressive S-video input.
Anyways, I had to upgrade anything in the video, my first choice would be to get a new DVD changer, one that upconverts to 780p cleanly and so forth. Fortunately good DVD players are cheap so that's a pretty easy sell to the wife.
Conclusion:
Hope you enjoyed my first impressions of my new home theater. I can tell you that we're extremely satistified so far. It meets the goals of being a good system for enjoying both music and movies for ourselves and for larger groups, with adequate audio in a large room for non-technofiles. Audio upgrades would involve putting in surrounds for 5.1, and I'm indecisive whether I'd be happier with all-M3Ti for center and surrounds in addition to the mains. (I just love the warmth of those M3Tis.) The video looks fine even in the daytime, and at night is simply impressive. Projector artifacts are there but the picture quality overall is so good that I can ignore the flaws. Digital decoding glitches here and there are a bit annoying, but infrequent enough that upgrading the DVD players (the likely weakest link in the video) can wait even though it's a cheap upgrade. And on top of everything else, when we're done watching, everything packs up and the room becomes a living room with an excellent, almost invisible audio system and not dominated by some big screen monstrosity!
--Martin
