The media room in the new basement is the one feature that everyone is most excited about. This weekend we went out and tried out theater seating. After shopping at a few stores and reclining in a lot of chairs, we picked four chairs in a straight formation from Berkline.
We opted for a higher end chair that doesn’t have any power. It is really comfortable and looks and feels well built. Plus I wasn’t that excited about running four power cords across the floor as the seats are not adjacent to the wall.
Equipment selection has been stressing me out for a while. When we were roughing in the room we had a sales guy from one of the local home theater stores come out and give us some advice and a quote. Nice equipment, but it was a little pricey for my budget, almost $12000. Since it included about $1200 in labor I decided to tackle it myself.
So, with budget in mind, here’s the equipment selection:
- Onkyo TXSR806 – full featured including 1080p up conversion and at $699 you can’t beat the price. (Crutchfield.com)
- Polk Audio Monitor speakers in a 7.1 configuration. Front speakers are Monitor 60, center channel is CS2, four RC80i’s in the ceiling for mid and rear surround. Good value for the money. About $1200 from Crutchfield. It includes a free sub woofer that may be a bit under powered, but I can swap it with my HSU sub if needed.
- Panasonic PT-AE3000 projector. I’ve read a gazillion reviews and have alternately switched between the Optoma HD80, Epson 1080 UB, and the Panasonic. I think they all have a great picture quality. The Panasonic is quiet and has some nice features not found on the other models (like the side by side picture adjustment). $2499 at ProjectorPeople.com
- Monster Power Conditioner to protect everything. Found it for $195 from Amazon
- Blu- Ray player. Looking at two models, one from Sony and one from Panasonic, but I’m waiting till Thanksgiving to see if I can nab a bargain. Right now it looks to be about $330
- Projector Screen. I have been going back and forth on screen size. The ProjectorPeople sale rep advised me to try out the projector and see what size works best in the room. In other words, set up the project, try out some different sizes and see what looks best to us. I think it’s great advice, so for now we’ll just project on the wall or a white sheet to try out some different sizes. Lead time for a screen is only 2 days, so we can get a screen pretty quickly when we are ready.
All in all, it will total out under $6000. Once I have to install everything, I’ll let you know if it was worth it!
