Oh, sure, we all love reading about how some guy dropped a cool million putting home audio components by the busload into his setup.  We love reading about home theater setups that cost six million bucks.  But most of us will likely never SEE six million dollars in our lifetime unless we see it in a movie.  So for the rest of us, there are great bargain theater setups like the kind Mike Falzon put in.

Mike Falzon’s home theater was relatively inexpensive because he did a lot of the work himself.  Lots of design and even some construction was all on his own time, and therefore, reduced the amount of cash needed to go into the setup.

This in turn allowed him to stock it with plenty of choice amenities and features, including a snack bar, poster lightboxes, a Denon receiver and upscaling DVD player,  Cambridge Soundworks speakers and subwoofer, and a Panasonic projector with a hundred and ten inch screen he built himself.

All things considered, that’s a pretty sweet setup, and just goes to show how much you can do when you’re willing to do some of it yourself.

It’s probably an idea whose time has come.

We all know how the home theater generally beats the movie theater, so far only losing out in terms of available first run content and the amorphous “theater experience”, but where things are likely to get interesting is the recent migration of the music concert to home theater.

Most of us have been to at least one concert in our lives, where it’s often crowded, smoky, dangerous and expensive, not necessarily in that order. So imagine the idea of seeing your favorite musician or group live, in concert, in your own home.

It’s already started, somewhat, but apparently Sony’s got a serious putsch on to get more concerts migrated toward people’s home theaters.  Which is a pretty smart idea, really; you can go with a pay per view concept–the system’s already in place for that–or you can stream the video online, or you can go with DVD copies for sale or rent.  Or you can do like Sony’s doing and get it to movie theaters proper–they’ll be showing a Creed concert November 19.

I love the thought of being able to do more stuff from home–there’s no place like it, you know.

Here is another chair for the audiophiles, the Media Chair from Martin Emilia. Seemingly similar to the a lot of media-enhanced chairs set out in the market today, this chair has speakers concentrated at your head but with a different design. Available in different colors and designs, this concept chair could give other media-enabled chairs a run for their money. But before that happens, the concept has to become a reality, something that should push through pretty soon!

(Source) Dvice

When Michael Tarasenco was just thirteen years old, his father cosigned a loan for him to buy his first stereo system.  That stereo weighed in at a whopping three and a half grand, but this was the starting point for Tarasenco’s love of audio.  And this love of audio followed him into his sweet home theater setup.

This grew out of a longing for Tarasenco to consolidate and have an acoustically proper room  in which he could listen to his thirty thousand dollar audio system.

He got a lot of help from friends and family, and as such, built a magnificent home theater setup in his basement.  The components contained in that setup include an Onkyo 7.1 receiver, a Panasonic Blu-ray player, an Oppo upconverting DVD, Paradigm Reference Studio speakers with Polk rear surrounds, a Sanyo projector, a Da-Lite ninety two inch screen, and more.

While it does a bang up job on music, it also puts out a pretty mean movie soundtrack and still pays attention to the pictures.  It’s a sweet home theater setup no matter how you look at it.

Now HERE is an awesome idea, folks–Tom Hetzel, who lives in a townhouse in Cleveland, has neighbors surrounding him in pretty close quarters.

So how’d he beat that?  What he did was he built a room…in his basement.  The “room within a room” concept provides a little extra dead air insulation so that he can have his sweet home theater setup and not bother the neighbors.  He even showed the neighbors the construction process and how the various additions would be largely unnoticeable.

How sweet is this setup, you ask?  Sweet like candy, I’ll tell you that much.  He’s got Acoustic Research speakers, a ninety two inch Draper screen, a Pioneer receiver, a Samsung DVD player and a Sanyo projector.  The Acoustic Research 910s he’s got, for example have two twelve inch woofers, and one liquid cooled titanium tweeter.  They weigh a whopping one hundred forty seven pounds each.

Considering that the neighbors actually approve of this monster setup, you know it’s got to be pretty sweet to pump out that kind of force yet not wake the neighbors…or even the kids.

Kilpsch has been known to deliver rich and quality audio and apparently they are taking their act to an entirely new level. A bit absent in the audio scene lately, it seems that they are looking towards a new direction; the wireless direction. From the looks of it, the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speakers are going wireless for a $199.00 price tag.

