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When
does a hobby become an addiction? |
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How it began — I give a great
deal of the credit for my gadget fetish to my parents. Our family was
the first one to have a VCR, videodiscs (remember those) and a Prologic
stereo system. From that point on I have had an insatiable desire to
keep upgrading and tuning my own systems. Back in 1999 I got a real job while in
college. I worked in R and D at General Mills, yes folks I was
Betty Crocker. So I was doing ok for cash considering I had no bills
and split the rent 4 ways with my roommates. The perfect environment
for a guy with an electronics fetish to really feed the monkey on his
back. Anyway I went to the local stereo place and scored a Klipsch
subwoofer. After I saw the impact of that piece I soon added all the
other parts for my 1st Yamaha Prologic system. Next came the DVD player
and a Proscan 50 RPTV. That setup kept me happy for a little while and
since I was an apartment dweller I couldn't do much better. I was a
happy little theater geek. The Next Level, HDTV — In 2002 I bought a house with a basement and that
required me to move. I took this as an opportunity to sell my RPTV and
upgrade to a the next best thing a HDTV!!! After a lot of
shopping and research I landed a 65" Mitsubishi WS65-807. While I
was at it I I bought some new audio processing stuff. I found a great
deal on a Marantz AV560 Preamp and MM9000 amp. Now only if I had a
dedicated theater room..... Moving again.. — In the
spring of 2003 I was lined up to move again! This time we built a house
and I finished the basement so we could have a dedicated theater room.
I moved everything into my our new room and was very happy with the
setup. Finally a real theater. I acquired some really cool leather recliners shortly after
it's grand opening. Two years after the first set of recliners I go the
bug to add a second row. This required that I build a riser so you can
see over the first row. After doing a whole bunch of L.O.S. (line of
sight) drawings I determined that 12" was just high enough to see over
the first row when the rear row was in a reclined position. The next level... for real this time — In the Spring of 2005 I got the ultimate upgrade bug. I wanted a bigger display. The only thing I could do is to start looking at front projection units. Now this is a home theater geek's dream. There is soooo much to consider when looking for a projector. DLP?, CRT?, LCD?, Rollup screen?, Wall Mounted screen?, DIY Screen? AHHHH! But actually the shopping is the fun part anyway. In early April I bought a Sanyo Z3 LCD HDTV Projector and a 100" roll down screen. The picture for this little beauty is amazing. I say it looks like a 100" plasma TV. I then bought a Zenith DVB318 HDTV Up converting DVD Player to make the picture even sharper. That brings me up to date. I could bore you even more with my quest to find a DVD player with a Faroudja video processor or how I managed to hook up all of my HD sources to both of my displays while still retaining total IR control over the whole set up.
If you have questions on how I did anything or
need an opinion email me. Please look at my Links for
good sources of info Here is a list of my
Equipment. Here is my DVD Collection. Thanks for looking!!! |
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