The “Break it Down” Blog

Oh lord, ok so now that I’ve got the video portion of the home theater figured out, I need to start playing the audio game.

As I’m digging through online sites, AVS and others I’m starting to realize that the appeal of a Home-Theater-In-A-Box (HTIB) solution is too attractive to ignore. The reason for this, is because when faced with the decision to build out every component of an audio system myself, and having audio-phile friends the ends result tends to be in the $2-$5k price range… and I just don’t want to spend that. My wife and I have used the built in TV speakers on our TV for 6 years and it’s been fine, at this point anything else I get will sound “awesome” to us.

So I started my hunt with the Onkyo HITB systems. I had researched a HTIB about a year and a half ago and Onkyo had some consistently highly rated setups. I noticed that they just added a new THX-certified 7.1 setup, the HT-S990THX:

The average price seems to be somewhere between $800-$900 online. I’m usually not a fan of all-in-one solutions, but they have their place. And for someone that doesn’t want to play the “search equipment for the next 6 months” game and drop $1k alone on a receiver this seems to be just what I am looking for.

Not a whole lot is known about this set. There is an AVS Forum thread for it and CNET did a review of it, but besides that the information is sparse (I get the impression this literally came out a month ago).

Another problem with our setup, that you can make out in this picture, is that the TV is against one wall (left in the picture) and the rear speakers are against the other wall (right in the picture) with a door on the far wall and a kitchen on the side where I am standing to take that picture. So it’s like a big open rectangle, no easy path for running wiring. So that led to two options:

• As we are laying the new laminate wood flooring, lay super-thin speaker cable (Link)
• Look for a wireless speaker solution for the 2 rear speakers after the floor is done sometime down the road (Link)

There are pros and cons to both approaches. The pro to the thin cable is that you get a nice wired connection. The con is setting it up appropriately on both ends of the floor (like a termination box) and also the cost is somewhat rediculous, somewhere around $3-$5 a foot for this stuff with only 1 or 2 companies really producing it.

For the wireless solution, you are looking at a 50watt signal and some folks mentioned interference when using other 900mhz devices. It does seem that the wireless solution could improve quickly over time as demand increases for such devices with alternatives like specific receivers already offering it. I think for the time being I will hold out and go with a wireless solution down the road. I don’t want to hold up the floor getting done while I try and research and figure out how to properly do the flat wiring, and then ordering it, and explaining to my wife why a roll of cable costs us $200.

I’d like to mention that I know building an entire home theater setup from scratch will sound better and that using wired speakers is better… but at some point the effort and time required just isn’t going to give me the return I want. If I were a freak audio-phile, I would go as crazy on the audio as I did on the video portion of the home theater, but I think a HTIB is going to give my wife and I just what we need as far as sound goes.

Update #1: Halt, got some awesome replies from users on AVS, I’m reevaluating doing a build-your-own-solution.

Update #2: ‘Noya‘ put together a really great list as a high quality replacement for this HTIB, I’m going to quote it below for quick reference for others. I’m still fine-tuning what I will get and will post it once I’ve decided:

Buy 7 of these speakers

Along with a FACTORY refurbished receiver (original warranty)

100ft of Speaker wire (you might need less)

Digital Coaxial (DVD player to Receiver)

Banana plugs for your speaker wires

Subwoofer Cable

Then go for a subwoofer along the lines of an SVS or HSU, which are undoubtedly the best for the money- so don’t skimp.
http://www.svsound.com/products-sub-box-10nsd.cfm
http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/

And there you go, similar price of the Onkyo HTIB with much better sound and quality.

Here is an old review of the Primus 150’s