tmassey

Wow, what a wonderful find! I will have to start keeping an eye on craigslist for some of these. Thanks for showing the pic with the RC-64 as well, those have the perfect width. Beautiful pictures and theater room as well! And

I consider one of the most important aspects of a good home theater to be the seating. Unfortunately I have a huge problem with recliners. I am not sure it is the way most of them are built or a family that could possible (probably) be a little too rough on the furniture. All of the recliners in my house, except one (which is where I usually sit, leading to proof that it is in fact the roughness of my family on the furniture), are bent and do not recline right or take a lot of effort to get them to recline, or simply are just broken to the point they don't recline. I am wondering if anyone on this forum has much experience in this area. I am looking for something that is really durable but comfortable as well. I do really like the couches with the individual arm-wrests/cup holders for everyone that is also semi-circular, so people aren't having to turn their heads to see the TV. Something like http://www.hometheaterseating.com/home-theater-loungers/leather/pavillionblackleatherhometheatergroup.cfm would be incredible, however I am not familiar at all with the brand of home theater seating in general as I've spent the majority of my last few weeks researching speakers, amps, and pre/pros. So if anyone would like to share their experiences/problems in this area, anything you can lend would be great. I am sure there are quite a few others here interested as well.

I have an RW-10d I think sounds pretty good. I think you could probably find a used one for right in your price range. It would be a pretty good option for you if you really needed it now, but as was said before, it would be well worth your time if you could save your pennies for an RSW-10d. In my, unfortunately somewhat limited, experience, a sub is something you should spend some money on. It really brings the entire experience to life.

Don't try it just on my account. The vast majority of the improvements I am hearing is going from the lower end of the icon series (which is already low) to the higher end or the Reference series. That, I am sure, caused my previous settings in my AVR to be extremely far from ideal, so really, any recalibration would have been great. If I knew more about what I was doing, I would probably buy a real SPL meter and set the speakers myself. For anyone that does know what they are doing, best case scenario would be running auto-MCACC would give you a pretty good baseline to start from. Once I move again in a few months and am able to get a pair of surrounds and set everything up in the new place and not move the speakers ever again, I will probably pay a professional to come out and calibrate them for me, as well as the TV.

I solved my mic issue, well kind of. I went to radio shack and talked to an employee there. He had a pretty good suggestion. He sold me a mic and the 1/4" -> 1/8" adapter to fit my receiver and just told me to be careful with it and bring it back tomorrow and get my money back. Thought it was a pretty good idea till I got home. For some reason, it kept telling my subwoofer was too quiet. I turned it up a little and still too quiet so I turned it up all the way... and STILL too quiet, and I apparently scared my family because it was so loud. Anyway after thinking about it for a second, I looked on the back of the mic box and it's only rated for 50hz-15khz. Anyway, the only way to continue was to turn off the sub in the avr settings and run through the auto-setup again and this time it made it all the way through. If I thought it sounded good before, it sounds fantastic now. The center speaker no longer stands out and blends in perfectly, and now I've got the 'wall of voodoo' effect going on. Only thing left to do now is go back and return my mic and see if they have one that can pick up on the lower frequencies or try and do it manually with the spl meter on my phone. And for anyone curious on the issue, any mic seems to be fine for adjusting AVRs, just make sure the frequency response will work for you. Again, thanks to everyone for all the help. I am now a very happy owner of some very fine Klipsch speakers.

Hey Scrappydue, did you ever find the RS-62s you were looking for? If not and you still have the RS-42s, how do you like them paired with the rest of your setup? I have been looking everywhere for a pair of 62s and they seem hard to come by, so I might have to go with the 52s or 42s depending on what kind of deals come up. Wanted to get your input as we have very similar setups before I go in on something. I put a few ads up on craigslist for the pair of VF-35s I have, 4 VS-14s, and an RC-62 so that should get me the 42s or 52s and close to the 62s if they sell. I could probably put an ad up in the Garage Sale section, but not sure if it's worth the shipping and handling. Most around here aren't too interested in the Best Buy Icon stuff. I usually try to sell for around half the retail, but no bites yet.

