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Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
#407976 11/07/14 12:14 AM
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fredk Offline OP
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A dying display has opened the possibility of a true home theater setup to me. The last few years has brought a huge improvement to projectors including those available at bargain basement prices that make even a cheap ass bugger frugal person like me sit up and take notice.

Today I was able to see an Epson 8350 (very similar to the BenQ W1070 I can afford) in action today and wow, was I impressed. While it did not deliver inky blacks of a projector like the Panny AE8000, they were quite good: better than the blacks on my dying RPTV.

I was even impressed by the image in ambient light. Watching the Leafs lose their Sunday game again upgraded the team from plain aweful to awesomely aweful and quite watchable on a 106" screen. grin

The screen, at $700, was of 'cheap' Chinese manufacture and showed a little hotspotting on sceens with mostly white, but I could probably get used to that. On most sceens the image was very good.

I thought I knew what layout and screen type I wanted, but spending time in that demo room talking to the dealer has made me rethink my possibilities. I'll post up my current layout and point out the three options I have along with a bunch of questions. I'm sure you guys will guide me to the right choice.

The plan is to clean up the room, reorganize it and do the install in time for Christmas. Jingle bells... smile


Fred

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Blujays1: Spending Fred's money one bottle at a time, no two... Oh crap!
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
fredk #407977 11/07/14 01:21 AM
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Yay!

Althought I wouldn't call the AE8000 "inky blacks," the Epson 8350 is a nice unit for sure.

For $700, you can get a decent screen that doesn't hot-spot.

Carada is running a sale right now. I really liked my screen from them that I had for V2.0 and V3.0 of my theater. You can get a 118" screen for under $700 shipped to your door.

Or if you want acoustically transparent (to put the screen in front of your speakers and get that center channel behind your screen instead of above or below it), you should look at Seymour AV and their XD material. That is what I have now and love it. I went the DIY route and built a 138" screen using the Seymour XD material for about $400 with ALL materials.

Then there is Jamestown Home Theater Screens. Sort of a DIYer selling screens. Price is about in the middle of true DIY and the full retail products for the frames, but they go together in about 20-30 minutes and look nice when done. Screen materials are good too. He even has a Seymour XD screen option. His largest screen option with Seymour material is 150" and it is just $600 and would be way better than some "cheap screen.

Can't wait to see some layouts.


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
nickbuol #407978 11/07/14 02:17 AM
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C
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Nick, I hope you never leave this message board.

Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
CV #407979 11/07/14 02:22 AM
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fredk Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: CV
Nick, I hope you never leave this message board.

smile


Fred

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Blujays1: Spending Fred's money one bottle at a time, no two... Oh crap!
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
nickbuol #407980 11/07/14 02:36 AM
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fredk Offline OP
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Yay indeed! This has me very excited.

There are all kinds of things you can do as soon as you move south of the 49th parallel. Us Canucks can only slurp our Timmies and shrug. frown For instance. You can add $50 for shipping for just the screen material from Seymore. Add another $50 to 100 in 'customs' charges because they only ship via Fedex and the like. Oh yeah, our petro$ hasn't being doing so well lately. Sigh...

I've been trying for the last half hour to upload some images to photobucket so I could post here. It seems the folks at corporate have been playing with browser security again. I'll post from home tomorrow.

P.S. Nick, I love your enthusiasm.

Last edited by fredk; 11/07/14 02:37 AM.

Fred

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Blujays1: Spending Fred's money one bottle at a time, no two... Oh crap!
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
fredk #407981 11/07/14 03:12 AM
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Thanks guys. I just get excited about this stuff.

I forgot about all of the import/export fees. What a bummer, but still might be worth it as you should still be able to stay under that $700 number.

Maybe arrange for some midnight border crossing in the middle of some wooded area and save the $$$. LOL

I can see the headline now, "American and Canadian Arrested for Smuggling Home Theater Gear Through the Woods and Across the Border" OK. Maybe that is a LONG headline, but you get the idea.


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
nickbuol #407982 11/07/14 03:14 AM
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fredk Offline OP
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Well, I could have Murph sail me across the border.


Fred

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Blujays1: Spending Fred's money one bottle at a time, no two... Oh crap!
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
fredk #407983 11/07/14 03:35 AM
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Fred, if you find products manufactured in the USofA there is no import duty which helps a lot. Having our dollar in the crappers is the hard part to swallow. Hopefully you can work it out.

Richard


DOG is GOD spelled backwards.
What others think of me is none of my business.
M80 V3 MY GLOSS Cherry
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
fredk #407984 11/07/14 03:41 AM
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I went through 4 8350's when they first came out in 2011?. Yes, four. Each one had issues on arrival. Fringing, lines, dust spots, horrible blacks. I ended up upgrading to a 8700ub and the difference was incredible. Sadly that 8700 also had an issue on arrival, replaced that as well with another. This was buying straight from Epson.

So, not sure if they fixed the issues over the years?


2xAA
M80/VP150/VP160/QS8
4xM3/M22OW/M2OW/VP150OW/4xM3IC/4xM3OW
EP500/800/HSU VTF3/SVS PB2k/SB2k/SB-12
Re: Fred's (hopefully) excellent HT adventure
fredk #407991 11/07/14 12:53 PM
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Originally Posted By: fredk
Well, I could have Murph sail me across the border.


Whoohoo!!! Road trip!


With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.
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