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curtis
12-02-2003, 04:30 AM
Azanon,

Give Ascend a call or email about a package deal that includes the 340l/r. I would imagine there would be a price break of some sort.

I have been listening a lot to SACD's and DVD-A's....I have 340's up front, 170's for surrounds, and the VTF-3. Sounds wonderful to me.

-curtis

azanon
12-03-2003, 03:22 PM
OMG - I cant believe I just spend 1300+ on speakers! Oh sure my wife and I make a decent living, but I feel really insane to spend that much. I get a kick out of how they are referred to as budget speakers in reviews. I'm thinkin' - yeah right, maybe to you! Anyway, I hope I am pleased with them.

I went with the 5.1 setup i mentioned above mainly cause I have a new house i intend to keep, a brand new HDTV that i'm just loving, and the 5.1 Ascend setup should round off my home theatre nicely.

I feel like i'm betraying my old Advents which have been so good to me over the years. I managed to dig up my spec sheet for my sub, and i noticed the frequency only goes to 45hz and is a 70W sub. My rear advents cut off at 110hz, so i had been running that sub with as high as 120hz crossover, LOL. I'm not an audiophile, but i can tell you, though my advents have a pleasant sound at low volume and do quite nicely in a movie, they wont make anyone say "Wow". My HDTV has gotten several "wows" though since i bought it 2 months ago. Maybe the Ascends will fix that.

Bradley (Azanon)

picasso
12-03-2003, 09:43 PM
azanon

Can I ask what you bought for your HDTV? Right now I'm leaning towards a Samsung DLP or Sony's new LCD. Then again, I'm hearing that LCOS models are right around the corner and offer 1080p.

picasso_04901@yahoo.com

azanon
12-03-2003, 10:37 PM
Picasso

I just bought a Samsung3098WHF which is just a 30" direct-tube HDTV, but its this year's model with their DNIe technology. The image quality is gorgeous and well beyond the direct tube models you see here at Best Buy (I think they are still trying to get rid of old stock). Eventually i'll go LCD myself, but i simply cant afford it at this time. 1080p might be worth waiting on but if you can afford one that can do 720p or better natively, then i think you'll be fine. The reason is various stations (like ESPN, Fox, ABC) have adopted 720p as their standard and a 1080p capable tv would just be upconverting anyway which wouldnt really add much detail if the source is 720p. Also, if i'm not mistaken, HDTV at its best can utilize 1920x1080 pixels. LCD's arn't anywhere near that yet to my knowledge so that might be a reason to wait.

I know you might be wondering how can just a 30" direct-view widescreen wow people. Well, here in Arkansas, I've found that very few of my friends even own an HDTV. Furthermore, for the ones that do - so many people are suckered into buying one, but never take the time to figure out what is necessary to make it actually display HDTV programming (the right kind of STB, HDTV signal source, other necessary equipment like multi-sat satellite/OTA antenna, etc). I guess there's a lot of ignorant people out there that wonder why their image quality was never as good as it was at Best Buy or wherever. Remember too that HDTV STB's also output DD 5.1 sound where most non HDTV STB do not. In short, I think one is on the cutting edge to be getting true HDTV period, regardless of your TV at this point.

azanon
12-04-2003, 01:55 AM
I'm going to be running these on a brand new (less than one month old), but meager, Sony STR-DE595 Receiver. (base model DD unit) Will that be ok?

curtis
12-04-2003, 02:37 AM
azanon,

Sounds like you are going to have a very nice A/V setup!

The Sony should drive the Ascends fine.....they are very efficient.

-curtis