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cvictorg

Last reply Aug 22, 2010 · posted in General Home Theater Equipment

Comment on my choices

My wife and I are replacing our old 32" Sony CRT and HTIB in a few weeks

The total budget for everything - TV, receiver, blu ray play and speakers is $3000

We've already decided on the Panasonic TC-P46S2 46" Class Viera S2 Series Plasma TV

For Blu Ray player I've narrowed the choices down to either the Denon DBP-2010CI or the Oppo BDP-83

For receiver I've also narrowed it down to 2 - the Denon AVR-591 5.1 CH or the Denon AVR 1611 7.1 CH - need your thoughts and comments

For speakers I've narrowed it down to a few choices and I need your thoughts and comments

Home Theater Direct Level 3 Bookshelf Package - 5.1 with Level 3 subwoofer
Hsu Research Enthusiast 1 Package
SVS Sound 5.1 Deluxe surround system with SBS-02 mains and PB12-NSD

Comments, thoughts, suggestions

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Kevinw

Aug 17, 2010

After reading around all your posts, one thing has not been mentioned and that is the size of the room. If you can have only a 46 inch TV I would consider another brand of A/V receiver in this mix. Volume(wattage) is not an issue in smaller settings and since you are going with a 5.1 I would look at receivers from Harmon Kardon, Onkyo, Yamaha or Outlaw for example. Look at THD ratings.
Smaller rooms usually mean smaller speakers in order for it not to look filled. Many small form factors speakers sound very good for HT. Take a look at Mirage for example( No Bose)

Just food for thought

scott5626

Aug 18, 2010

For receiver if your not opposed to "Refurbished" I just picked up my Onkyo 807 for just over $500 ($1099 new) and I couldn't be happier. Direct from Club Onkyo.

I am a die hard Polk fan when it comes the speakers, new egg just had the Monitor 60 Towers for $120 each.

Blue Ray Oppo is nice, still nothing is as fast as a PS3 at load times.

I also just got the Panasonic Plasma 50G25...it's rated the best non 3D set out currently.

HiDefRev

Aug 21, 2010

New System

Lots of good suggestions here. I prefer Onkyo, as well. I have 2 in my home, and absolutely love them. I would also recommend getting at least a 50" Panasonic plasma. They not only look much smaller when you get them home, but they tend to "shrink" after a couple of weeks, as well. I replaced the 50" in my living room ( now doing grandkid duty in my den ) with a 58" plasma a few months ago. Now I wish I had gone ahead and gotten the 65"......

. For Blu-ray, I would choose the Oppo. The only reason I don't have one is because I went full 3D on my current system, and Oppo doesn't yet offer a 3D BD player. As for your speakers....I would suggest getting whatever sounds good to you, but stay FAR AWAY from Bose ( Buy Other Sound Equipment ). There are MANY speaker manufacturers that are far superior to Bose and have prices that are much LESS than Bose. Listen to several and see what suits your tastes. .

jvc

Aug 22, 2010

Denon makes good equipment. But, it's not the easiest to deal with unless you're very familiar with setting up surround equipment. Denon remotes can be a nightmare also. If you end up going with Denon, be sure to get a Harmony remote. I'd also suggest Onkyo over the Denons. Onkyo is usually more bang for the buck. It's easier to setup and use also.

For speakers, you can't go wrong with the SVS set. They have great speakers packaged with an outstanding subwoofer. SVS makes some of the best subs on the planet. Hsu also does a good sub. Here is user reviews of the SVS speakers, at another forum, not professional reviews. You'll get an idea of the usual buyer's thoughts: The Official SVS Speakers Thread - Blu-ray Forum
Enjoy!

diogen

Aug 22, 2010

Onkyo was (historically) the first AVR maker whose sub-$1K receivers were capable of handling lossless audio from Blu-ray disks. I believe that helped them step into the first tier of AVR manufacturers.

The only problem with Onkyo AVRs is heat dissipation.
If your A/V rack is small and/or crowded make sure it has good air ventilation...

Diogen.

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Van

Last reply 10 minutes ago · posted in What's Cooking?

Whats for breakfast?

Who says dinner or lunch has to be the only good meals of the day?

Honey butter grits with scrambled eggs and grilled boneless pork ribs on flakey biscuits washed down with cranberry juice.

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TRG

Oct 17, 2026

Cold morning today, only 32 degrees. Fired up the oven and made cinnamon rolls (from a tube) and a pot of coffee.

