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Author Thread: Everything Bought...now how to hook it up?
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New member
Username: Danh25

Frisco, Texas

Post Number: 1
Registered: Jun-04
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Okay building my new media room and everything has been bought and delivered. I had a pretty limited budget and really didn¡¦t want anything high end but I am super excited about it. Now I just need advice on hooking everything up. If you can help, please be as specific as possible because I am totally clueless :-). I made my purchases based on greatest bang for your buck reviews.

Equipment list.

BenQ PB6200 Projector
RX-V650 6.1 Receiver
ONKYO SKS-HT510 Speakers
Pioneer DV563AS DVD (dvd-audio)
Comcast HD Box
XBOX

Can someone help me out with the optimal way of hooking this up and giving me a list of cables I will need to buy? Cable suggestions would be nice too, something decent but not Monster prices if you know what I mean. The projector has a 15 pin VGA input and I have already bought a component to VGA cable¡Kso that is out of the way.

Also 2 specific questions
What do I need for DVD-audio and special cables or is it just the digital out from the DVD?
I have 3 components that will all use component video (DVD, XBOX, HD Cable). How Can I achieve this or do I need to drop one to svideo (like the xbox)?

Thanks in advance¡Klearned a ton from this board.

Daniel.
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scottro
Unregistered guest
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Your specific questions, the digital out will be fine for the DVD-A, and you're short one component input on the receiver. You could use S-video for the Xbox but at projector size it will be washed out.
Maybe go for a multi-input selector box so you can hook up multiple component video devices and output the selector to one of the component inputs on your receiver. However if you have to drop one to S-video go for the Xbox. Personally I prefer my PS2 on the regular TV over the projector anyway but that's me.

Go for midrange cables, spend what you can. You'll know they're the right ones when the price doesn't turn your stomach...

Hooking it up should be pretty intuitive:
-VGA/Component from monitor out to projector
-Use component video and digital audio from all your other sources to receiver.

Are you going to have another "regular" TV in this setup? I like mine that way for casual viewing/gaming. Why put the hours on your projector if you know you're just going to take a nap? Anyway if you do that you'll probably have to make some duplicate connections. I'm not familiar with your receiver and if it downgrades component video to s-video.
Good luck.
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New member
Username: Danh25

Frisco, Texas

Post Number: 2
Registered: Jun-04
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Thats a great idea about the second tv! Dont want to wast bulb life on finding nemo 10 times a day.

Where can you buy midrange cables from locally? And what are some brand examples?
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New member
Username: Scottro

Post Number: 1
Registered: Jun-04
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If you're shopping at a big box retailer like Best Buy, I've had good luck with the Acoustic Research brand. From what I've read here, my take is that unless you have some serious big pimpin' equipment there's little benefit to the high end cables. I've actually gotten some great clearance deals at Radio Shack on the brand they carry that they claim are comparable to monster cables (at least they're priced that way). The brand escapes me but it's not like the Shack carries 10 brands...anyway, I got their high end brand combined digital optical/S-video cables for about $5 each on clearance...just grabbed a bunch.
More than I needed at the time, but gee whiz, they're all hooked up now...funny how that happens with us A/V geeks. I mean enthusiasts.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this but your money for cables is better spent on the video connection than audio, since you'll more likely visually notice the difference, if any, than audibly.

I guess the bottom line is your money is better spent on your components and speakers than cables.

Try searching the message board on the subject. You should have MORE than enough to go on from there...

By the way, your patience in hooking things up is impressive, I'd have had everything ripped open like a kid on Christmas morning already.

You didn't mention a projection screen in your equipment list. Have you chosen one yet?
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J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
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Daniel, I sometimes get in trouble for asking this, but, you just spent a fair amount of money, where did you buy this and why aren't they helping you?
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Silver Member
Username: Project6

Post Number: 679
Registered: Dec-03
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Jan, remember he is on a limited budget...probably bought them from different sources for the best prices. A lot of the folks in this forum are on a tight budget. The leaps in technology and affordability has opened the Home Theater (a once exclusive realm only the priveleged few can afford) into the living room of the masses. Heck, there's Wal-Mart in every town selling home theater systems for under a hundred bucks! (hate the way they undecut small businesses providing the services I so miss, but that's a different topic altogether)

The "service" of the independent audio/video dealer installer is all but extinct. DIY saves money for the layman with a modicum of connecting color coded cable. Fact of the matter is, service comes at a premium nowadays and not everyone can pay for the audio consultant and the installer.

We are "Old School" Jan, we believe and expect the services of the establishment, whose goods we just purchased for a few thousand dollars. Those days are waning, my friend, the age of the internet is at hand...find the lowest prices, free shipping for orders over 2 pence, 1 day delivery from Madagascar, no sales tax, etc.

I should have ranted about this on that thread you started, sigh!

Sorry for bumbling in on your thread there, Daniel! But the best place to start is your Yamaha manual, I know it is tedious but all the connections you need to properly set-up your media room is in that little novella. Even the cables your are going to need are mentioned in there. Don't go overboard on those, get decently built cables that are not touting electronic gibberish. Check out the articles on this same forum regarding snakeoil and cables. Good luck and have fun!
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J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
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Daniel, if you bought everything trying to save a buck let me suggest you go to "how you buy and sell A/V gear" under "amps" in the "home audio" section of this forum. Read the responses. Otherwise let me know the answer to my previous question.
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J. Vigne
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Berny - Move your comments over to the "how you sell" thread and let's see what response it gets.
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J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
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I guess Daniel's gone away.
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Gold Member
Username: John_a

Post Number: 1386
Registered: Dec-03
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Ah, I now see the source of that thread.

