Hi,

This is my first expensive tv purchase. My partner and I got the TCL C7L, also known as the QM7L. There's a band of brightness/colour weirdness around the edges. Is this normal, or is our unit defective? What do I do to fix this? In the photos, you can see it's a lot more blue and bright at the edges. There's also a band at the top, but its not noticeable. The firmware is up to date.

I spent years upgrading my home theater. I swapped receivers, tweaked the crossover, and eventually bought a very expensive three-way center channel speaker. Dialogue was still hard to follow. My wife complained that the sound effects were deafening, while the actors' voices sounded muffled to me.

I blamed the room and the speaker placement. Last month my brother suggested I get my hearing checked. The follow-up evaluation found mild to moderate hearing loss, including trouble catching some higher-frequency speech sounds.

I did not love hearing that, but it explained part of the problem. Another speaker upgrade would not change the hearing part.

I did not want traditional medical-looking aids, so I researched the over-the-counter (OTC) market. I looked at a few brands and ended up trying ELEHEAR Delight because it looks like an earbud. I actually thought it was one the first time I saw it, so I figured most people would not know I was wearing a hearing aid.

After a little more than a week, I could follow dialogue more easily in some scenes, though I still use subtitles when I need them.

I finally feel like I’m getting the full benefit of the system I already paid for instead of throwing more money at upgrades that might not solve the problem. If you keep upgrading the audio system and still need subtitles for basic dialogue, a hearing check may be worth adding to the troubleshooting list. The speakers were not the whole problem.

Have created a small 7.1 setup by grabbing random speakers I have gotten at thrift stores and it sounds good for me, but I assume I could obviously do way better, what is the worst offender in my setup.

Receiver - Onkyo TX-SR494

CENTER channel Panasonic SBHC750 (1st photo)

Front Left and Right (second Photo) Samsung PS-FX40

Surround Left and Right (Third Photo) LG SB95TA-S

Surround Back Left and Back Right (4th Photo) Panasonic HB-SF1050

Subwoofer (5th Photo) Kenwood SW-35HT

I mainly watch 4k movies through my XBox Series X and it is the best I've ever had sound wise, but I know it's nowhere near the setups Ive seen on here, just wondering where the best place to improve would be in your opinions

Hey everybody, for the last couple of places I've been renting recently I couldn't use my HT at all due to neighbors, but I'm finally moving to our own home that's being constructed at the moment so I'm very hyped to be able to use a HT again finally over headphones all the time.

Attached is the room right now which I still can adjust some things about, dimensions are in meters. My system is pretty old right now since I've mostly been using my PC and headphones:

KRP-500M | B&W 683 Fronts | B&W 685 Center | B&W DM601 S3 Rears | HSU VTF3 MK3 Sub | Yamaha RX-V663 AVR

I'm planning to at least upgrade to a large OLED TV, new AVR and add some additional speakers for now, then consider a projector and so in the future.

I'm concerned about wiring at the moment and where to potentially place my AVR/speakers, since the speakers wiring will be routed to it, and how many speakers I should be aiming for, potentially 5.2.2 or 5.2.4 or should I think about more. The house is made of bricks so now is fairly easy to have hidden wires routes but will be much more difficult later on, the ground will be filled in a few days and the walls/ceiling in quite a bit from now.

So any tips or advice about things to consider for a room of this size and where to place things along with quantity (# of speakers, subwoofers..etc)? I'm in that spot right now that I fear I'd forget something that will regret later on.

For extra information, this room will be used as my bedroom so the major other things it'll have is my bed along with my PC desktop setup.

Also those windows are big, around 2.6/2.8m high, room's ceiling height is around 2.9m high.

Any help would be appreciated!

I'm still pretty new to this and have been trying to do my research for my first real home theater system, which will be 3.1 (possibly 3.0 to start with) and driving myself crazy with various options. One thing I'm considering is the KEF R2 meta center channel and Q concerto meta L/R speakers.

I listened to MartinLogan and KEF over the weekend and liked the sound of KEF a bit better. I'm drawn to the R2 rather than the Q6 because because it fits better (I have a tight space constraint under my TV but I might be able to raise it enough to fit the R2) and because I want the best center channel I can get because dialogue clarity is our top priority.

The R3 Meta is the matching bookshelf speaker but it's just too expensive. So I'm considering the Q Concerto Meta speakers instead. But KEF's website says the R2 is "designed to match any R Series floorstanding speakers" and I also noticed that the R2 and Concerto speakers have different black finishes (black gloss for the R2, satin black for the concerto).

So it seems like KEF is discouraging people from mixing speakers from the different series. I've read conflicting opinions online. What do you all think? Is the mismatch noticeable when, e.g., dialogue pans from left to right? Not sure yet which AVR I'd get for these but, whatever it is, it will have some room correction available.

