markeroonie Posted April 5, 2011 Posted April 5, 2011 Decisions, decisions. What to do? From the start, the easy and cheap option is to do nothing, and wait till something gives up the ghost, and perhaps just replace stuff incrimentally. However that also means that there will be no resale value to be offset against buying new stuff. Anyway, here is what I have and am thinking of changing... 42" Hitachi HD plasma monitor, 7+ years old, still going strong but the fan is pretty noisy - thinking about replacing with a 50" Samsung Rotel RSP-976 pre-amp. Works fine but it annoys me that there is no onscreen display when in componant mode, Thinking about replacing this with a Yamaha receiver, perhaps the base model Advange this would be used as a pre-amp. PS3 - currently being used mostly as a blu-ray player and HD tuner, could sell and replace with dedicated $300ish BR player Topfield TF5000PVRt - working fine but only standard def, thinking about replacing it with the new Topfield quad HiDef tuner with 1 terabyte HD Tuner - Denon TU255. Works fine but could sell since the Yamaha will have a tuner inbuilt. Arcam DV88 - working fine, doesn't get used much anymore, and if replaced with bluray player, cold move on to a new home This is what I have and intend to keep... 3 x ME power-amps driving 5 speakers B&W speakers, CM4, CM2 and Cm center KEF sub So there we have it, I figure replacing the screen, PVR and pre-amp might cost around $3k. I might be able to recoup up to $1k if I sell the screen, dvd player, PVR, tuner, pre-amp and PS3 comments, thoughts, suggestions? thanks in advance
dirty Posted April 5, 2011 Posted April 5, 2011 Also look at Panasonic for Plasma, unless you're going LCD. Love the Panas never had a problem with ours and always recommend them to friends and if they have purchased one it puts a smile on their face, unlike friends who go against the advice and purchase LG and the like and try telling me how good it is, until something goes wrong, a friend recently had their LG back to the shop 3 times in the past year!!! Not that you are looking at them anyway but there is no substitute for quality and prices are very similiar across the board now. Paid $3850 for ours 4ish years ago for HD model, Full HD can be had from $1500 now, oh dear .............. Yamaha Amp looks fine, not many bad ones now, a few good recent models come up here regularly. If PS3 is not being used as a gaming console it could be moved on but it does play Blueray and DVD, so you could also keep it, we are happy with ours. TV's and Receivers now eliminate the need for a tuner so out she goes, but not much value there. Anyway rambled on long enuf and probably don't know what I'm talking about, so good luck and all the best in your search. Homework is the key. dirty.
Batty Posted April 6, 2011 Posted April 6, 2011 I agree with dirty on the Panasonic Plasma. I paid $2700 for ours a couple of years ago, full HD 46" jobbie.
firefly0071 Posted April 6, 2011 Posted April 6, 2011 I purchased my Sony 40 inch LCD TV ($3.2k) plus Sony HT system ($2k) four years ago. Sadly it's 5-10 year upgrade cycle. Don't have the money to upgrade too regularly.
dirty Posted April 6, 2011 Posted April 6, 2011 Either do I, which is a shame considering the lovely 65 inch jobs out there at the mo'. dirty.
Telecine Posted April 6, 2011 Posted April 6, 2011 (edited) My suggestion would be to replace the screen and purchase the new AVR. Offload the Rotel pre-amp and Arcam DVD player. They will still be worth something. Keep the PS3, it is a good BluRay player and can stream media files as well. You could add a PlayTV tuner to it for a little over $100 and tuner it into a HD PVR. Not up to the Topfield you mentioned but a cheap upgrade. There are lots of offerings coming from ISPs for little money as they move into the IPTV space. Wait for one of them. Move the old screen and PVR to the bedroom. You won't get much for them if you sell them. Keep the tuner as it will be worth nothing and may be better than the one in the AVR. They won't be turning off FM broadcasts anytime soon, if ever. That should give you a similar net position and you will have a bedroom system. Edited April 6, 2011 by Telecine
markeroonie Posted April 6, 2011 Author Posted April 6, 2011 Thanks guys. Thus far, I have decided to get a 50" 3d Samsung since Bing Lee are running them out at $1200 A friend is taking the old 42" off my hands for $300 Next, as soon as funds permit, it will be a Yamaha RX-V1067 to go to work as a pre-amp, also about $1200. It appears that the RX-V is almost identical to the RX-A1000 I agree, the arcam will be next to go, since i have digitised all my cd's so no longer need a player, and the PS3 might as well stay for dvd's and blue ray. Any suggestions on what it might be worth? I have the PlayTV option on the PS3, but it sucks, can't record more than one channel at a time, and I have had all sort of dropout and freezing issues, whereas the Topfield has been perfect for the past 5 years or so. It's only drawback is that it isn't hi-def. I can get a 500gig toppy for around $450 with quad tuning (however that works, given it only has 2 tuners) Will compare the tuner with that in the receiver, I mostly listen to FBI these days, so not sure how much difference it will make, I also like the idea of reducing the number of componants in the system. Never watch tv in the bedroom, thats for sleep and you know what
peacewise Posted April 7, 2011 Posted April 7, 2011 I'll recap, You've digitised your music (hopefully lossless format), you watch tv, dvd/blurays and listen to music and are keen to reduce number of components. Have you considered the HTPC path? Another consideration could be that whichever amp (or indeed bluray) you decide to go for could have a usb input, so you can have your music on a usb stick. I recall that some blurays or amps have networking capabilities nowadays, that could be another way to source your digitised music from whatever place it's stored.
