Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HT for $10K

While I've never owned an NAD product, I'd like to enventually. That or a HK. They both seem to be well built, very powerful, very respected brands. The NAD will be more powerful, but will not have some of the bells and whistles the Denon has (because its newer). Then again, what am I talking about? I own a Denon and am very happy with it. But one of these days...

In reply to:

---

i want either a 51 or 57 inch (diag) wide screen hdtv rear projection i will be between 10 - 12 feet which size should i go.

---

Without even looking at the calc, 57 inches. I have a 50 inch DLP, sit about 10 feet back and it really should be bigger (for HD).

joema- thanks for the advice.

rook- if you want to read consumer thoughts on nad check ecoustics.com message boards i used to read there a lot about a year ago and there were a lot of positive postings about nad but also a lot of qc issues too mostly the 7x2 or 7x1 series i have not looked lately though mostly because of all those qc issues had scared me away. not trying to knock nad just telling you my research info.

As far as NAD is concerned. It did sound good for music, but was I underwhelmed with movies. Although, in its defence, there are usually several factors that can make or break a system. The foremost being how the store has their room setup and what speakers you're running them with.

There are a few things I am not sure others have covered.

1) Buy all your Axiom items from the Outlet. Though they say that they are 'B stock" most of the people that have gotten their items from there see nothing wrong. The savings you will achieve here will allow you to spend more in your seating. Call Axiom to see if you can get a B stock package deal and please upgrade to the larger axiom sub or a SVS unit. I have an Outlaw Audio sub that is great as well.

2) If you have a Costco near you I know they have some nice theater seating that is about $2K for (i think) three seats. Check that one out. Very nice deal. I have sat in them and they are nice.

3) I would not go with seperates at this time. The 3805 is a very nice system that you will be happy with. Save the $$ there and put more towards your DVD player.

4) Go with the Blue Jeans connectors. very nice.

5) Ray is a crazy man about his remote lust.

With nothing more than a quick peek at your original plan two things jumped out at me.

You should get a better sub than the EP350, and I'd without hesitation get the Denon DVD-3910. You're going to be putting a ton of money into that projector/screen...give it the best PQ you can. Right now that's the 3910. (Ecost has refurbs for about $750)

I'll check in later with exactly what I'd do with ten grand and a dedicated room.

Yeah, the 3910 sounds really nice, especially when paired with the 3805 (so I heard/read).

If you don't care about surround music, I'd go with a cheaper Denon receiver. The 3805 is expensive partly because it has, as CNET put it, "enough AV connections to choke a horse".

From what I read, differences in receivers are perceived only by "audiophiles" whose tenuous arguments often boil down to "receiver A is better than receiver B because I think/say so". And separates are overkill for HT, IMHO.

just saw this on audioholics front page
Products you can switch out the speakers and i know its 12000 but i just figured for comparison also here is the link to the whole article.
Price

Infocus 5700 projector
$3499

Projector Mount
$150

Da-Lite Screen
$1100

Denon AVR 3805
$1199

Denon DVD-2910
$729

Mordaunt Short Avant Series Speakers
$3100

Blue Jeans Cables
$210

Sound King Speaker Wire
$72

Monster HTS 1000
$149

Avia Guide
$40

SPL Meter
$40

Berkline Cinema Chairs
$2500

TOTAL
$12,788

Well, I just went through this exercise myself starting about a month ago. I had basically 10G's to setup my newly built home theater/recreation room. The money came as part of inheritance, so was basically "found" money.

A final note: I realize I can get the Elite components quite a bit cheaper online, but I value having a local certified Pioneer dealer for important components for warranty and service reasons.

Here is what I bought:
Receiver: Pioneer Elite 56Txi (1300 dollars)
Universal player: Pioneer Elite 59avi (1000 dollars)
Main Speakers: Paradigm Reference 60's
Center Speaker: Paradigm Reference CC470 (about 2200 for all 3)
Surrounds: Axiom QS8 X 4 (1000 dollars)
Sub: EP500 (1100 dollars)
Projector: Sony VPL-HS51 (2800 dollars)
Screen: Homemade (60 dollars, details to follow)
Acoustic panels: Home made - 7 of them (180 dollars total)
Speaker Cables: In wall Ultralink 4C12 (12 gauge/ 4 conductor wire -- 175 dollars)
Other cables: Blue Jeans cable (200 dollars or so)

Now, to explain some of this stuff:

The Pioneer combo gives a combination of great sound and great convenience. I use the i.link (IE1394) digital connectivity between the player and the receiver to have 1 single wire that sends over all audio signals to my receiver, and automatically determines source material type (ie stereo vs. dts vs dolby surround). The elite 59avi also has an hdmi output which is perfect for my projector.
The 56txi also has 2 component video inputs that I use to switch between my HD cable box and my XBox (and I then send a single component video cable to the projector).

The screen is homemade using Dazian fabric, which has about a 1.1 gain (and is cleanable) and some 3/4 inch by 2.5 inch pine to frame it out cross braced with 3/4 inch corner trim on the edges to make it look real nice. Easy to make, 60 bucks total, and I bet you can't see a difference between that and any other 1.1 gain screen you could buy for upwards of 800 bucks.

The real gem of this setup is the projector in my opinion. My God, is this thing amazing. 1920 by 720 natural resolution, and the clarity, colors and contrast are unbelievable. I watch HD Discovery channel and its like Nirvanna. My screen is 105" diagonal and I can't see screen door unless I'm inside of 8 feet from the screen (and I have 20/15 vision, which is better than 20/20). There is ZERO vertical banding and the black levels are amazing (6000:1), which is previously unheard of for an LCD based projector. I can't rave enough about this marvel of technology, and I can't imagine anything near this price providing anything close to this performance. The AE700 is very popular in this price range, but has vertical banding and no where near the black levels.

For the acoustic panels, I bought egg carton type foam and framed it out with 3/4 X 1.5 inch pine wood and covered it with an acoustical friendly fabric.

Furniture was bought separately and encorporated in the room.

Obviously, if you are going with an entire Axiom speaker setup, then you will save an additional chunk of change over the Paradigm speakers. But with all said and done, I am very pleased how my setup has turned out.

Bretsky - Regarding your Sony projector, how far from the screen do you sit? I'll be 14-15' back and was thinking of going for 119" (diagonal) screen. Can the Sony handle that? Also, I've heard great things about the contrast and the overall picture, but that the HS5 is not the brightest projector. Now, I'll have total light control, but do you think I need total darkness for the image to be great??

Your Pioneer combo sounds like it does everything you need. Any reason the Denon combo (3805 + 3910 DVD) can't match it?

Yeah, I'm pretty set on using Axioms for the whole system. First of all, it'll just make me feel better that all the speakers are from the same maker...like they're all meant for each other Secondly, the reviews on this board (and others) have me convinced that I wouldn't be happier with anything else near the same price range.