earthaziel

I have my apartment set up in just the way you want to, only we have everything distributed over the network. The way we do it on the tv's that are not near a computer is with modded X-Boxes. There are many media player programs that could be set up on it. Plus it is really inexpensive. An X-box would be about a hundred bucks used and the mod chip is about 50. If you wanted to use the X-box as storage for MP3s you could add an internal hard drive, but at my place we just use it as a media extender, taking MP3s and movies off of the hard drive of our networked computers. Matthew Modded X-boxes FTW

Joe, Working in HT in Best Buy I can tell you were to get the best deals. For the Klipsch I would actually have him use his accomidation program through Klipsch. You can actually get the F-3s for less then employee discount price. Also I would suggest having him look at the accomidation for Pioneer as Pioneer was letting us buy Pioneer Elite products directly from them as well at a huge discount. Third thing is to look around and see if there is a Best Buy with a Magnolia Home Theater in it. As we also get discounts at Magnolia. Since none of the stores in my area have a Magnolia I'm not 100% sure what they have, but you may be able to find some good stuff there. Matt

Dude the plastic boxes with the DVD player on top of them are so money. I think you should just leave it the way it is :-) Matt

Hey everyone. A thread earlier mentioned how Best Buy doesn't have Klipsch set up correctly. I mentioned in that thread that I am trying to get my management team to allow me to set up our Klipsch speakers in a surround sound atmosphere. As of now I am having no luck, but I think I could convince them if I had numbers to prove that having them set up well will improve sales. (yes I know that should be common sense, but some people have none). What I am asking of you is this. Let me know where you live and how the well set up the Best Buy is near you. Its its good or if it sucks let me know. At least let me know the city the store is in, but address would be golden. If I can bring them numbers to show them nicer stores DO sell more of the Klipsch product then maybe they will let me do my set up....and if they don't then I'll just move up the food chain and try asking District management. Matt

Ok, read through the thread and I thought I would give an insiders look at this issue. I have worked in the Best Buy home theater dept. for about five years now. Someone mentioned that they don't understand how displays become non-functional because once you connect everything it shouldn't be disconnected unless it has been done by sales people. I'm sorry, but that is not correct. I have trained my people pretty well not to touch cables in my speaker aisle. The ones who pull things apart are the customers themselves. You have no idea how many times I have seen people pulling cabling out of connections for no apparent reason. Some people just like to look at the back of the speaker...others just...well I don't know why else you would need to do it. That is also the reason why you may see displays that don't let you adjust volume or ones where you can't see a receiver at all. Also someone mentioned about x-mas sales staff. It is true that there are some "interesting" people who work at Best Buy during the xmas season, but that doesn't exscuse missfunctioning demo products. Saddly although you may thing different this is NOT the season for Klipsch with Best Buy. Sure we sell more home theater during the xmas season then during the summer, but the BIGGEST time of the year for home theater is really around Super Bowl time and also March Maddness. An easy way to see this is just to watch ads. The best deals will be done in late january through early march. Also it is around this time that you will see a lot of seasonal employees being terminated and also you should see a lot of the stores around you cleaning up and getting everything up and running perfectly again. This isn't to justify equipment that doesn't work. My store is just as busy as any other, but I manage to keep everything running in tip top shape, at least for an hour or so before a customer decides to play with buttons. As for the speaker aisle itself...yeah its a bad idea. I had been against it from the begining and am still fighting to put the speakers back into a speaker room. My store has found a way around that aisle though. We have most of the Klipsch packages set up in different areas of the hometheater department in 5.1 configurations. Also that former speaker room will (hopefully, if I can convince my management) be turned into three living room pods with two of them running Klipsch equipment. This isn't really something all stores will be doing... in fact I haven't had much luck convincing my superiours to even do it. Unfortunately I am just a peon...a peon with experience marketing entertainment ( I work in minor league baseball during the summer) but a peon none the less so I doubt my talking will do much. Oh and Amy, if Klipsch is looking for someone to do trainings in the MI area or to do any type of liason work with Best Buy I am always looking for opportunities to get out of retail. Matt

Brayton, Dude you know we run into that crap everyday. (for those who don't know Brayton and I work together in the same store). Just remember that the Bose people are what make our day enjoyable and create great stories to tell each other whenever our shifts happen to intermingle :-) Matt

sadie, The sub-12 puts out some serious sound. Putting it into a closet with a closed door will not kill the sound. In fact in the last house I lived in, my roommates and I had a KSW-10. We built a home theater room with a drop down screen for a projector. Because of the way the room was designed we put the sub in a small closet to the left of the seats. Even when in the closet the sub was enough to rattle the walls. I do mean that litterally as during Spiderman 2 when Octavious first starts his machine the sub rattled our DVD mounts off the wall. Also covering it with a cloth really wouldn't affect the sound at all. Think of it this way. That 12" sub has a 650 watt amp (assuming you have the Sub-12 and not the KSW-12) in it. The kids driving down the street usually have something around a 10" or 12" with about a 400 watt amp and even with the sub in the car you can hear them from a mile away. So unless anyone has a technical reason why not to that I don't know about I wouldnt' worry about the sub in the closet. Matt