markeroonie Posted April 7, 2011 Author Posted April 7, 2011 (edited) Yup, all my cd's are now flacs haven't really gone down the HTPC path, but could stream from my laptop direct to the yamaha as far as i can tell. this is what yamaha say... Network audio streaming Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy in the ways they store music. These days it is not uncommon to have entire music libraries stored on a computer or network attached storage (NAS). Yamaha’s new RX-V1067 takes this into the account by allowing you to stream your audio (inc. FLAC, WAV, and WMA Lossless, ex. DRM tracks) to your home theatre and onto your second zone if required. with the screen, the ps3 and the amp all being networked, it's just a case of which way i go, i think.the amp will take wav and mp3 straight from a usb too Edited April 7, 2011 by markeroonie
peacewise Posted April 7, 2011 Posted April 7, 2011 I like the idea of a high capacity usb key plugged into the amp, it's efficient, just having the amp on, rather than a pc/ps3 and amp on.
Bus_Boy Posted April 8, 2011 Posted April 8, 2011 How are you finding the new TV? I bought my 50'' Samsung at about the time when 3D was really kicking off, and i was able to get it down to $800. Since then prices have dropped down a lot on the 3D models, $1200 for the equivelant version with 3D seems like a bargain to me. I've been considering getting one for a while now, but i've heard mixed feedback not only about 3D in general, but also with regards to the more cheaper "entry level" makes.
markeroonie Posted April 9, 2011 Author Posted April 9, 2011 finally got it up and running, also managed to mount it on the wall. used my reference dvd to set up the picture settings, and bugger me, they were about spot on out of the box. have an audio delay via the stb and ps3, cant fix that till i get the new amp picture quality is lovely, even the standard def from my topfield via componant looks amazing, can't wait to get a blu-ray disk, however don't have the ps3 audio set up for digital yet, once again, will wait till i get the new amp, i only want to pull everything out and rewire the once haven't tried the 3d, what wasn't really why i got it, so will have to wait for a while to report back. am now on the hunt for the yamaha rx-v 1067 (for around $1200), that will have hdmi etc and audio lag settings afaik.
dirty Posted April 9, 2011 Posted April 9, 2011 Just popped in to see how you were faring in this never ending pursuit. TV ....... tick, well done. Hope it all works out in the end. dirty.
markeroonie Posted April 9, 2011 Author Posted April 9, 2011 Yamah RX-V1067..... tick got that for $1200 too and with most of the stuff using hdmi, much less dicking around with cables!
markeroonie Posted April 9, 2011 Author Posted April 9, 2011 Sunday update. Yesterday it was one of the easier hookups I have ever done, and just about everything worked first time. The auto speaker setup with the mic worked a treat, and looked about the same settings as I have used in the past. Watched Mama Mia and some of Alexander (DVD'S), interesting that Alexander had a mucher biger lipsync problem, but easily fixed. Audio and vision on both were great. Next to get hold of some Blu-Ray discs
peacewise Posted April 10, 2011 Posted April 10, 2011 pics please when you've got it all set up. Nice specced amp.
markeroonie Posted April 10, 2011 Author Posted April 10, 2011 mid morning update... been playing around with a usb stick, have some mps's in one folder, and some flac albums in another, and they all are recognised and playing! I know it was possible, but seeing and hearing it in action is awesme. Next to see if a usb hdd (with no power supply) works as well, since i have about 80gig of flac music waiting to get played now the CD's are packed away
markeroonie Posted April 10, 2011 Author Posted April 10, 2011 pics... [ATTACH=CONFIG]30647[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]30646[/ATTACH]
markeroonie Posted April 14, 2011 Author Posted April 14, 2011 Thursday update... now have a 500gig hard drive attached with about 100g worth of flac music, sounds great, haven't done a back to back comparason, will do so before i sell the arcam dvd player, just got to unearth a cd that has been digitised. tonight watched RED (retired, extremely dangerous) with bruce willis et all.... awesome picture and sound, but a fair bit of lipsync issues as the movie went on
markeroonie Posted April 14, 2011 Author Posted April 14, 2011 Friday update... Watched RED, with Bruce Willis and a stellar cast, BluRay disk, absobloodylutley fantastic. Then thought I should give the PS3 a spin as a gamer, so fired up Call of Duty - Black Ops. first up it wanted to download an update, fair enough, then WTF, the screen is all blurry! Oh, whats that at the corner of the screen, a message for me to turn on my 3D glasses. I didnt even know that the game was 3D! It works fairly well, though the weight of the Samsung glasses, plus my glasses, started to gt a bit heavy after a little while, so am not sure if it's something I will use too much.
markeroonie Posted April 27, 2011 Author Posted April 27, 2011 Grrrr, update, screen now has a vertical line of dead pixels, almost dead center. Samsung will send someone out in the next few days and hopefully will fix it within a week. Happy update, got the Topfield TRF7160, nice pic and easier to use than the old one...and that was pretty easy to use. Now have just 3 x hdmi cables connecting 4 componants, instead of ????????? Almost takes the fun out of it LOL
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