I am also puzzled about how people can spend so much and not feel the need to read the owner's manual. It is all in there. The manual is part of the equipment. The box of electronics doesn't read your mind; there has to be an interface with the user. You do not get the best bang for the buck if you do not know how to switch it on.

BTW, Jan, DVD-A requires six-channel analogue connection between the player and the receiver/amplifier. Digital won't work. It is a "format rights agreement", meaning makers are afraid of putting DVD-A processors into receivers/amps. The exception is some Pioneer models, I understand, but, there, the digital connection is "iLink" a.k.a. "Firewire". This allows "Handshaking", meaning the two devices can talk to each other briefly in order to ascertain whether they are allowed to continue to communicate. As with so much else, the goal is to make it difficult to copy audio files. In any event, you cannot get DVD-A out of the player with TOS-Link or with 75 OHM co-axial electrical cable.

The funny thing is, some makers have put it around, and many consumers believe, that the six-channel analogue output from a DVD-A player is there to give the superior sound quality you only get from analogue audio....!

If ever I heard of a case of shooting in the foot.... It is like Sony saying SACD is an advance on CD, and then re-releasing 60s and 70s analogue recordings, remixed and encrypted into SACD, as a demonstration. By their own argument:

(a) CD was not perfect. They lied.

(b) SACD is capable of demonstrating that analogue was better in the first place. So they lied about that, too.

(c) The improved sound quality of SACD is so elusive that direct A-B comparision with CD is forbidden: it will only confuse the poor consumer, who should learn to trust those who know better.

Sony-Philips must all think we are all total fools. Yet they act all hurt at the suggestion that SACD may not, actually, be what they say, and is merely a form of data encryption for which they will be sole keyholders: you have pay them every time you wish to unlock what you thought you had bought, and was therefore your property.

If only George Orwell had foreseen digital communications, we might all have been better warned.
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Silver Member
Username: Project6

Post Number: 713
Registered: Dec-03
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Nah! They just want to persuade our thinking in accordance with their proprietary products. They want their products in every household so they can better track your habits and probably...everything you say and do. Hmmm, I think they have a room in their R&D numbered 101:-) yeah, that's it, that's the ticket

Anyway, about the owner's manual, I have suggested that to some of the folks asking for help and for some reason they get defensive. They think that setting up the HT is done via intuition and that testosterone is a built-in any-product assembly manual.
Yes, I find that a lot of women read instructions and ask for directions.HAH!
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Gold Member
Username: John_a

Post Number: 1393
Registered: Dec-03
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Berny,

You've got it. That's what they want.

My wife always asks for directions. I would rather wander, lost, forever, and die of thirst or hunger. I always read the manual, including the fine print. My wife never does; she asks me what to do. We are a perfect match. I think I have a testosterone-dependent brain.

Best,

Winston Smith
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J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
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Guys, move this over to "How do you ...".

John A. - Money for nothin' and the chicks for free.
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J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
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Hope you lokked at "Who can ..." while your in this section.
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J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
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Hope you looked at "Who can ..." while your in this section.
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Gold Member
Username: John_a

Post Number: 1399
Registered: Dec-03
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Jan,

"How do you...". I fear you have confused subject with object, and intend to refer to HOW DO I Connect surround speakers to the TV?

Touché.

"Who can...". WHO CAN WIRE AND SETUP MY NEW SYSTEM?.

I really think that nothing can be done, or said, in such cases. If you can find the "who needs dealers?" thread, please refer them here. There is really no point in discussing it further: the case makes itself. Jeez, I wish I had that much cash at my disposal.

"Money for nothin' and the chicks for free."

....and music that listen to itself, so we don't have to.

Is this forum ready, yet, for our forthcoming, and, I feel, inevitable, discussion of serialism....?

I see from the excellent Rubio Qt Cd booklet that Dimtry S., of all people, dabbled with duodecaphony once or twice in the quartets. This shows you can fool all of the people some of the time. He really should have know better. I have not got that far in the cycle, yet. I shall have a serious snifter before plunging in. And, make a cardboard cutout of Schoenberg, to throw darts at.
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Silver Member
Username: Project6

Post Number: 728
Registered: Dec-03
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Don't make Webern feel left out, might get "PO"ed:-)
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Gold Member
Username: John_a

Post Number: 1403
Registered: Dec-03
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SIr Thomas Beecham, when asked, said no, he had never conducted any Stockhausen, but had, once or twice, accidentally trodden in some.

Excuse me, Berny, I am just coming down from listening to Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony for the first time. I have to find the right thread. This is not it. Naxos DVD-Audio. Just get it. No excuses. "Awesome" is inadequate.
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J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
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I had a duodecaphonic ulcer once.
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Gold Member
Username: John_a

Post Number: 1420
Registered: Dec-03
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Stockhausen's must have perforated, but responded to treatment. Unfortunately.
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Gold Member
Username: John_a

Post Number: 1421
Registered: Dec-03
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BTW, JV, LOL, Really.

Well, chuckled a lot, for some time.

If only they'd given Karl-Heinz a duodecaphonectomy....
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