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home theatre setup discussion v1 can't believe we don't have one already

I have a 55" Samsung because they were sold out of the Bravia. Haven't had any troubles, looks good.
 
Hi Ali.

First I have no idea what the amazon box thing is but I will give you an idea what I have and how I use it and why.

Center piece is a 7.2 Denon AVRX 3500. I chose that one specifically because it had one specific feature I wanted which was the ability to send 2 completely different signals to 2 TVs.........ie NOT mirrored. I watch a lot of sport (well I used to damn it.) so I have 2 main screens in my theatre room and I can have say football on one and cricket on the other. The above AVR was more or less the cheapest way to achieve this. Other things important to me were number of HDMI inputs, 4K, Atmos etc but they were all on lesser quality AVRs.........but not the 2nd different AV source option.

Incoming via HDMI for me is........cable TV, DVD/VCR, Blu-Ray, PS4 Pro, Gaming Desktop and from time to time various USBs and cameras etc.

I run a 7.1 system of pretty decent speakers in a fairl;y small room and its perfect for me and my budget.

The desktop is what I spend most of my time on and this also provides almost all my media nowadays from music to DVDs, Blu Rays You Tube, Plex, Steam, Gaming etc. I have a reasonable graphics card that allows a 4K HDR outp[ut for most everything except some games which I simply drop down to 1440 to up the frame rate. The audio outputs in everything up to Atmos so all good there.

The only thing that I dont watch through the PC generally is Netflix, simply because my Blu Ray player actually does a far better job of handling the HDR10+ side of things.

My TV is a TCL 75" smart TV BUT I only ever use it as a monitor and so the Denon controls its feed and while the TCL has android internals.......... I never use any of it because my desktop is far more powerful and does a way way better job. My TCL is a 2018 C series... not sure what the US equiv was. I did extensive research prior to purchase and had it plus a Sony and a Samsung I was looking at and when taking price into consideration well it was a no brainer...........BUT that was then and with lots of different models out now you would need to consider your needs and then do the due.

2nd TV is a smaller Panasonic.

Bottom line advice for you...........research. research and research. Understand what YOU want and need. Understand what each of the components is offerring, ie learn about HDR, WCG, refresh rates, Atmos, etc etc etc. Use your head and remember to filter the useful info from the addvertorial. Took me a while but I found some really excellent you tubers whose opinions I learnt to value and somne real shockers but not to hard for brighter people to sort the chaff from the rest. Also I visited a number of AV forums and learned heaps from them although again you need to appreciate that many of the menmbers are snobby and seem to have endless dollars availsble to them.

If I can help you with anything anytime..........you know my number so feel free to PM anytime. ;)
 
nice! thank you.

i ended up buying the denon avr-x2600h and a 65" samsung qled tv.

i recently got an xbox one and use that for streaming content so now i'm all set :)

alasdair
 
Sounds great mate. I have been very happy with the Denon.

Not sure if your in a position to do this but instead of mounting the TV on a wall, I built a cabinet to put it into and covered the cabinet with black speaker fabric. The cabinet lifts the TV about 2 feet off the ground so that my eyes are level with centre of screen. The sides of the cabinet are about 8 inches wide and completely enclose the TV with another 8" across the top.

It looks a million dollars but the best part is what it did to the picture. I cant explain why but having a black enclosure really makes the picture POP. Its amazing. Because I was so shocked at the result, I wondered if maybe I imagined it or it was in fact a thing and turns out yes it is. Most just paint the wall behind black

Anyways, enjoy mate.
 
MazDan said:
Sounds great mate. I have been very happy with the Denon.

Not sure if your in a position to do this but instead of mounting the TV on a wall, I built a cabinet to put it into and covered the cabinet with black speaker fabric. The cabinet lifts the TV about 2 feet off the ground so that my eyes are level with centre of screen. The sides of the cabinet are about 8 inches wide and completely enclose the TV with another 8" across the top.

It looks a million dollars but the best part is what it did to the picture. I cant explain why but having a black enclosure really makes the picture POP. Its amazing. Because I was so shocked at the result, I wondered if maybe I imagined it or it was in fact a thing and turns out yes it is. Most just paint the wall behind black

Anyways, enjoy mate.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting. I like the ideas you've posted & will keep them in mind for future use. I have a Hisense H8F myself. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. Which reminds me that I never took the time to following RTINGS calibration guide on it. Not sure if it would be worth the time to mess with the settings or not? :unsure:
It seems to be working out well without having done so. I digress. Thanks for mentioning the black thing. :)
 
I didnt believe I needed to worry about calibration. I took the attitude if it aint broke dont fix it.

Then that god aweful night episode of GOT happenned and I realised I had a problem. Spent ages researching calibration and made some improvements using that episode as my worst case scenario but I wasnt happy so I emailed TCL and they replied with a software update which made a huge difference and I havent touched it since.
 
MazDan said:
I didnt believe I needed to worry about calibration. I took the attitude if it aint broke dont fix it.

Then that god aweful night episode of GOT happenned and I realised I had a problem. Spent ages researching calibration and made some improvements using that episode as my worst case scenario but I wasnt happy so I emailed TCL and they replied with a software update which made a huge difference and I havent touched it since.
Click to expand...

That's been my attitude as well. ;)

I haven't watched GOT but believe I've read about what you're describing. I might have to take a second look at my TV & see if it isn't worth the time to calibrate. I haven't researched it much. I did alot of research when picking out the TV though. Seeing as RTINGS reviews are what helped me make my final decision I figure it's probably a decent source for calibration information. It seemed decent from what I saw at least. I figured I'd just use the calibration settings they recommended if I decide to calibrate. I'm not that familiar with it myself. I studied graphic design when I was younger & am familiar with the principles but have never felt overly confident in my skill at calibrating color. Be it a monitor or a TV. So I figure if I do decide to calibrate I'll try the suggested calibration settings first before doing anything myself. :\

I'm glad you got yours calibrated how you'd like it. I considered TCL when I was shopping for a TV. It came down to Hisense, TCL or Samsung. With the budget I had the Hisense H8F seemed to be the best value / overall in my use case / circumstances. I know I've seen some pretty noticeable differences on various devices from software / firmware updates. I'm glad that you where able to contact TCL & get a software update that worked out well for you. (y)
 
alasdairm said:
nice! thank you.

i ended up buying the denon avr-x2600h and a 65" samsung qled tv.

i recently got an xbox one and use that for streaming content so now i'm all set :)

alasdair
Click to expand...
Plz tell me you bought Madden or a golf game. Would be even better if you NHL 20 but that wouldn't be fair.
 
yep :) i got this:

The-Golf-Club-2019-Featuring-PGA-Tour


it's taking a little learning after tiger woods pga tour on the xbox 360 but i'm getting pretty good :)

alasdair
 
Nice I will also get, and beat you like I'm Tom Brady and you're the buffalo bills
 
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