Quite a few people offered input with regard to selecting equipment for our new home entertainment system while others simply wanted to know the choices we eventually made. Consequently, the purpose of this presentation is to share what we’ve done and say "Thanks" to those who helped us.

From an audio-visual standpoint the Great Room where the system was to reside presented some considerable challenges. First, there was no ideal place for a large screen TV and, second, the room was not well suited at all for good acoustics. In terms of TV placement we had designed the room to house a unit that could be concealed behind doors in a built-in cabinet and when in use pulled out and swiveled on a heavy duty turntable. That was OK for a 34" TV, but totally unworkable for anything larger – very shortsighted of us when we custom designed the house and had it built 10 years ago. And there really was no other suitable location in the room other than that corner in which the TV cabinet was situated. In terms of a sound system, the main speakers needed to flank the TV to contribute their part to a successful surround setup, but there was barely room to get a 5 foot separation which was a challenge from a stereo effect standpoint. Acoustically the room is a nightmare with its two story ceiling, one wall essentially a two story window, a large fireplace faced with marble, a huge entranceway from an adjoining hall and a large open second floor balcony.

The "solution" for the TV dilemma was to reengineer the cabinet by removing the middle set of doors, selecting a TV which completely covered the width and most of the height of the resulting opening and installing a heavy duty, very versatile wall mount in the back of the cabinet for the TV. And of course in the process of preparing the cabinet we recognized we weren’t happy with the current state of its finish and that of its companion on the other side of the fireplace. These were custom made from furniture grade maple and originally stained with an ivory color "wash" to match the painted enamel trim in the room and finished with polyurethane. Over the years the wood grain had slowly changed color and the polyurethane had developed a slightly yellowish tinge which together were not pleasant. Consequently, we decided to paint the cabinets the same as the rest of the trim and that turned out to be a major undertaking – quite an effort involved to do it right!  The interior of the section of the cabinet where the doors were removed was painted a satin black.

Apart from size, our TV selection criteria pretty much centered around wanting an LCD type that afforded the highest quality image in terms of our eyes. As is said, "It’s all in the eye of the beholder." For an AV Receiver we wanted very high quality, good power and the ability to have it drive speakers in different areas of the house with each able to have independently selected sources that could be used simultaneously. Another high priority was to be able to listen to streaming radio via the internet with the system. For speakers, again we wanted high quality, something which would overcome our lack of space for large floor standing models, and deal as effectively as possible with the peculiarities of our Great Room.

Here’s the equipment we selected and installed:

	TV	Samsung		LN52A650
	TV Mount	OmniMount		1 UCL-X main mount
				1 EAR-C center speaker mount kit for the UCL-X
	AV Receiver	Denon		AVR-3808
	Speakers	Klipsch		2 XL-23 for main front
				1 XL-12 for center front
				2 XB-10 w/ XFS floor stands for rear surround
				1 RW-10d powered subwoofer
	AV Receiver	Pioneer		VSX-918V for Zone 3 *
	Blu-ray	Panasonic		DMP-BD30K
	Universal remote	Logitech		Harmony One
	IR extender	Various		Allows remote control for garage speakers **
	Cables	Monster		All highest performance available in this make

* This additional amplifier was needed just to take the Zone 3 preamp feed from the Denon 3808 to power the Bose speakers in the garage.  Initially a low end, basic Sony STR-DG520 was acquired for this purpose, but it unpredictably kept going into some sort of a deep sleep when not in use for a few days and could only be "awakened" by unplugging it from the AC source and then reconnecting it.  It was replaced with the Pioneer VSX-918V which is probably considerable overkill for the purpose for which it's being used, but it has performed flawlessly.

** This was used to allow  the Pioneer AV Receiver that powers the garage speakers to be mounted inside the same cabinet in the Great Room housing the other home entertainment equipment while providing remote control capability in the garage.  A wall mounted IR sensor was placed in the garage, and it was wired to a powered connecting block which in turn feeds an emitter for the Pioneer AV Receiver.  Thus the remote control for the Pioneer unit can be used in the garage to control all its functions as if it were in the same room with line of sight operation.  A similar setup to control the Denon 3808 Zone 2 is being investigated for use on the deck (a weatherproof sensor arrangement is needed).

Existing equipment integrated with the preceding:

	Speakers	Bose		Set of 161's in the garage
	Speakers	Bose		Set of 251's on the deck
	CD	Sony		200 CD "jukebox"
	VCR	Sony
	Tape	Technics		Dual tape play / record unit
	XM Tuner	PolkAudio		XRt12
	Cable Box	Scientific Atl.		Explorer 4250HDC

So far we’ve been extremely pleased with the new setup after the replacement of the Sony AV Receiver. Among a  few additional highlights worth mentioning is the OminMount configuration for the TV that allows one to be able to pull the TV further forward and then stand between the back of it and the front of the cabinet which gives extremely easy access to those AV components and their connections sitting in the same opening beneath the TV (other components are in a separate section behind the doors below). The cabinet already allowed some access from the rear through the adjoining garage wall. The opening from the garage side is covered by a hinged vinyl clad cabinet door that matches all the other cabinets in the garage. Two small Utilitech 9 LED light fixtures were added to the back of the cabinet to illuminate the rear of the AV components when needed – very helpful.

The Denon unit disappointed us a little bit when we finally figured out after carefully reading the manual that one of the three independent zones it would operate needed an additional standalone amplifier. That was not clear at all from the sales literature. We were dazzled by the simplicity with which the unit communicates directly with the internet via a router to receive streaming broadcasts. That same ethernet connection allows it to access picture and music files stored on a PC and also for the PC to control it – neat. Another very welcomed feature was its ability to analyze the acoustics of the room and match the signals to the various types and placements of the individual speakers in the optimum manner. That involved placing a supplied microphone in a number of locations around the room as directed by the onscreen program and it would emit tones for each speaker that were measured and then correlated in a final calculation that resulted in automatic settings. Indeed, very impressive.

Here's a look at the TV corner of the room with the TV pulled out from the face of the cabinet and angled at the prime viewing area on the other side of the room.  The two main front speakers were mounted so they are permanently angled in the right direction.

Retrospectively, we will say the whole selection, preparation, installation and setup process was a time consuming, major pain. However, we most definitely are pleased with the final result including not only the performance of the various equipment, but its appearance in the room.

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