Help me help a friend

[heffster]

Help me help a friend:

So being a hobbyist, people come to me, just like others on here, asking what kind of audio system they should get. And of course, their standard is the fact they can get a 250 dollar home theater in a box down at Best Buy with a built in DVD player and one single remote that will work everything.

Well, a friend has come to me asking the same thing. However, this friend isn’t necessarily interested in a surround sound system; he is willing to sacrifice a little for quality. In other words, I don’t think a sub or surround sound receiver is of any importance. Anybody have any recommendations for putting together a two channel system, with basic receiver, and DVD playing capability for ~300 dollars? Maybe even used equipment?

[philiparcario]

here are is a receiver player setup for 259


http://www.accessories4less.com/make...peakers/1.html

this sub is 132

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=300-633

grand total is 390

[stevekarr]

I have a Teac CD receiver that sounds decent. I use it with some DIY transmisison lines made with 6x9 car audio drivers. The Teac has plenty of I/O capability for future expansion (including a sub out that I am hooking to the Dayton 2 channel amp http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=300-812 (which may be the basis of a low $$$ on its own)).

Teac does make a DVD receiver (TEAC DR-H300 DVD receiver) that retails for ~$400. I got mine off of E-Bay for ~$100.

Maybe try talking to someone in sales, since PE has carried Teac.

[Ryan_M]

the fact they can get a 250 dollar home theater in a box down at Best Buy with a built in DVD player and one single remote that will work everything.

Sorry I cant help with the rest of it but don't knock those "remotes that do everything". I have a Logitech Harmony 550 that I paid ~$59CDN so probably less than $50 in the US and I'd have paid twice that for what it can do and I haven't gotten into the nitty-gritty of it yet (mind you its controlling the entire TV, receiver, HTPC).

Hope you find what you're looking for.

[johnnyrichards]

What do you use on the HTPC to receive the signal from the remote?

[Ryan_M]

I have the Thermal Take DH-101 chassis which comes with an LCD, IR receiver and remote made by IMON. I thought the remote would be really handy because it has a pad on it that can move the mouse, but that didn't turn out to be as handy as I thought. I installed the IMON software and told it I was using a generic Microsoft MCE remote then programed my remote to emulate the MCE remote. I've heard that just getting a MCE remote and associated receiver saves a little bit of work in the setup, but my software has the ability to change the button designations depending what software is running which is handy when you need to use third party plugins for certain tasks like a bluray player.

I still have a few glitches to work out but nothing serious. For example, one thing that bugs me is that when navigating through the Vista Media Center menu I want the "menu" button to take me back to the root menu but it's still 'tied' the the DVD player software so when I press 'menu' it starts up the DVD player software (or maybe it's the bluray software) and pulls up the disc menu. Kind of annoying but should be a quick fix.

The nice thing with the Logitech remote (and it goes a long way for the WAF, which gives me some more wiggle room to get more advance equipment) is that when I press 'Watch TV' on the remote it turns on the STB, turns on the receiver then sets the appropriate input, turns on the TV and sets it's appropriate input. When I press 'Watch BluRay' on the remote it changes all the inputs (both TV and receiver) and fires up the bluray software on the htpc and starts the disc. Pretty slick the way it all ties together.

P.S. sorry for the threadjack