What Do You Use Your Home Theater System For?
We primarily use our home theater system for TV viewing and for playing Blu-ray movies. We haven’t explored the wireless features of our new display yet, but will certainly by trying that soon.
Your System Components and Connections Used:
My husband and I decided to replace our 15-year old TV with a new HDTV setup as our Christmas gift to each other. I’m somewhat familiar with consumer electronics since the PR firm I work for, Wall Street Communications, handles home theater clients, giving me just enough knowledge to get myself in trouble.
There were several things on my wish list that were important, such as power management since we have lightning storms in our area, and how to deal with the glare and poor sound quality caused by all the glass and tile in the room.
We have purchased many things at Best Buy, and I had heard about the Geek Squad and Magnolia Home Theater, so this was a great chance to try it out. I knew that buying an HDTV was no simple matter and that many things needed to be considered.
On our first trip to the store, we were helped by Magnolia Home Theater salesman Lance, who has the patience of a saint. He demonstrated the difference between LCD, plasma, and HDTV, and worked with us to figure out which type might be best for our space. Lance also spent a lot of time discussing the audio for our system.
So now we had it narrowed down to the type of TV and speakers, but we still needed to consider the glass and tile in the room. Lance recommended we have a consultation with a member of Magnolia, who would come to our home and discuss options. The visit with Keith was very helpful. He took all of our existing equipment into account and advised us to keep the Klipsch speakers we already had and put the money into a new Blu-ray player.
After his consultation, Keith emailed us a proposed equipment list — all within the budget we set. It included a Samsung Series 5+ 50-inch plasma HDTV and a Sony BDP-S570 Wi-Fi Blu-ray player. I had asked him not to specify power management, as we were buying a PM8-GAV power management unit separately from Panamax. We were so excited that we went right down and placed our order at the store and scheduled an appointment for the install.
My husband built a shelf inside our TV cutout to hold the speakers and to make the TV look more built-in. He also went to Charter and picked up a new HDTV box and upgraded our service. Justus and Jake from the Geek Squad arrived this morning with our new set, and I was really impressed with the care they took to install our system. After everything was in place, they worked with us to understand the remote controls and how to access the wireless features. We can now download movies, music, and YouTube from the Internet
Tips and Tricks
- Room layout was a major factor in our purchasing decision. I’m very glad we took Lance’s recommendation to have a consultation with a member of Magnolia. While there was a $100 fee, this investment probably saved us a lot of grief later down the road, and it made us feel confident that we had explored the very best options.
I’m glad we took our time working through this project because now we have the best possible system at the best price. I would highly recommend working with the team at Magnolia Home Theater and the Geek Squad, who had the right level of knowledge (and patience) needed to help us.
Do you play video games on your home theater system?
No.
Do you like to play your system loud?
We play our system moderately loud, especially for movies. We did spend a lot of time discussing the audio for our system with Lance from Magnolia Home Theater, as it was an important element of the home theater experience for us.
What is your most must have home theater component?
In our home theater upgrade, the HDTV display was the most important component. Power management was also a big deal because of the lightning storms in our area. We chose a Panamax PM8-GAV for our system.
What is on your home theater wish list?
I would love to have a media server for our DVD collection and other media.
