6.1

skip to bottom for EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.

with the sony dead, i went out and got an onkyo HTIB (home theater in a box). the htib was attractive because 1) i've never had a subwoofer and they make a BIG difference 2) i have 5 speakers but most new receivers are 6.1 or 7.1 3) even though the speakers that come with a HTIB are "crappy" by audiophile standards, my speakers were crappy by anybody's standards (they started out crappy and all the times they were dropped probably didn't help -- plus they were likely mis-wired).

so on monday night i went down to frys (because of their return policy) and was pleased to find that they had the system i wanted for 50 bucks off: $350 + tax. they had it in black, too. it fit in my car with lots of praying and help from a friendly fry's employee, and i managed to get it out of my car with even more praying, risking serious injury to my car.

then, risking serious injury to my back, i managed to muscle the 113lb 4.5-ft tall box up to my 2nd floor apartment.

it was relatively easy to set up, though it took me well over 4 hours to do it. i had to unwrap the components, carefully attach the wires, remove all my old crap (speakers, wire (monster cable, wow), unused computer hooked up to the teevee, etc), talk to W on the phone, read through the manual. in the process of hooking it up W suggested (via phone) that i rearrange the room, and I agreed it was a good idea. the old setup was rather poor for a subwoofer and would require buying a speaker stand for the rear center (the "6" in "6.1"). Instead, I moved the couch up against the wall and discovered that the new room configuration freed up a huge amount of space, kept the couch several inches further from the teevee (old setup kept the couch too close to the boob tube), and provided some storage behind the couch (previously there was no "behind" the couch).

i ended up putting some screws in my wall and hanging the rear center upon them. (i found out the next morning that I once again have a neighbor behind that wall, but s/he smokes, so fuck em. it's a center-rear speaker, anyhow, not a subwoofer).

i moved my DVD racks from one side of the room to the other. did i take the dvds off before doing this? hell no! but my collection is now in a seriously funny order -- they were alphabetized across two racks (a-b on top shelf of left rack, b-c on top shelf of the other, c-e on 2nd shelf of left rack, f-i on 2nd shelf of the other, etc), and now the racks are on the wrong side. heh.

but all this is boring. what matters: does the new system rock my socks?

yes, it does.

it was too late to watch a movie when i finished setting it all up. i played a little pink floyd to see if i had all the speakers working (i did). the next morning i watched the good parts of 1977's Star Wars and was impressed by the full sound of my speakers and the good separation. yep, impressed by a $350 system. not a $35,000 system or even a $3,500 system. this $350 system (which costs less than what I paid for just the old receiver) totally blows away my old setup.

last night I watched terminator II and was very impressed. explosions exploded. bullets whizzed. i even noticed things in the film I'd never seen before (when the T1000 is flying the helicopter he's got at least 3 hands: 2 for flying and 1 or 2 for shooting!). Okay, that has very little to do with the sound, but I've seen T2 a bajillion times and never noticed that before.

the system is great. what makes it even greater is that i spent very little money on it (since i likely won't use it much anyhow). what makes it even more greater is that i'm satisfied with the default wiring and won't have to spend $200 on monster cables and banana clips and shit. what makes it even more better greater is that i rearranged the room into a bitchin new configuration. i'm completely satisfied with my purchase.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

if you're in the market for a HTIB and don't consider yourself an audiophile (and dont want to spend a shitload of cash to impress your friends) get the Onkyo HT-S770. it will rocks your socks.