With the new wireless speakers, you can simply plug-in your USB wireless transmitter in a MAC or PC USB port and then you will get the trademark quality audio this brand has been known for. However, the subwoofer still needs to be plugged in a wall outlet and the satellite speakers are still connected to it with wires.

(Source) Dvice

In his home theater, that is.  And for Adam Feldman, doctor by day and home theater buff by night, he’s got good reason to stay in–plenty of them.

It took him about six months and forty grand to put together this home theater in his formerly unfinished basement, so when you factor in all the construction costs, he didn’t really shell out a lot of cash.  Finishing a basement costs pretty substantial amounts of cash, so that accounts for a LOT of it.  But what did he get for the rest of it?

He’s got a whole flotilla of B&W speakers in there, as well as a Sharp projector, a Stewart filmscreen, a Pioneer Elite receiver and plenty of acoustically transparent wall fabric to help keep the sound in check.

The doctor pulled off one doozy of an operation, and transplanted a sweet home theater setup whole and breathing in his formerly unfinished basement.

So I just caught this today over at Electronic House Magazine and they were telling me all about BB King’s tour bus.  Yes, BB King.  Yes, he’s STILL touring.  And yes, he’s still got Lucille right by his side.  I personally think that’s awesome myself, but you don’t come here for music news–you come here for home theater news.  And that’s where the two intersect.

It turns out that BB King’s tour bus is literally LOADED with scads of the sweetest hardware, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if half the cost of the bus itself–right around one and a half million dollars–was in A/V hardware.

Check this out:  he’s got four Kaleidoscape players and a Kaliedoscape server, individual iPod decks for each bunk and another one that hooks into the bus’ speaker system, two Integra Blu-ray players, a PS3 and an Xbox 360 (BB King’s a GAMER??  Man, that made my day!  If I found out he plays Guitar Hero I think I’d have an embolism..  He’s also got four DirecTV decks, which is kind of sad as they really should have Dish Network, and, the crowning glory, EIGHT HDTVs.  Eight of them.  Yeah.  Just like The Octopus in The Spirit.

This is just a sweet setup no matter how you slice it.

Jeremy Hummer’s love of movies began when he was a kid, much like most of ours did.  He actually began collecting films–and I mean ACTUAL FILMS, like sixteen millimeter film–but quickly branched out to video when he discovered that collecting actual film was a difficult and downright painful process.

But as he went on, and his love of movies carried on, soon he found himself the owner of a house with a five hundred square foot garage…or the perfect home theater to be.  And this set him down a path where, eventually, he would use that garage home theater as the centerpiece, and the showpiece, of his own home theater installation firm.

So what does he have in this incredible theater?  Oh man, you’ll hardly believe it.  He’s got Monitor Audio speakers, Velodyne subwoofers, a JVC projector, a VuTec one hundred ten inch screen, Oppo DVD player, Marantz Blu-ray player and plenty more to boot.

That’s one sweet home theater setup you’ve got there, Jeremy, and if that’s the kind of thing that your company, Electronic Home Designers, does, then even I’m interested.  And you know from experience I’m one cheap individual.

One truly awesome thing about the sweet home theater setup is that it, like movies, are a universal language.

It’s even spoken in Norway!  Want proof?  That’s okay, I can provide.  A guy by the name of Bjorn Kristensen set up his own sweet home theater setup in his two hundred twenty square foot garage.

This particular setup set him back twenty large, and includes the costs of construction and fresh components.  But here’s what he GOT for that twenty large–not only the pictured theater above, but also its contents, which include Infinity speakers, a Sony Blu-ray player and projector, plus a Yamaha receiver and DreamScreen one hundred and twenty inch screen.

I don’t care what language you speak–that’s sweet no matter where you hail from.  And for putting together a great theater setup that should serve him well until the next format change (and even then he’ll probably just have to swap out a couple components) he’s earned the title of sweet home theater setup.

Here is a device that basically explains itself. The Retro Cube Mini Speaker with MP3 Player is from fu-bi of Japan which features a 3W x 2 channel speakers that should render some great tunes from various sources. You can hook it up via USB 2.0 connection or directly from a SD/SDHC memory card since the speakers come with a built-in MP3 playback capability. The battery is good for 3 hours of use. This is now available in Japan for $50 but no word on whether it will become available internationally.

(Source) Ubergizmo

No, you didn’t misread that.  But man, I was as shocked as you are now when I read about how a guy put together a complete home theater in his backyard for two hundred and fifty bucks.  And how he did it, now that’ll amaze you.