It's a little off topic but I just can't resist... If you find anything that can protect against '1.21 GIGAWATTS!', please let me know.

That is a very good question Brac. I am sure if they do, I could see it being an extremely long, drawn-out process. And how do you even prove your equipment was hooked up to the device. If the device is designed to sacrifice itself to save the rest of the equipment, that tends to prove that any equipment that did get damaged was not hooked up to the device at the time.

I think the real protection comes with the gaurentee. I am not sure how reliable it was because it was found on the internet, but doing a quick search, Belkin has a $500,000 connected equipment warranty for the lifetime of the product, APC a $150,000 warranty, and Monster's is $400,000. That is where the true protection lies, and even $150,000 should be plenty unless you are somehow wiring your entire house through it. I would go with the company that has the best customer service and that you think would be less of a hassle to get your money should anything go wrong. Another thing I considered was the ability to turn the lights off. I don't like bright shiny things sitting under the TV when I am trying to watch. I am pretty sure they all can be dimmed/turned off though.

You have a pretty nice setup already, but unless you just didn't list it, you don't seem to have a power conditioner protecting your investments. I'm not sure if my house got hit by lightning or if it was really close, but it blew every TV I had except for the one behind my power conditioner. It destroyed it, but it did save the rest of my equipment, so now I'll never go without, especially with all my recent upgrades.

No, the cords on top of the VF-35 is a cord I use to connect my headset to my xbox 360 remote so I can talk on xbox live. Let me look around a little bit more after work today for the mic and I'll get back to you on that. There are a few more places that I think it could be. That is the correct one as far as I can tell. It looks exactly like the one I lost. Thanks a ton for the offer!

Just met up with sanjiyan69 and got a new toy. I haven't seen Return of the King in a while so I decided to watch it to test it out. It, as expected, is a huge improvement over the RC-62 I had previously. It really anchors down the soundstage and it has no problems keeping up with the RF-83s. The only problem is it is almost too much of an improvement, and the center now comes through a little too much and I lost my MCACC mic that came with my receiver. I suppose it might even be the movie, it just seems that the Dialog in the Return of the King comes through just a tad loud compared to all the music and sound effects. I have made so many changes as of late though, this really comes as no surprise that this did happen. If anyone knows of a place where I can get a new mic or which mics will work even, please let me know. I've looked in the usual places, but am having no luck. I hate asking anyone at Best Buy. I think most of the time, they try to seem more knowledgeable than they really are to make a sale. No offense if anyone is reading this that works at Best Buy, I have just had a few bad experiences. The model number of the receiver is VSX-1018-AH

Yeah hopefully. 95 isnt ideal but should still be absolutely fine for now. I did find an rc-64 another user on this forum is selling that i could pick up locally. I would really like to get an umc-1 but that would force me to get another 2 channel amp if i wanted to go for a 7.1 setup. Along with the actual cost of the speakers, im looking at probably 1500 for something that there isnt a lot of content for. So for now my priority is the rc64 and then probaby a pair of rs62s and a better bluray player. Right now ive got probably the lowest end possible. What do you guys think of Dolby ProLogic ii z i think its called. I dont see many setups accounting for 9 channels.

Wow, I became extremely interested in that, I was not expecting that hefty of a price tag though. Very cool though! I would love to demo one of those.

Sounds to me like we pretty much covered all the bases. Maybe contact Denon tech support. I am pretty lost as to what the issue could be.

It's too much of a coincidence for both of your two surround channels to not be working and everything else is just fine, but that got me thinking. Whatever you are trying to play may not be taking advantage of your surrounds. On my Pioneer, there is a sound preset called 'Extended Stereo' that pushes sound through all channels regardless of the type of source. If you are trying to play a CD, try to change your presets to use something like 'Concert Hall' or anything that would push out sound to the surrounds. If you are playing a DVD or Blu-Ray, before the movie starts, go into settings and make sure you choose Dolby 5.1 or anything that would use surrounds. Hopefully this is your problem is it's a very easy fix! Good luck and I hope this helped.