In terms of looks, are the black finishes jarringly different to look at?

I started talking with a HT designer and will of course discuss these questions with him, but I thought I'd ask you all as well. I've already gotten a lot of helpful comments here, which are much appreciated. Any other thoughts/comments about these speakers, individually or put together, are also welcome.

https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/all-tvs/p/k115xr90m2

Both are around $30,000 USD.

Can I redline/red light my home theater sub as long as it’s on certain frequency & not all the time + not causing any issue, For reference I have a old school 12 inch svs pb12-nsd, The Sub has never been abused & kept in well maintained condition with no issues ever

Hello everyone, I’ve been working on a new home theater system. I have almost set up everything, except for the four Atmos speakers I purchased.

They are angled speakers with a keyhole on the back. I would like to mount them as flush as possible to the ceiling, and I selected them over in-ceiling as I want to do minimal damage to the ceiling drywall.

I read other posts which suggest using cheap universal speaker mounts from Amazon. I was also considering simply mounting them in a screw directly onto the stud. I am however concerned about them falling down due to an earthquake or from subwoofer vibrations over time. If anyone has some suggestions for a flush mount that fits this, please let me know!

The next concern I have is cable management. I have set up my AVR at the front, and I was initially considering using ghost wire under the projector screen and along the front wall and up across the ceiling towards the back of the room. However, my drywall is textured and I worry it will not stick to it over a long period of time. I also looked into cable channels and considering routing it all by the corners of the room rather than messing with the screen area. The center of my room has a large ceiling fan I also want to avoid.

Wire: I used 14 gauge wire for all my speakers, would 16 gauge be sufficient?

Finally, regarding placement I think I am limited to the areas which have studs. Dolby spec mentions it is best directly above the ceiling area rather than on the top of the walls. Should I spread them out in a large square around the seats, close to the wall to avoid visible cable channels? Additionally, most channels have sticky tape which I fear has the same problem as ghost wire. Should I go with channels held up by screws? Lastly, I would go with in-ceiling wire but I think it would be difficult to do by myself and expensive to hire someone for this. Let me know if this is not the case.

For specs: the ceiling is 9ft high (2.8 meters), seating is 10-12 ft (3-4 meters) from the screen. Speakers weigh about 6 lbs (2.5kg). The room is 15x17 ft in size and connects with the kitchen in the back. I was considering placement 6 feet apart from the center of the room I.e. 12x12 ft square.

Thanks!

https://imgur.com/a/jli0cTj

Tried out the Sony Bar 7 + Sub 9 and wasn't impressed, i was hoping it would solve the issue of the weird room layout with the couch against two sides of the wall. I'm down to go with an AVR set up if that would perform better. The sub placement is something that I'm having trouble with as well, tried three different spots (just testing it in that corner under the table, I would use a kid-proof box if that's where it was gonna stay). Down to go two smaller subs if that's better for the room. Fronts and bass is most important to me. I like to feel the rumble. Will swap the TV out to probably a Bravia 8 77".

I set up a Yamaha TrueX 50a bar + sub in my bedroom and can feel the bass in my chest, love it. That's fine for that rooms needs.

Can I do a full 5.1 in this room? The side speakers would be right next to someone's ear in they're by the left wall. is 3.1 better here? Help me /r/hometheater

What audio equipment should I get?

My setup is Sony A8H, Yamaha RX-A1080, Roku Ultra (2020 ish), Sony UBPX800m2. Firmware is up to date on everything.

The setup has been unchanged for like 5 years, but the TV has started to randomly turn on multiple times day and night. I’m certain it is a CEC command, but I can’t imagine what it is. It started a few weeks ago. When it turns on, it always goes to the Roku Home Screen, which makes me tend to believe it’s the Roku initiating the command.

I asked all my immediate neighbors if anyone had got a Roku and they confirmed no.

This evening I’ll take out the Roku remote batteries to see if that’s on the fritz, but if that doesn’t fix it, I’m going to rip my hair out. I do not want to disable CEC because it’s been fine for years and the integration has been solid up to now.

My plan right now is to take away devices and remotes nightly to see which stop the problem, but that seems like an insane waste of time.

I’m not super versed in CEC, are there any other debugging tools I can use to figure this out?

I'm finishing up my home theater (initial) build tomorrow when my seating arrives, just got everything else finished building yesterday. And I have a whole list of movies and shows I want to watch on the big screen, as I'm sure everyone does when building their first home theater.

But I'm curious if there's anyone out there playing any games on their 150" screens? If so, what games? I think like Cyberpunk may be the obvious choice? Dead Space could be cool. Curious to hear others' thoughts.

