It will be an ongoing hobby of course, but the work involving the project portion was recently finished.
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It’s not like I needed another project. This one was “in process” for 14 years – just low priority. Back in 2003 we moved here and I put most of “my” crap in the basement, and the process of working, raising kids and all that went on for the next decade+ until I eventually retired and had more time to do the optional stuff. Finishing the home theater ended up being the kickoff to a larger, seasonal winter basement re-org and cleanup.
This always was the “good” system, with Klipsch Forte-IIs backed by Carver amps. But over the years it was cannibalized to keep the main room system upstairs running and fell into complete disuse for at least the past 5 years or so. You can still see evidence of the well-served girl’s parties on the walls. So I committed myself to getting it properly refurbished this winter. The system sported the full array of DBX analog processing equipment, now obsoleted by digital signal processing technology. So another Outlaw 975 processor to replace the 80’s-era Yamaha DSP unit was procured along with a plethora of used Carver amps from eBay sellers.
At some point I realized the old-school audiophile stuff like Carver amps was getting scarce and prices were going UP. We got lucky on a couple of those after morons shipped them improperly packaged causing damage. BUT they didn’t want them back and eBay issued refunds. One is inop, but probably repairable. The nice AV-505 (5×100-watt) literally looked like it fell off a moving truck, but the Post Office left it on the doorstep. It was impacted so hard the weight of the transformer inside bent the mounting brackets. But it works fine and I was going to take the handles off anyway.
It was time to splurge on a proper sub, so a PSA V3601 was ordered. This thing is something special. I took Francie and Michelle to one of the nicer cinemas near here a few weeks ago, just to confirm what I already knew. This is what the movie theaters are trying to achieve. It’s the real deal, weighing in at 250lbs. That should give some idea the size of the voice coils and transformers in this beast. An active room-correction equalization processor is calibrated on initial setup to dynamically compensate for placement and room acoustics producing thunderous, clean, clear, tight bottom ALL the way down, almost everywhere in the entire >10,000³ foot basement – no mean feat.
I’m going to go ahead and upgrade that 2003-era Sony 60″ LCD rear-projection TV next, despite still having a spare projector bulb for it. I measured the 70″ Sharp upstairs before building the aquarium shelf, intending a >80″ replacement at some point and moving the Sharp Aquos down to the Man Cave. But attempting to keep electronics in service for decades with the way quality is trending down lately no longer makes that seem like such a good idea. Research indicates the Vizio M70-E3 now on sale at Costco again after several markdowns is probably one of the best bang-for-the-buck models in the small field of good candidates to fit in this space.