Team-BHP - The Home Theater thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by saikatmandal04 (Post 3207527)

I recently purchased a Yamaha Receiver RXV373 and a Basic speaker set NS-P40 to go with it. I purchased it online as I was getting a better deal than all the stores/showrooms here in Hyderabad including the authorised retailer.

Before buying I did listen to quite a few brands like Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer. But for the tight and limited budget I had, this seemed to be a better bargain than the rest. A few of the deal breaking features that swinged the game in Yamaha's favour was

1. Active Subwoofer
2. Better sound
3. Auto Calibration feature (YPAO)
4. Nice and clean console

Existing Yamaha owners should be able to tell me if my decision to go with Yamaha was correct or not.

I will hook it up with a Panasonic 50" Plasma. Any tips on setting it up and/or fine-tuning it to enhance the performance and the longetivity of the HT. My primary usage is to view movies. I am still in the process of setting it up and hope to do it in the coming long weekend of 15th Aug.

Good decision. Just make sure that your AVR is well ventilated when in use and you will be able to enjoy it for a long time. This is not because it's a yammy but true for all AVRs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by saikatmandal04 (Post 3207527)

Speaker positioning is important. Ear level placements obviously will give you better kick. There are pretty good guides to placement. Apart from this maybe quality of speaker cable, pins etc are something to consider.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kruzader (Post 2139918)

Yes, with bill and warranty. I think you should not go to profx (main denon dealer in bangalore). There are other dealers who can give more discounts. Well, depending on the city, total value of your purchase and bargaining abilities, your mileage varies..

Can you please share the dealer name and phone no. in Bangalore?

I bought an LG HT-904TA home theater about an year back. The performance was decent however, the product has a major flaw. The satellite speaker is connected to the base over a thin plastic screw. I never moved places or mishandled the speakers and despite that - two of the speakers have broken from the base and not able to stand on their own.

I spoke to my vendor who 'unofficially' told me that LG home theaters have this inherent issue of physical breakage at joint where the speakers joins the plastic base. He told that 1-2 out of every 10 LG home theater he sold was found broken by the customer when the customer opened the box. Multiple models are affected with this issue and the problem crops up either during the transport itself, or within an year of usage.

Future buyers beware! Ensure that the model you purchase is rigid enough last a few years.

I am not sure whether this is the right thread to post. couple of days back i installed an external creative sound blaster 5.1 VX card in my PCI slot. I am unable to get 5.1 surround sound. I can hear music from only 2 speakers - Front left and front right. No sound from Rear Left, Rear Right speakers and no sound from sub-woofers and center speakers as well. Windows sound test produces sound from all the 5 speakers including subwoofer. It is the issue when i play music. some of the obvious reasons i am seeing for this issue is CMSS cannot be activated. This is because when i right click on speakers from taskbar and then click on playback devices i get the following error:

The Home Theater thread-speakererror.jpg

choosing yes or No does not matter I am thinking because of this error i am unable to activate CMSS and i believe until i activate CMSS i will not be able to make all the speakers work since CMSS is like speaker fill?

I tried googling the issue but in vain :mad:

Calling all audiophiles and experts here to help me out. Spent close to 1.7K for the very purpose of 5.1 surround sound.

My current PC configuration:

OS: Windows 8 Pro
RAM: 2 GB Ram
Processor: Dual Core 2.50 GHz
Home theatre System: Mercury 5.1 HT6200. Please see below for the type of home theatre system i own to give you guys a better idea:

The Home Theater thread-pr_sp_ht6200_s.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaggu (Post 3211951)

^^ Seems like the classic win 8 driver compatibility issue,

Quote:

Originally Posted by reignofchaos (Post 3211960)

Look for a more updated driver from creative for your sound card. Looks like driver problems are still an issue with them.

i have installed most updated drivers meant for Windows 8 from Creative website, still the issue. I have also emailed to creative support team escalating this issue - awaiting response.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaggu (Post 3211951)

google for the drivers even win 7 driver might work.

@Jaggu can u please shred more light on this? For Win 7 what specific drivers i need to search? If you referring to Creative drivers, on their website they have listed common drivers for Win 7, Win 8 and Win Vista.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazybrain (Post 3211936)

I tried googling the issue but in vain :mad:

I had the same issue, but with my Creative sound blaster 5.1 card. It was way back in 2008, when Win 7 was new. After much googling, I got hold of a Creative driver/software which enabled me to activate CMSS.

Suggestion: Look for drivers/software which is designed for Win 7 and back like Vista/XP. They may work.

EDIT 1: Have you installed the Creative Audio Console ?

EDIT 2: I believe this is the site from where I was able to get CMSS to work. Pretty old stuff, but you can give it a shot.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/enable...a-x86-and-x64/

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazybrain (Post 3211981)

Ok then goto device manager and check if this is the driver that is loaded and not the default win 8 driver. You might have to unistall the default driver and then manually point to creative driver.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dre@ms (Post 3212016)

Thanks for your valuable suggestions. I will try this option for sure and keep you guys updated. Since i believe driver listed in creative website is common for vista, Win 7 and Win 8, i will try and install drivers meant for XP and see if it has any effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaggu (Post 3212062)

Ok then goto device manager and check if this is the driver that is loaded and not the default win 8 driver. You might have to unistall the default driver and then manually point to creative driver.

Thanks I did this on day 1 itself, the moment i installed the external sound card and made it work, first thing i did was uninstall windows 8 default sound card drivers and then selected creative sound card as default sound card in the settings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sai_ace (Post 3243416)

Hey folks, I hope you can clarify a doubt of mine. Is it possible to have a HT set up that has both Projector as well as a TV ? Because the AV receiver has only one display out HDMI. Hence the confusion. cheers! sai

Get a hdmi splitter. Again may result in loss f quality

Quote:

Originally Posted by sai_ace (Post 3243416)

Hey folks,

I hope you can clarify a doubt of mine. Is it possible to have a HT set up that has both Projector as well as a TV ? Because the AV receiver has only one display out HDMI. Hence the confusion.

cheers!
sai

I purchased a receiver specifically for this purpose with 2 HDMI OUTs.

You can check something like this - decent reviews
http://www.amazon.com/ViewHD-Powered...9834296&sr=1-6