Ok couple of things to respond to. First of all thanks everyone for their suggestions. I totally forgot about U-571 and the depth charge scene. That was one of the movies that made me really want to get into home theater. CAS - yeah I know this is a fundamental question. Keep in mind though the level of customer that walk through my door. Most have never had a home theater system before and if they have it was one of those HTIBs. Your caliber of customer doesn't come to my store much. Hence I don't get questions like this all that often (actually never in 5 years). Its because of this fact that the best sales guys/girls in home theater at best buy have gotten good at selling the experience more then the product. Even when I get someone who knows their stuff by the nature of my store they are the grab and go customer that frankly I don't need to spend a lot of time on. A customer who knows just what they want usually only wants me around to check stock and I respect that. Also I am trying to learn more about my product....hence why I am here :-) Lavinius - Thanks for the rundown. Also I am honest with my customers, which is why my equipment is not returned much. Also yes I do recomend higher end cables, but only if it makes sense. I understand that spending $150 on an optical cable for a 5 foot run is nuts. Similar with DVI and HDMI. Only reason I upgrade people on optical cables is because I have found the connection on some of the cheaper cables don't stay in place all that well (hence why I have to jiggle the optical connection on my xbox all the time) mtber101 - no we aren't commision...at all. What I meant by sacrificing revenue was sacrificing the revenue for the store. and finally... JeffDurbin - you say to recommend to my customers to shop somewhere else for home theater. Sorry but not everyone has a few thousand to sink into a home theater system. Best Buy doesn't target your audience. They will never ever win you over. Most of your type might even avoid Magnolia Hi-Fi simply because that store is owned by Best Buy. They target the average person..hence we carry average person home theater. Frankly I'm suprised as hell we carry Klipsch, but hey that just gives me something to compete with the borderline crowd that wants to put a bit of cash into a nicer setup. Again everyone thanks and if there is anything else you could suggest that would help my out I would appreciate it. Matt

Ok first I wanted to know what DVDs you would all suggest that really take advantage of Klipsch. Now I know there are the obvious ones .like Star Wars and such, but are there some less then obvious ones outside of the Sci-Fi and Action genres. The reason I am asking this is because when I sell a big home theater package I like to give the customer a few DVDs that really make them love their HT system. Not everyone is a big sci-fi or action fan, so I was looking for some dramas or even some comedies I do this for two reasons. First is that I value my rep as one of the best audio salesmen in Best Buy ( I know doesn't say much, but I'm still proud of it), also because if the first movie a customer puts into their DVD player knocks their socks off then they won't return anything. Its worth the twenty or forty dollar hit to my revenue to keep a $3000 system from being returned, because the person wasn't blown away by it. The second thing I was wondering was what would happen if you took a 6 ohm speaker and plugged it into a receiver running 8 ohms. Also vice-versa, what would happen if a 6 ohm receiver was plugged into a 8 ohm speaker. I figured that doing either wouldn't be good for the speaker, but how bad would it be? Would it kill the speaker very soon? Would it sound like crap? With a lot of people having bought those HTIB pieces of crap a couple years ago I'm starting to get a lot of customers who want to upgrade. Obviously you would want to start from scratch with a new receiver and speakers, but it makes my job easier if I can tell them they really HAVE to start from scratch. Matt

Unfortunately I live in an apartment so my system has been named the "Noise Complaint" theater. Matt

I don't suppose anyone on the forum lives somewhere around Grand Rapids, MI and has a set of Lascalas. I am not looking to buy them, but frankly I would like to hear them. I work for Best Buy, but that is more out of necessity then for love of what they sell. (although you haven't lived until you have gotten the chance to break someone out of the "bbbbbboooooooossssssseeeee" trance most people are in when they walk in the door). Frankly I don't think I will ever get a chance to own such an amazing pair of speakers and was hoping to atleast have a moment of heaven. Oh and I would bring the pizza :-)

Hey, first wanted to say thanks to everyone who has posted on here. I work for Best Buy in Grand Rapids, MI and now I (as well as fellow forum poster Brayton) are THE audio guys to talk to in any of the Best Buy stores in GR :-) Mostly thanks to what you all have been writing about. Second kde: You were wondering about how Directv looks on an HDTV even if you weren't running Hidef. It actually looks pretty good, because Directv is still a digital signal, even if you aren't running hidef. We have a 55" sony LCD projection running with Directv in our projo room. Even when it isn't bringing in HD broadcasts it still looks very nice. Your local channels over Directv will most likely be a different monster altogether. Most of the time local channels over the dish don't look all that nice simply because of the quality of the signal being sent to Directv from the local channels, BUT if you are going to run HD local channels using an off-air antennae plugged into a hi-def directv box then that would solve bad local picture quality. Next you were wondering about plasma versus a projector. I at one point owned a projector and it was great. I mean get something with a really high lumens and it is viewable even if there is a bit of ambient light. Personally though if it is AT ALL possible to fit a tv with about a 16 or 17 inch depth go for the SXRD Song projection. I would take that over any plasmas at the same price range. It is a beautiful set and I have to hold myself back from humping the tv every time I look at it. The 1080P it can display (even though it doesn't accept a 1080P source) is fricking gorgeous. Not to mention the 400 dollar price drop the tv just had. Really plasma versus projection comes down to eaze versus size. The projector you have to be more cautious about the room, but you also don't get as big of a screen with a plasma. Hope that helped a bit.