Yeah, it's possible when you ran Audysee the first time that it recognized there were no surrounds and just turned them off completely. However it seems when you run it again, it should recheck. When it is checking the surrounds, is it skipping them completely or does it seem like its trying to play something and waiting for a response?

They always look so much sexier with no grilles.

Beechnut, I think you will have an even better experience. Right now, I can't even imagine what it would sound like having an RC-64 and a few surrounds as well. I haven't really had the chance to put it through the paces because I just got it a few hours ago, but so far, the price per performance is incredible on the XPA-5. My one worry was space between the top of it and the glass above it on my entertainment center is only maybe half an inch so there isn't a lot of airflow, but so far, it seems to be running very cool. I still have no idea what I am going to do with the VF-35s. Maybe put them on surround duty until I can sell them. With any luck, selling those as well as the RC-62 should get me pretty close to an RC-64 without losing too much pocket money. As of right now, the RC-64 on audiogon has 20 hours to go. With any luck, the price will drop for me and ill be able to pick it up for cheap.

The XPA-5 came in today and I got it all hooked up. I almost had a disaster as when I was carrying the box, the handles built into the box and ripped, but thanks to some quick reaction time and a good back, I was able to recover. The thing is a lot heavier than it looks. Anyway, I am impressed! First song I listened to was 'Time' by Pink Floyd. I am not eve sure how to explain it, the soundstage is so much more defined, the lows are deeper , mids are nice and crisp. The volume is now just the volume. All the details come through regardless of how quiet it is, I had no idea it was possible to run the volume this low and still have the entire room full of sound, if that makes sense. These speakers really came alive. Now I just have to wait for the family to leave so I can crank it a little and maybe watch a movie. So wanted to thank all of you for all your input, it has been extremely informative and helpful.

If you have a device that supports DLNA or UPnP (Game consoles, Set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, Networked TVs, phones and tablets, pretty much anything will work), you can use TVersity. It is a free media server that acts over your home network. It is very easy to setup, just run the install and add the folders containing the music you want and it's done. It streams and transcodes your media to a format usable by whatever will be picking it up on the fly. That way you can skip the Apple TV and just use iTunes or whatever other ripping program you want to use. I have it on my laptop. It seems to use very little computer resources and anyone on my local network can listen. There is a paid version of TVersity, but the only difference is the paid will allow you to stream any content from a website that uses flash to play video. Also just looking up the site, they are now working on 'AirFlinger' which is apparently an open source alternative to AirPlay as well.

Your grandpa sounded like a pretty groovy dude! I am also glad to hear you are keeping them, I died a little on the inside when you said they have been mainly used as furniture.

I so wish I could! I kind of broke the bank with my recent spontaneous speaker/amp purchases. It is a good looking speaker though! I am dieing to get one asap. Thanks for the extra set of eyes on this stuff.

Oh for sure. I bought a mini-fridge for my living room in my last house and had to move it just because when the to it kicked on, it got pretty annoying. And it only ever seemed to happen when things were quiet. It's getting to the point where I find it annoying during movies when the furnace or AC kick on as well. Anyway, here is what I got so far. (RF-83s L and R. RC-62 Center) Also shown is the VF-35s I had previously which are currently not hooked up and being put to shame. At first I really liked the black veneer, but the cherry has really grown on me, I hope I can find the RC-64 in cherry as well. It also goes nicely with Samsung's 'Red Touch of Color' on the TV. Please ignore the bright yellow walls, they are yellow, but not THAT yellow It's getting a little off topic, but talking about external noises like the hum from the amps, or hopefully the lack thereof, has anyone had much experience with QuietRock drywall or equivalent, and if so, is it cost-effective? Maybe this deserves it's own thread if it doesn't have one already.

No, I'm not in the military. I should be okay on the size but I should probably do some measuring just incase, might have to end up making myself a cabinet. Thanks for the heads up And thanks for the hum warning as well. Nothing worse than sitting down and watching a movie only to have a quiet scene come up and you are distracted by an annoying hum. Their return policy seems very customer friendly which gives me a little peace of mind.