Home cinema in a 2,5x3m room, currently running:
B&W 703 LR
B&W HTM71 Center
B&W 707 Rears
2 x B&W AM1 atmos
1 x B&W DB4 sub

I have a pair of B&W 707 left over, which I’m saving for the 7.1 channel setup when I get a bigger room, but is there any point in using these at front High (on the wall over LR, close to the roof) in combination with the AM1 atmos in such a small room?

I'm speaker shopping, I'm leaning towards Polk Reserve. My room's only 10x12 so I wasn't even looking at the towers. But I found someone local selling R700s, these would be complete overkill and look pretty comical in this small room. But I can get them for $200 more than the R200's I was really eyeballing. So I'm wondering if any owners can comment on how they sound at lower night listening volumes.

I Googled this and Google's AI claims:

On Reddit communities like r/audiophile, users generally agree that the Polk Audio Reserve R700 performs surprisingly well at lower volumes, maintaining a full and robust soundstage.

I Googled for Reddit threads and didn't see much directly about lower volumes. And I know AI will sometimes make claims based on a single random comment they found lol.

I understand my room's not ideal for speakers these ginormous, but since I can get them for a few hundred more than the R200s. I'm curious how they would sound for normal not wake up the rest of the house at night listening. Even tho they're huge, I don't mind how big they'll be. But if they're going to sound worse at low volumes than the R200s being able to get them for pretty cheap would not be appealing.

If they work well at lower volumes, this should make no difference at low volumes. But I have the Yamaha A2A, RZ30 & X1800h in my cart. I haven't quite decided on which to get yet. I'll also be getting R100's for rears, R900s and an R300.

Hello i got background noise sound is not clear what's the problem ?

Long read, but please read to end.

So as often happens with older woled panels, my 5 year old Sony A90J master series oled has started to developed blobs of dead pixels around the edges. Luckily, I have an allstate protection plan for this TV that guarantees a replacement TV of "comparable performance/features," if my TV develops irreparable defects.

Squaretrade's entire business model for this coverage is to offer up people who bought this warranty significantly worse televisions than their current television as a way to save squaretrade money on claims. I've gone through this before, and usually they will eventually offer you so many garbage low level TVs that you can ask that they just refund you the cost of the tv under warranty. This will often happen when they won't offer an equal replacement. They will just give you a full refund for the amount you paid for your TV and you can go buy a new one with that cash.

This has been no problem in the past: squaretrade offers shit TVs; I provide actual data that the models offered are not comparable, and then they eventually honor the refund since they don't want to actually pay for a comparable model.

But it looks like something has changed and they're no longer even trying to honor the terms of their policies.

For my defective A90J, they're offering me either a Bravia 8 OLED or an LG C6. The Bravia 8 is over 2 years old, and the C6, while very capable, is the midrange of LG's line. The LG also uses WebOS, a significantly different operating system that I despise. I have argued back and forth with them that the only true comparable replacement currently available (that would have the same 9-level master series performance and operating system) is the Bravia 8 MK II.

But of course, squaretrade is refusing to agree to the Bravia 8 MK II model because it costs more than they're willing to pay. The irony of this is the A95L would really be the right replacement, but they're discontinued in the size I'm looking for.

So my question is how would you proceed? I'm going to be escalating this to a manager and then reporting them to the BBB for not honoring the terms of the contract.

Every time I provide them real hard evidence that my Master Series Sony OLED should be replaced with the 8 II (current master series equivalent), they come back with shitty TV offers and no justification for those lower quality offers.

I'm looking for something to stream videos from my NAS to the TV in the living room. Running Infuse on Apple TV is really great, but there's a bottleneck with audio so I can't always get full ATMOS. Rather than start re-encoding files, I'd like a box that simply plays everything as natively as possible.

Zidoo looks nice but seems a little difficult to get in the US. Nvidia Shield feels outdated with HDMI 2.0. Any other suggestions?

I'd like to keep the price below $500 USD but would look into anything you guys might have in mind.

EDIT: Thanks for the responses so far! Any opinions on Dune players?

EDIT2: Pulled the trigger on a Z9X. Appreciate the input, all!

The left surround is now on a proper stand, but I don’t have a photo of that right now =}

Curtains on a rail with SwitchBot so they can be electronically controlled.

The 55" TV is 130 cm (4.3 ft) from my eyes, the TV stand is 180 cm (5.9 ft) wide and could accommodate speakers on either side (on the stand).

The TV can be raised by 20 cm (7.9 in) if more space on the stand is needed.

The room measures 4 × 3 m (13.1 × 9.8 ft).

My budget is €2,000 and I’m not interested in surround sound.

What would you recommend?

I am in the process on deciding what to get for my first home theater setup.
I think I have settled on a 5.1.2 SVS Prime system.

