Okay, folks, time for a little of that old fashioned brutal honesty.  Not everyone will have a perfect rectangular or square room to put their home theater hardware in.  In fact, more than likely, most will have to deal with some unusual shaping, which means figuring out ways to deal with horrendous acoustics.

And in the case of today’s sweet home theater, they had a whole lot of weird nooks and crannies to work around.  I’d say the room was at least partially hexagonal with some…odd lumps.  So to work around that, they added various wood features to the room to give it a sort of defining feature, like a proscenium.  Then they added the hardware.

And oh, what hardware it was–they put in a Marantz projector, an SMX screen, Triad speakers and a Denon DVD player.  Plus, because the homeowner in question had a large family, they’ve got seating for eight.

The huge handicap that was the oddly shaped room becoming an incredible home theater setup definitely qualifies this for sweet home theater status.

People who plan to install home theater gear usually spend a lot of time considering just what kind of sound system they should install.  Should they get it in one of those all in one boxes?  Should they build a component system piece by piece by piece?

Well, if you’re Scott Vonhof, you don’t go either route.  You BUILD YOUR OWN.

Apparently, Scott owned four Peerless woofers, and these were the basis for his four compact-cabinet speakers.   Later, to get the surround sound experience, he added a center channel speaker and a couple of matching rear speakers.  But this wasn’t all he added, no sir!  Or ma’am, as the case may be.

He also threw in a Denon receiver, an LG DVD player, a Sony projector and a Stewart Filmscreen one hundred inch screen.  Plus, he even managed to find time to make his own subwoofer.

When you consider the sheer amount of hand tooling that went into this home theater setup, you know it has to be called sweet.  There’s no way to do anything but.

Anyone else remember that scene from Get Smart where Max Smart has to walk through a series of corridors and passageways before finally being able to access the phone booth that provides access to CONTROL?  Well, today’s sweet home theater setup is a lot like that, except not quite so convoluted.

Today’s sweet home theater setup owner, you see, installed–get this!–a FINGERPRINT LOCK on his home theater.  You literally cannot get in without the man’s fingerprint or the willingness to tear hell out of locked doors.

And it’s probably a good idea he’s got that lock on there, because there’s a panoply of high-powered hardware in there.  Just for example, he’s got a homemade hundred and ten inch screen, a Panasonic projector, Polk speakers, Denon receiver and an Xbox 360 with HD DVD add on.  In retrospect, the owner jokes, it was a bad move.  He’s actually planning to bring in a PS3 for the Blu-ray capabilities.

But between the lock and the choice gear, it’s definitely a sweet home theater setup.

Okay, just in case that headline threw you a bit, what it actually means is a home theater setup with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 for less than fifteen thousand dollars.  Yeah, I know it read like a Japanese real estate listing, but still, in the end it works.

And it’s also terribly important, because most home theaters do NOT have a 2.35:1 ratio.  It just doesn’t happen in home theaters that cost less than fifteen grand because it’s actually pretty difficult to achieve without specialized equipment.

But this one did exactly that.  And what did it pull this little wonder off with?  Adjustable side masking panels.  But that’s just a start–they’ve also got a Denon receiver, Home Theater Direct bookshelf speakers,  JBL subwoofer, Oppo DVD player, Optoma projector, and a homemade one hundred and three inch screen.

It achieved the nearly impossible and did it for a shockingly low amount of cash as home theaters go.  So when you consider them all together, there’s no other choice but to count this one as a sweet home theater setup.

Using your PC as part of your home theater is a poorly understood and often sorely underestimated  part of your home theater experience.  In fact, the PC can replace a lot of different facets of your home theater, as Jason Klinke discovered.

A former PC engineer, he used his PC not only to play movies via its attached BD-ROM drive (from LG, no less!) but also to store other movies on the network as well as play a custom pre-show presentation with movie trivia and assorted random bits.

What else does he have involved in here, you ask?  Let’s take a look!