One day, while Ed Sweeting was talking to his seven year old girl about drive in movies, she asked a rather fateful question: “What’s a drive in?”.  Now, it’s not so hard to believe that she didn’t know.  There aren’t very many of them around any more.  But Ed wasn’t letting this old institution go down without a fight–he put one together in his backyard and he did it on the cheap.  Just two hundred and fifty bucks assembled a drive in in the backyard.

What does two hundred and fifty bucks buy you these days?  Not much, actually.  But thanks to some timely donations, eBay, and a little fixer-upper attitude, he managed to bring together a set of Yamaha speakers, an Eiki projector, a one hundred ten inch Stewart Filmscreen and an RCA DVD / VCR player.

Next thing you know, he had his backyard drive in.  And hopefully, his little seven year old is learning just how sweet a home theater setup can be.

Chill out this winter with this Equalizer Music Hat that will not just let you listen to your favorite tracks but also keep your ears warm. It is definitely an interesting gadget, ideal to beat the upcoming cool temperature as well as stay entertained on the go!

The Equalizer Music Hat has built in blue luminescent displays in either side that reacts to the volume and the beat of the music being played. The louder the music, the more lights gets illuminated. Powered by two CR2032 batteries, the hat uses 3.5mm audio connector and is compatible with anything that needs a headphone, such as iPod, MP3 player or Walkman. This hat will be perfect for your winter journeys. It is available for purchase at GBP19.99 around $30.

Too good to be true, right?  Well, not really.  Vizio’s actually giving one away, but you’ve got to win a contest to get in on this one.

You’re going to have to dust off your essay skills and crack off a five hundred word piece on why you’re tired of loud commercials.

We all know the type, right?  Where we’re watching a nice quiet movie or a nature program or something and it’s kind of lulling and we’re just getting into it and then all of a sudden the picture briefly goes black, as though the gentle lull had reached its apotheosis and then it’s TIME FOR BIG LOU LEMON’S USED CARS!  COME ON DOWN! WE GOT BIG CARS! BAD CARS!  BIG AND BAD CARS! FREE HOT DOGS FOR THE KIDS!  IF I CAN’T MAKE YOU A DEAL I WILL KILL THIS PUPPY LIVE ON TELEVISION SO GET DOWN TO BIG LOU LEMON’S USED CARS!

Yeah. Like THAT.  Anyway, the Vizio soundbar puts a muzzle on Big Lou once and for all by using “psycho-acoustic programming” to regulate broadcasts to one clear and universal constant.  Big Lou’s screaming will be automatically reduced to the same level as your nature show.  And that’s a really awesome idea.

Oh, just follow this link to enter the contest.

You’ve got to hand to Ashok Kimar.  The guy’s a software programmer who’s been enamored with movies most of his life.  And he’s always been fond of the big screen, but he hasn’t had the opportunity to indulge that fondness until recently, when he bought a new house that had an extra room in it that made for a great home theater setup.

So he set out to get what amounts to a few basics in, with a plan to expand later.  To that end, you can see what he’s done–there aren’t any structures for most of his material.  A lot of it is simply sitting out in the open, waiting to be replaced with one part or another. He expresses his overall strategy like this:

“My goal for this home theater was to build my equipment slowly, get small components one by one, and to get the absolute best equipment in the midrange,” says Ashok. “In my opinion, after a certain price point, the law of diminishing returns kicks in, where you get only small improvements in quality for larger increments of money. That was the guiding principle behind all my purchases, from the receiver all the way down to the speaker cable.”

And replace he has.  Check out what he’s put in!  He’s got an Onkyo receiver and speakers, an Optoma projector, an Oppo DVD player and even a couple game systems in there.

It’s a pretty sweet home theater setup, if for no other reason than, in ten years, it’ll probably still be this sweet because he can easily adapt to changing trends.

So this guy by the name of Jeff bought a 1921 Georgian colonial house nine years ago, and it wasn’t exactly in the best shape when he got it.  Well, if you were eighty years old you probably wouldn’t be in the best shape either, so don’t laugh.

Anyway, Jeff set out to gut the house and renovate it to suit his needs.  Now, I know that this is how a lot of horror movies started, but for him it worked out just fine.  He added a new master suite, an exercise room, a guest suite…and of course, what we came here for, a sweet home theater setup.