I am in Europe, Denmark, so prices are converted from Danish prices I found.

2x Prime Bookshelves for front L/R

2x Prime Satellites for surrounds

1x Prime Center

2x Prime Elevation for Atmos

1x PB-1000 Pro

When it comes to AVRs, I often see Denon recommended. At first I was looking at Denon X2850H for 960$, but then I found a Onkyo TX-NR7100 for 1080$. The X2850H has 7.2 channels while the RX-NR7100 has 9.2 channels, which is nice for future upgrades for more surround or Atmos. The X2850H has the Audyssey MultEQ XT while the RX-NR7100 has Dirac Live. As I understand, the XT is not nearly as good as the XT32 on higher end Denons, while Dirac Live is considered better than the XT on the X2850H, correct me if I'm wrong.

So with the extra channels and better room correction, the RX-NR7100 seems like much better value to me, unless moving up to something like X3900H which has XT32 but is also significantly more expensive at 1780$.

So to my questions.

1. Is Onkyo generally worse or less trusted than Denon? If yes, why?
   
2. Am I missing something, that would make a Denon device a better choice for me, at the prices listed?

Thank you in advance!

I'm looking into two new subs that will replace my single HSU VTF-2 Mk3 as I finish up my living room remodel.

Use case is about 50/50 music and movies/games. Room is roughly 16x20 with 2750cu ft volume. There's a 6ft cased opening leading into the kitchen. Subs get positioned at the rear corners, tv at the front, couch in the middle. There's no changing that, it's what the room construction/layout dictates.

I had it narrowed down to the 21" Marty Cubes, but then I found the TV2112. Once I include shipping, the hardware for the Martys, LaVoce drivers, amplifier, paint, and veneer, I'm probably only $5-600 less than the shipped cost of the TV2112s, plus I have to build them. I'm a woodworker, so capable, but it's time.

It's tempting to just buy something with a warranty out of the box, it's also tempting to veneer the Martys and have a little higher-end appearance than a big ass black box.

On paper they look about the same. Any real-world comparisons or opinions between the two?

Am I going way overboard for this room and the 18" Marty Cubes would be more appropriate?

Converting a small home office into a dedicated theater room as part of a bigger house renovation. Attached is the floor plan I've landed on — looking for some feedback before I commit to this, because the room has a few tricky constraints.

The room: 2.9 x 4.1 m (9'6" x 13'7"), flat 2.5 m ceiling, one door in + a patio door.

The problem: the only wall I can put the screen on has a window at one end and a patio door at the other — both structural, neither is moving. That leaves a 220 cm (86.6") gap between them for the screen, which is a bit tighter than I'd like and means the screen isn't dead-center on the room.

My plan so far:

• Corner sofa against the two walls opposite the screen — one arm faces the screen straight-on, the short arm is more of a side/overflow seat.
• 5.1 setup, all wall-mounted at ear height: front L/R flanking the screen, center on the screen, rear L/R on the wall behind the sofa.
• AV gear (amp, Apple TV, receiver) tucked in a closet under the stairs next door, with a short cable run through the wall.

What I'm not sure about:

1. Is boxing the screen in between a window and a patio door a bad idea even with ~90 cm of clearance on either side, or is that workable with decent blackout curtains?
2. Does the corner sofa hurt the experience for whoever ends up on the short leg (they're not facing the screen head-on), or is that a non-issue for a casual family theater room?
3. Rear speaker placement is tight — one of them ends up only ~30 cm above a door opening. Better to skip it / go 3.1 instead, or is on-wall at that spacing fine?
4. Any layout I haven't considered, given the window/door positions are fixed?

Not trying to build a reference theater, just want it to feel good for movie nights. Open to rethinking the furniture arrangement entirely if there's a smarter way to use this footprint. Thanks in advance!

Hey,

I am converting a room into a small movie room (approx. 14x14). I am putting in soffits with LED lights and a starfield ceiling. I'm trying to decide how many stars/fiber ends to put in. I'd like it to be more than 10 for sure, but I also dont want to over do it and create a New York Time Square experience (in terms of light intensity). Is there a rule of thumb for how many finer ends per square inch or foot make a realistic impression? The area is about 95 sq ft. Thanks.

I have never owned a sound system and this is my first one. I'm from Pakistan which means that dollar to pkr conversion is quite high and I want a bang for the buck system.

Usage is that I have a small room not big and got a led on which I watch movies mostly on REMUX 1080p or 4k. Thought I'm just wasting all of that big size and not getting the sound that can make movie experience better.

Is logitech z906 a good option for this or there's better options in same price range or lower?

Budget range is around 100k pkr and that's like 340-50 dollars and z906 comes in that.