He’s got TWO Sony four hundred disc changers, for a start.  When you couple those on to his home theater PC’s hard drive space, you’ve got room for, roughly, a maximum of nine hundred titles.  Nine hundred titles.  That’s no small library, folks.  Plus, you’ve got to consider he’s watching them with a Sanyo projector on a one hundred twenty eight inch Carada screen, with a Denon receiver and Definitive Technologies speakers backing his play.

All this added in together makes for one pretty sweet setup, especially when you consider what all the home theater PC kicks in.

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.

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.

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.

A home theater setup that requires two whole rooms to enjoy??  That’s crazy!  That’s insane!

…no, what that is, is a sweet home theater setup.

First, the guy who owns this, a fella named Randy Murray, he’s split off his basement into two separate rooms–a lobby, in which you’ll not only be treated to the full pre-show experience, including access to a full-on video arcade of classic games, but also a snack bar and memorabilia display.  Plus, a free box of Junior Mints.  Now that’s sweet.

But the sweetness doesn’t end with free candy!  No sir!  Or ma’am as the case may be, but anyway–from there, you segue into Randy’s theater section, which is jam-packed with awesome gear including Atlantic Technology TXH 270 speakers, a Denon receiver, a hundred and ten inch Stewart Greyhawk filmscreen, an Oppo DVD player, a Sony Blu-ray player, and plenty more.

It took eight months to build and eighty grand to build it, but there’s no doubt that, from the pinball machines to the last Junior Mint to the very last frame of a favorite old movie, Randy Murray has built a truly SWEET home theater setup.

Admittedly, this by itself is a sweet home theater setup, but what switches this over into a full-on themed setup is just one thing, and you can see it in that picture.  Just in case you can’t, it’s the huge life-sized model of the Silver Surfer done in fiberglass and plastic up on the wall there.  It’s truly amazing what you can find on eBay, isn’t it?

The first interesting thing of note with this setup is that it’s green.  It’s VERY green.  Bamboo flooring in the main room, rubber floor in the control and equipment rooms, a control board table made out of recycled sunflower seeds–the works.

But this is just the beginning of the awesome–this home theater also includes a home recording studio space for the owner’s band to practice in.  Plus a wide array of home theater gear like a Pioneer PDP-507CMX plasma display, a Denon DVD player with Sony four hundred disc carousel, and enough speakers to choke a hog.

Considering the sheer variety of options available here–home theater, home recording studio, home everything–and the awesome little extra touch of the Silver Surfer watching over the proceedings, this is unquestionably a sweet home theater setup.

I’ve got to hand it to the young couple who honeymooned in the tropics, and thus wanted to recreate that tropical love whenever they went into their home theater.  They went all out and created–get this!–the POLYNESIAN HOME THEATER.

The biggest problem, of course, was not getting too nuts with the whole Polynesian theme.  After all, we’ve all seen horrendous tiki lounges that look like Don Ho exploded in a rainbow of flowers.  But you’ll see here that understated was the theme of the day–conch shell lighting sconces, bamboo, grass wallpaper, and metal palm leaf accents.

But this isn’t just a good looking theater, it’s also got loads of choice components, including a JVC RS2 1080p Dila projector with a matching hundred and six inch screen, a Genelec 7.2 channel surround sound speaker package with a Denon surround processor, Continental Seating motorized theater seats and more.

It’s a combination of beauty and brains that makes this a really sweet home theater setup.  Not only does it look great but it puts on a great show, with understated Polynesian flair matched with powerful theater components to make a terrific setup.

When you’ve got an unusually shaped basement, you can either live with it and just use it as a storage space, or you can do like Chris and Beth Martino did and turn it into a home theater.

Naturally, they’ve got some nice stuff in this.  They took six months and thirty five grand to build a whopper home theatre with a BASH Subwoofer amplifier, a Comcast HD DVR, a Monitor Audio speaker array, Denon receiver, Panasonic PT-AE3000 projector, a hundred and twenty nine inch screen from SmX Cinema Solutions, a Wii and Playstation 3, and more.