He’s got plenty of awesome equipment in there, including fully TWELVE Acoustic Innovations Deco recliners (those red and pink things you see in the foreground), a Denon Blu-ray player, a JVC VHS deck, an Oppo DVD player, a Panasonic Blu-ray player, Klipsch speakers, a Sony projector and a monster screen from–where else?–Stewart Filmscreen.

For gutting most of his home and adding on like no tomorrow, Jeff’s definitely managed to add on a truly sweet home theater setup.

David Adey of Newfoundland may well be the poster child for building a home theater in the modular style.  I love the modular style.  I personally espouse it.  And when you consider how he did it, a little bit at a time, he shows exactly why I endorse this style of design.

A little at a time, a new piece here and there, and soon (well, in seven months) he had a home theater system.  And though it sounds like he spent a small fortune on this sweet home theater setup, he actually spent ten thousand dollars.

Now, that SOUNDS like a lot of money.  And objectively, on the surface, yes it is.  But think about this–he didn’t spend ten thousand dollars…he spent three hundred and fifty bucks a week. Every week. For seven months.  And that doesn’t sound nearly as bad.

What did he get for that cash, you ask?  How about a Yamaha receiver, Paradigm speakers, a Sanyo projector and a hundred and four inch projector screen, among others?

It’s a pretty sweet setup, and the fact that he built it a little at a time makes it all the sweeter.

Matthew Katz wants everyone to know that he did NOT build this sweet home theater setup in his backyard instead of planning his wedding.

He merely did it on his downtime.

And frankly, whether he did or he didn’t is immaterial for our purposes because man, did he ever do it up RIGHT.  Oh, sure, he doesn’t have a lot of fancy hardware in there–his goal was for 5.1 sound and at least a 480p picture, but considering that “cheap or free” was the goal of the day (a must when you’re neck deep in a wedding plan) and they built the whole thing for an astonishingly low seven hundred and forty bucks, I’d say he pulled it off nicely!

He’s got an eight by twenty FOOT screen in there, homemade, from some lumber and Dazian Trapeze Plus screen material.  Plus, he’s got an Onkyo home theater in a box system, an Epson projector and a Sony DVD player.  You put all these together and what do you got?  A basic, outdoor, and totally sweet home theater setup.

Matthew Katz’s sweet home theater setup is a lesson to us all that you don’t need thousands of dollars and all the latest and greatest products to make a home theater special. All you really need is a will to do the job and a love of movies.  Oh, and a little help from your friends.

Steve Mize is a man who feels much the same way I do about the movies.  Growing up, we both regarded them the same way, as a special treat.  See, we didn’t have Netflix back when I was a kid.  We didn’t have hundreds of cable channels.  We had some, yeah, but not that many. Cartoon Network was still a gleam in Ted Turner’s eye.  One of my earliest movie memories is my father packing me in his old pickup truck and the two of us driving a town over to catch Robocop 2 at the local small movie house while my mother was at bingo.  Needless to say, I went to bed late that night, and it was fantastic.

Steve Mize brought this same kind of emotion into his home theater setup.  He built his theater around a ticket stand, concession area (I love theaters that remember the concession stand) and a “walk of fame” featuring stars of the past, like Hepburn and Bacall.

But it’s not all about the nostalgia, no sir.  There’s also some prime hardware in here too, like a JVC projector, Pioneer blu-ray player, Screen Research hundred and ten inch screen, and the ability to play almost every format ever released.  He’s got an HD DVD and a VCR in there, as well as a straight Denon DVD.

Steve Mize’s home theater setup brings the best of the past and present together, and must therefore always be called sweet.

Paradigm, the international leader in speaker design and manufacturing, recently announced its Special Edition product line that boasts the best of both worlds. The limited as well as unique addition to the Paradigm collection includes the SE1, a bookshelf speaker and the SE3, a floorstanding model.

Both of these home theater speakers are outfitted with stylish real wood veneer cabinets. They have soft edges, stat-of-the-art technology, clean lines and compact dimensions. Moreover, the SE line will come with Paradigm’s SuperDrive technology that combines high efficiency with high output and ultra-low distortion. In addition, the SE 1 and SE 3 boast the benefits of an aluminum midrange that eliminates unwanted resonance and distortion.

With a reasonable form factor, both the SE1 and SE3 home theater speakers are ideal for budget conscious customers seeking sophisticated appearance at a competitive price. The SE1 and SE3 are available at an estimated MSRP of $299 and $699, respectively.