My old Akai receiver finally gave up the ghost. A bunch of the functions have stopped working — like volume, and balance, and changing what it’s receiving.
Which seems like as good an opportunity as any for us to upgrade our sound equipment and electronic stuff altogether. So we picked up at CostCo a small RCA home theater system. The receiver can tie together not just our CD and tape deck, but the TV, DVD, VCR, and cable box. It also has its own DVD player in it, so we can move the other one down to the basement for Katherine. And it comes with a variety of speakers, so that we can set up some actual stereo sound (and retire the humongo speakers we have up on the hearth).
Though the purchase was a pretty quick one, this is something I’ve been mulling for a long time, and I had much of the detail figured out already. And the cost was under $200. Granted, it’s not a top-of-the-line system with speaker power to blow the paint off the walls. But we’re middle-aged fogies, and don’t really need that. We just want the TV and DVDs and occasional CDs to sound decent. And since Scientist Scott doesn’t seem to be returning to town any time soon, we’ll have to do it ourselves.
It is a shame about the old Akai receiver, though. I got it after I graduated college, about (mutter-mumble) years ago (eep!), and it used a cool blue LED display to show how different devices and services and speakers were being tied together. It’s still slick looking, but is strictly for audio only, and even that not all that much (the CD had to run through the AUX jack, etc.). But, like my first car, I’ll never forget my first stereo.
Especially when I’m trying to install its replacement tomorrow. Wish me luck.
I’m interested to hear your experiences with the new sound system once it’s up and running. I’m thinking of buying some sort of home-theater-in-a-box product, and I’m curious what the setup, features, and especially sound quality are like.
Bear in mind that we won’t be all that much demanding on sound quality, being, as I said, middle-aged fogies.
One plus on it (unintended) is that, as it’s an RCA, its remote (and vice-versa) should work seamlessly with our TV and VCR.
Didn’t get to set it up today, but should tomorrow.
(And it’s nice to hear from you where we’re not discussing you-know-who or you-know-where.)
Haha. Me too. 🙂
Hell, damn, blast, and spit.
It’s perfect. It looks nice. It has a slim profile. The speakers will work out where we want. Hell, I even figured out how to do the rear speakers without too much problem.
It’s perfect.
Except …
It has input jacks for a VCR, and input jacks for the Satellite/Cable Box.
But it has no input jacks for any additional audio equipment. Including a tape deck (not that big a deal) nor our CD changer.
Yes, it has a dual-purpose DVD/CD tray. But we have a 5-disc CD changer that we’d want to hook up to it. It’s great for parties.
Ironically, we’d talked about how convenient it would be to have just an extra single-tray CD on it, because sometimes you want to just throw in a single, particular CD, and dealing with the changer is a pain.
The irony is, that’s the only CD player you can have.
I repeat. Hell.
So, back it all gets packed up and back to CostCo it goes. And we’ll spend the afternoon (what’s left of it) looking for an alternative.
So, Lesson #1: Make sure compact systems-in-a-box have all the inputs you need.
Aside from that, it was perfect.
Alas, our afternoon sweep of Circuit City, CostCo, Best Buy and SoundTrak didn’t net any ideal system. Too expensive, or too big, or too much added in. There was a decent enough Panasonic system for about $280 at CostCo, but it included a 5-disc DVD/CD changer, which is overkill. But might turn out to be the direction we go.