But this isn’t where the awesome ends, no, merely where it begins.  This home theatre also comes with an adjacent bathroom and kitchenette, so you can make your snacks and such right off the theatre.  Plus there are a few extras in there like a popcorn machine, a beer kegerator and a wine cellar of forty two bottles.

This pretty much ensures you only need one room for your entertaining, allowing you to close off the rest of the house from your company.  This is a terribly awesome development that’ll really qualify this for sweet home theatre setup status.

This is one of those really great home theatres that makes a whole lot of electronic components look almost seamlessly installed into a surrounding environment of utmost class.  It’s not every day I see one like this, so I’ll just segue right into the discussion.

This amazing setup comes with a Sony Bravia SXRD video projector, a 106-inch Dragonfly screen, a Denon AVR2308 CI receiver, a Sony PS3, a Nintento Wii and a full array of speakers and amps.  Plus, there are two cisterns and a steam boiler down there that have been left fully intact for the sake of historical significance.  They actually built this amazing setup AROUND all of the basement’s current occupants.

And when you couple it with the ensuite bathroom and real stonework throughout, the only thing you can say with any certainty about this is that it really is a sweet home theatre setup.

Denon Electronics has come up with a new Blu-ray disc player, the DBP-4010UDCI, available at a significantly low price. This state-of-the-art player has been incorporated with leading-edge technologies and breakthrough network interconnectivity.

Some of the innovative interactivity features of the 2.0 Blu-ray Disc player include built-in BD Live and "Bonus View" functionality. The player features DVD-Audio and SACD playback with full bass management. The host of connectivity options supported by the player includes onboard Ethernet port for Internet connectivity, firmware updates, BD Live interactivity, IP control for third-party controllers, CI remote access and Web Browser support. 

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You’ve got to hand it to anyone who wants to go with a regional theme for their home theatre setup, and for Marc McManus, all it took was one year and sixty grand to recreate a little bit of Ireland in what once was his basement.

Naturally, he’s got an amazing array of equipment here, a list of which he’s actually provided.  Check this setup out: a Panasonic AE-2000U projector, Denon AVR-3808CI home theater receiver, a DaLite 100” Cinema Vision screen, a Klipsch RF-82 left/right speaker, a Klipsch RC-62 center speaker,  Klipsch RS-42 side surrounds, Speakercraft AIM7 back surrounds, two Velodyne DLS-4000R 12” powered subwoofers, and plenty more besides.

Oh, and did I mention the attached bar?  Yeah…he’s also got a pocket Irish pub wedged in there.  To prove how far he went with this, he actually planned it out with AutoCAD before he built it.  Between the sheer depth of detail in the surroundings, and the sheer magnitude of hardware he’s got running in there, it’s got to be called a sweet home theatre setup.

There’s just nothing else it can be called.

Denon, the specialized manufacturer of high-fidelity professional and consumer audio equipment, is all set to launch its new 7.1-channel AV surround amplifier, the AVC-3310 by the end of August. The amplifier comes equipped with advanced connectivity and a user-friendly interface that will surely enhance your level of entertainment pleasure.

The AVC-3310 is compatible with Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio as well as Dolby Pro Logic IIz. It supports HD playback via HDMI port. The amplifier features AL24 Processing Plus technology and video up-scaling capability for DVDs and comes along with a remote control.

Available in black or premium silver, the AVC-3310 amplifier will be released in Japan for around 126,000 Yen ($1,346).

The DVD-A1UD comes from Japan and is the first universal SACD/DVD/Blu-ray player in the world, at least according to the creators - Denon. Being such an innovative and top-notch product is expensive, and that is why it costs $5,800.

As the name suggests, the Denon DVD-A1UD can play Blu-ray discs, as well as DVDs and SACDs which are also known as Super Audio CDs. In addition, it is also compatible with the Dolby TrueHD audio format. As for the connections and its different types, it comes with two HDMI 1.3 outputs, a slot for SD or SDHC memory cards, 1080/60 p and 1080/24, for audio there is the 7.1 channel analog output, and lastly there is a Bonus View Ready function.