Reactions: dfergie

TRG

Thursday at 4:10 PM

2 egg burrito with bacon and a side of hashbrowns. Coffee.

TRG

Sunday at 1:40 PM

Breakfast Quesadillas. Grilled flour tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, hash browns, chopped green chile, cheddar & Jack cheese and bacon. Coffee.

Bobby

Today at 1:53 PM

Taco omelette. 3 eggs, taco meat from yesterday, diced green chilis, cheddar cheese, chopped red onion, avocado, black olives, chopped tomato, La Victoria Salsa Brava.

This one was really, really good!

Reactions: dfergie

dfergie

10 minutes ago

Thought I was getting a Chorizo and egg burrito (marker had rubbed off)but was a roast beef/potato I made up before hunting this morning.
Btw every morning at camp I cooked my homemade Chorizo and scrambled eggs plus sausage side while my brother brought bacon. (they liked both the beef and pork versions)

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Scott Greczkowski

Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge

Last reply 20 minutes ago · posted in The Chit Chat Club

Song Name Game Part 3!

Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne

Get it?

An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....

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sdfntx

Today at 10:24 AM

On with the Show - The Rolling Stones

gms49ers

Today at 10:41 AM

The Show Must Go On - Pink Floyd

Reactions: long_time_Dish and dishstaller

Bobby

Today at 11:20 AM

If Love Must Go - Dobie Gray

FTA4PA

Today at 1:58 PM

Drift Away - Dobie Gray

Reactions: long_time_Dish and gms49ers

long_time_Dish

20 minutes ago

Throwing It All Away - Genesis

Reactions: FTA4PA

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dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

30 minutes ago · posted in The Phone & Tablet Zone

Wife's iPhone 15 doesn't allow her to choose LTE only for data

We were up in Pigeon Forge, TN a month ago and we couldn't get anything on our phones to work on mobile data...the Ookla speed test app couldn't even do a speed test. I have an older 13 and went into my settings and turned off the 5G, making it use LTE exclusively....did a speed test of over 300mbps so obviously the 5G bands were overwhelmed. Anyway, tried to do the same thing on my Wife's 15 and the cellular data options tab simply wasn't there. Any of you run into this? We've on Verizon

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osu1991

Pub Member / Supporter

Last reply 35 minutes ago · posted in TV Shows

Marvel Television’s VisionQuest

View: https://youtu.be/oSVTAUKyrL8?si=pF-pQQAJIiKjSqx6

Oct 14 Disney+

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meStevo

Oct 14, 2026

First 2 eps out and it's unsurprisingly great to watch Paul Bettany and James Spader work.

Reactions: MikeD-C05, Foxbat, Ronnie- and 1 other person

osu1991

Oct 14, 2026

Watched the first episode and enjoyed it.

Reactions: MikeD-C05, Foxbat and Ronnie-

Foxbat

Oct 14, 2026

James Spader gets the best lines so far. I'm enjoying this series.

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osu1991

Oct 14, 2026

Finished the 2nd episode tonight. I'm really liking it so far.

Still hate weekly releases though, especially the way Disney and HBO do it waiting until 8pm to premiere it.

Reactions: MikeD-C05 and Foxbat

Foxbat

35 minutes ago

Apparently I'm not a big enough nerd

since I did not read every Marvel Comic Book ever published. If I had, I might be comparing the comics' version of events compared to what's transpiring in "Visionquest". So, I am enjoying the series a lot, not weighed down by previous expectations, knowing only the Avengers MCU movies and the "Wandavision" / "Agatha All Along" TV series.

I found the Mr Know-it-All channel from his discussion about "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" and he's been gleefully picking these episodes apart, referencing the Marvel comics from the 1939 on. Turns out A.I. has been around since before World War II, at least in the comics. (Robots before that, yes, yes.) This show is going back into the archives.

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TheForce

Supporting Founder Pub Member / Supporter

Last reply 56 minutes ago · posted in The Phone & Tablet Zone

Anyone planning to buy the iphone 17?

It's time for my wife to get a new iphone as her iphone 12 is getting weak battery life test says 70% compared to when new. But it is beginning to show signs of screen freezing as well.

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Foxbat

Aug 24, 2025

It may be the year to update my 13 to the 15.

