Home Theater Done Right: Millercarbon's System

I am with douglas on this one. Best components you can afford and then tweak and I will add that Synergistic Research is near the bottom of my list for these items.

millercarbon OP2,850 posts02-01-2020 2:47pm"....Dive weights....

Discovered years ago mass not only dampens vibration it also improves dynamics and slam and bass extension. Not to mention some stuff like the Oppo is so darn light and power cords so stiff it helps things stay put."

Vibration/resonance control on the cheap. I like it!

I'll side with millercarbon here. Two channel audio is king. I do not have enough room or money for a separate theater. I have found for myself at least that as long as I have a BIG screen and a patently ridiculous amount of bass power I am a happy camper as far as movies are concerned. I could put surround stuff in but I would rather buy another cartridge. We watched Ford vs Ferrari last night and the wrecks kicked you right off the sofa. Works for me.

Oh MC, I also use a Steward Greyhawk. Nice screen. It still is faded during daylight hours. Not sure if a laser projector will fix this. I doubt if it would ever match a flat screen TV but nobodies making one 130" diagonal....yet.  

“HT experts tell you.” Solid gold! 

Good one.

The way movie soundtracks are produced, you would need a minimum of 5 discreet channels, not including the subs.

Right. In order to reproduce 5 channels you need 5 speakers. 5 amps. 5 channels of everything. Right you are. Open and shut. Never argue an unwinnable position.

You do not have a decoder, a center channel, nor rear channels.

Right again. Been there. Done that. Sounds like crap. Not sure why. Don't care why. Only care about sound quality. Sound quality uber alles.Now to be fair there was one good thing about surround: the bass was a lot better. But that's because I was running full range surrounds.Now here's a question for you: do you run full range surrounds? Do you run all identical speakers front center and surround? Seriously. I want to know. Because if you don't, that's another compromise you are willing to make that I am not.

I ... assert that he would have been further ahead to go lighter on the tweaks and pursue more earnestly superior components, particularly the digital source and the amplification.

The only reason that's even on the table is you're reading posts instead of listening. No one who's ever sat and listened would say that. Quite the opposite. I've had people tell me they will never again think an expensive amp is necessary.This is something I've been comparing and evaluating comprehensively for three decades now. One $60 set of BDR Cones elevates the performance of anything you put them under so much you'd have to spend something like ten times as much to get that improvement in a better component. This is not me talking. This is not me tapping the keyboard. This is me actually putting them under lots and lots of components and comparing.Replace Cones with Fuse, HFT, ECT, PHT, power cord, interconnect, etc etc adjust the values a bit (tweaks are not all created equal- and some are a whole lot better than others) the same idea holds. Its ALWAYS better to tweak than to upgrade.This goes especially btw with tweaks like diodes, caps, wires, etc. People who say otherwise, almost always it turns out they've never even tried to find out. Its rough, I know, to find imagination out of line with the real world. Oh well.

I have found tweaks to be insipid in comparison to the gains from superior components, cables and speakers.

Really? Which ones have you tried?