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Getting my dad setup, small budget. (1 Viewer)

Helltech

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Hey guys! Was looking around these forums and decided to make an account here, everyone seem pretty knowledgeable so I thought this would be a good place to start. Honestly it seems like all advice here is super high-end and enthusiast oriented so I hope you won't find my question out of place. Anyway my dad has had the same speakers and reciever for years and years and years, they worked great fine for what he needed. But a storm killed them. Hes on a $250 dollar budget. He went to Best Buy and the guy told him to get Samsung HT-4500 500w for 215 bucks. Well he went looking around online after buying it and quickly found out he could get the Samsung HT4100 1000w for the same price and took it back. Then he asked me for help. Well I'm going to be honest, I'm a head-fi guy. I don't have a home theater setup, I have a headphone and computer setup, but he asked me regardless because he knew I dumped thousands into that. I really don't know much about home theater at all. He likes his speakers, and doesn't need a BluRay player or any of that stuff. He just need a good subwoofer and a receiver for about 250 bucks (closer to 200 without killer performance would be awesome). He doesn't need all that fancy stuff (he doesn't even have internet). His TV is a Visio E471VLE, and he has 2 channel Polk Audio speakers (I don't know the exact ones, but they don't need to be replaced they have a good enough sound for him). Primary use is TV and Movies 90 percent, and 10 percent music. I honestly can't shake him off the "but its 1000w where else am I going to get 1000w for that price".

I was looking at a mixture of these, but I don't even know if they will work together or hook up to his TV easily. I really could do a bunch of research but I figure I'd ask the experts. Tell me what you guys think. Was looking at;

Onkyo TX-8020
Yamaha R-S202BL

and

Yamaha YST-SW012

But like I said, I have no idea if those are easily compatible, or even good, or if they would hook up to his TV easily. Appreciate the help!
 

David Willow

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Which speakers does he have? What was his original receiver that got blasted by the storm?

BTW - The power number is pretty much meaningless in this context. If the system truly put out 1000 watts he could power a small arena.
 

Helltech

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Which speakers does he have? What was his original receiver that got blasted by the storm?

BTW - The power number is pretty much meaningless in this context. If the system truly put out 1000 watts he could power a small arena.

Trust me I understand that second part, haha. Uhm I honestly don't know, they were 100 dollars apiece and they are polks. I'll try to get ahold of him tomorrow. It was some Pioneer receiver from like the late 90s or 80s. Worked well enough lol.
 

Jason Charlton

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$250 is really pushing the limits for a receiver-based system.

Your best bets will probably be at Accessories4Less.com. They have this Yamaha system that lacks a subwoofer (but the receiver has a pre-out, so you could combine that with this 8" Dayton sub from Parts-Express. That comes up to about $300, but would be a decent system.

For about the same, A4L has this Yamaha system with full 5.1 speakers.

Obviously, neither of these takes into account the existing 2 speakers, but for home theater, you really don't want to mix brands/models across the front 3, so the best way to use the existing speakers would be as surrounds. However, even going through A4L, I don't know that you'll be able to find a receiver, front 3 speakers and subwoofer for $250. It may be worth a look, though.
 

Jason Charlton

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Mixing brands as you describe is perfectly fine (most of us do it) - there's no real reason to stick with one brand across the board - and often times you get better products by mixing and matching.

In home theater, however, it's only important for the front 3 speakers to match. Doing so ensures that the entire front soundstage has the same tonal qualities for sounds that pan from left to right across the center. This is called timbre-matching.

It just so happened, in this case, that the best prices for receiver, speakers, and sub all happened to be Yamaha components. :)
 

Helltech

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Mixing brands as you describe is perfectly fine (most of us do it) - there's no real reason to stick with one brand across the board - and often times you get better products by mixing and matching.

In home theater, however, it's only important for the front 3 speakers to match. Doing so ensures that the entire front soundstage has the same tonal qualities for sounds that pan from left to right across the center. This is called timbre-matching.

It just so happened, in this case, that the best prices for receiver, speakers, and sub all happened to be Yamaha components. :)

Well he cant afford another set of speakers.
 

ArmSC

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It sounds like he needs some kind of AVR (digital inputs) and a powered subwoofer. Lets see what we can do.

AVR - Yamaha HTR-3067 refurb $160 - Basic AVR with no 4k support but it will get him some sound.

Subwoofer - Yamaha SW012 refurb $85

This is about as low as you're going to get for an AVR and sub.
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Yeah, something along the lines of that last suggestion of refurbed entry-level Yamaha AVR and refurbed Sub would probably make the most sense in this case.

You probably don't need that much power to drive those Polk speakers for what he needs, especially if you'd be offloading the bass to the Sub -- bass is what usually needs the extra power most.

IF anything, I'd probably try looking for a bigger, more powerful Sub and spend as little as possible on the AVR under the circumstance. Maybe consider buying a used, very outdated AVR very cheaply off ebay, craigslist or something since he won't actually be doing surround sound, etc. As long as the AVR can do a decent job downmixing DD 5.1 to 2.1 and maybe handle switching between a couple basic HDMI connections, that's probably all he'll need.

Not sure how low you can go on such a used, outdated AVR though. I just quickly checked eBay for my old Yamaha RX-V663, and a perfectly fine, used one sometimes goes as low as $50-70 in bidding (though that might take some effort), but usually also costs $30-40 in shipping, especially since the seller probably won't cover any part of the shipping costs like a big online dealer would -- A4L apparently only charges $9 to ship the Yamaha AVR via Fedex Ground.

IF I were you, I'd probably convince your dad to buy that refurbed Yamaha AVR or something similar and then chip in some early birthday/Christmas/etc present $$$ to help him get a better Sub than that 100W, 8" Yamaha. Maybe something like this Emotiva Ultra 10... though it would seriously blow the budget (as it eats the entire original budget by itself):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Emotiva-Ultra-10-SUB-POWER-SUBWOOFER-/152120208871

And oh, welcome to the forum... :welcome:

_Man_
 
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