Rogers Whole Home PVR

I have my TV hooked up to a Harman Kardon amp and PSB speakers... from the 80s!!!

shabbs wrote:

wprager wrote:You know, I love my new tv but one thing I really notice is how horrible the speakers are. I'm not an audiophile, obviously, but even I notice the difference. The old TV as a mammoth RP-CRT, so it had room for decent-sized speakers. This one is less than an inch thick, and the speakers are quite poor. Need to get me a soundbar.

You use the speakers in your TV? My god man... how do you live? No surround sound? That's like... stone age...



Get yourself a receiver and a sweet 7.1 setup.

I've got two ears. There is physiologically no need for more than 2 speakers. The rest is acoustic shenanigans.

Anyhow, in order to get a receiver I'd need to spend money and time (researching). Money I could probably come up with (although the WAF would be low and would need some work), but the time, forget it. Also the space. I've got a decent stereo system (5.1 without the .1) that's been sitting in storage since the first one started to crawl -- the rear speakers came with these massive metal stands that would come crashing down if you pulled down on the speaker wire. Trouble is, right now there wouldn't be room for it (and by "room for it" I mean the WAF is simply not there for big front speakers).

So a stereo bar and a wireless sub is my solution. The simulated surround will have to do. Wouldn't mind getting one of those that come with a set-up CD that it uses to "tune" itself to your room's acoustics, but I haven't seen those in my price range. I've got my eyes on this LG model that is blue-tooth enabled. I could play music directly from the iPod or BB. That would be kinda cool. Just waiting for Dell.ca to have it on sale.

Yamaha has a pretty good one in the YAS-101. Not too pricey.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater-system-reviews/yamaha-yas-101-review/

http://ca.yamaha.com/en/products/audio-visual/hometheater-systems/front-virtual-surround-systems/yas-101_black_w/?mode=model

shabbs wrote:Yamaha has a pretty good one in the YAS-101. Not too pricey.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater-system-reviews/yamaha-yas-101-review/

http://ca.yamaha.com/en/products/audio-visual/hometheater-systems/front-virtual-surround-systems/yas-101_black_w/?mode=model

Not too pricey? Shopbot.ca has it at amazon.ca for $853.99 (and nowhere else). I remember when these first came out (maybe an earlier model) they were $1000, but that was a few years back. I was hoping they'd have come down by now. The LG one I spoke of is $350 at Dell.ca (and their regular prices are a bit inflated). I don't doubt that the Yamaha will have better sound but I'm the guy that's lived with TV speakers for the last dozen or so years.

What the? Best Buy has it for $299:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/yamaha-yamaha-speaker-bar-with-subwoofer-yas-101-yas101/10178417.aspx?path=95746420878dadcd8364d04f33b4f459en02

wprager wrote:Nah, no-way this has anything to do with signal strength (which is fine).

Out of curiosity, I checked my levels today and they are pretty good. The QAM level (signal strength) was at -2 and the S/N ratio was at 36dB.

shabbs wrote:What the? Best Buy has it for $299:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/yamaha-yamaha-speaker-bar-with-subwoofer-yas-101-yas101/10178417.aspx?path=95746420878dadcd8364d04f33b4f459en02

Too bad Amazon won't price match -- 10% of the difference would be $55. Of course if Dell.ca carried it I would wait until it was down to $180