Reactions: rvvaquero and navychop

Foxbat

Nov 4, 2025

BTW, iOS 26.1 is now out for iPhone, along with the OS 26.1 updates for all other supported Appley iDevices.

osu1991

Nov 9, 2025

Bought a Motorola G Power 5G android phone as a spare and to use for some work stuff. Was tired of work stuff cluttering up my iPhone 16 Pro. Didn't take long to remember why I originally went to an iPhone. 4hrs doing updates to step up from Android 14 updates to Android 15 and latest updates for 15. Ads on the Play store above the app I searched for is something I don't really remember from the last android phone I had 13-14 yrs ago. Face ID on iphone has spoiled me too.

I just wanted a cheap phone mainly for work pictures or I would have got an 17 Pro and used my 16 for work stuff, but no need to spend that kind of money. I don't even have cellular service on the Motorola, just using it on WiFi and added my google voice number to it with the app.

Reactions: navychop

Foxbat

Nov 30, 2025

Apple released their 2025 Holiday video. Friendly forest fauna find forgotten phone…

There's also a behind the scenes "Making of" video, too:

Foxbat

Feb 12, 2026

Foxbat said:
BTW, iOS 26.1 is now out for iPhone, along with the OS 26.1 updates for all other supported Appley iDevices.

BTW, iOS 26.3 is now out for iPhone, along with the OS 26.3 updates for all other supported Appley iDevices.

Foxbat

Mar 10, 2026

Foxbat said:
It may be the year to update my 13 to the 15.

Apple made me an offer I couldn't refuse. For whatever reason, they bumped up the Trade-in value of my iPhone 13, first to $180, and just recently to $195. So I took the Apple Cash from Apple card savings and the $195 trade-in and have a shiny new iPhone 17 nothing. The base 256 GB is more than enough for my needs.

Now I'm on the lookout for a leather case for it…

Reactions: osu1991

Foxbat

56 minutes ago

My iPhone 17 is now running iOS 27.2 (whatever happened to 27.1.x?) and it looks like all the other Apple devices that can are releasing 27.2 (looks like it came out Monday)

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iJustine

Today at 2:32 PM · posted in iJustine

The new PROLED MacBook Pro has a Dynamic Island 😯

Time for another AWESOME video from iJustine!

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CjVbq6h2VZw

Direct YouTube Link - The new PROLED MacBook Pro has a Dynamic Island

The official iJustine Website's Website
Buy her book!

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iJustine

Today at 2:32 PM · posted in iJustine

New PROLED MacBook Pro!

Time for another AWESOME video from iJustine!

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ux8oQzvijl4

Direct YouTube Link - New PROLED MacBook Pro!
The official iJustine Website's Website
Buy her book!

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"MysteryMan"

Pub Member / Supporter Cutting Edge

Last reply Today at 2:25 PM · posted in Computers and Gadgets

Windows 10/11 Download

I created this thread on the original Edgecutter Cutting Edge Forums site. It's simply a place for those to review the latest software available for those using Windows 10 and Windows 11. To date it has received 112,559 views. I have been asked by staff to continue this thread here.

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EarDemon

Oct 13, 2026

If it wasn't for what I want, I wouldn't need any of this.

Do I need a collection of handheld radios, scanners and speed enforcement countermeasures? Nope, but I want them. Very little, if any of the software used to interface with these devices is available on Linux.

WhiteBeard

Oct 13, 2026

EarDemon said:
If it wasn't for what I want, I wouldn't need any of this.

Do I need a collection of handheld radios, scanners and speed enforcement countermeasures? Nope, but I want them. Very little, if any of the software used to interface with these devices is available on Linux.

To each there own but I've found that Windows can't do much more than Linux can. Can't have everything.

Reactions: meStevo

EarDemon

Oct 14, 2026

WhiteBeard said:
To each there own but I've found that Windows can't do much more than Linux can. Can't have everything.

For niche use cases, yes I agree. Kali for ethical hacking and security testing, and running a Cacti server for network monitoring are the two things I have experience in. Plus thousands and thousands of other things, but for every day use I just can't see it. The owner of the GMRS repeater that I pay to access is changing the Tx DPL tones tomorrow, while Chirp is available on Linux, the software to program my MXT500 is not.

I run Fedora and Ubuntu in VMWare, honestly I don't care much for the UI of either of them and I don't feel like spending days/weeks to customize the UI to make it look Windows-like when I could just use Windows. The cartoonish dock at the bottom of the screen reminds me of Apple products.

harshness

Oct 15, 2026

EarDemon said:
I don't care much for the UI of either of them and I don't feel like spending days/weeks to customize the UI to make it look Windows-like when I could just use Windows.

What is so fantabulous about the Windows UI? By many accounts, it has been going downhill since Windows 7.

There are Linux desktops that offer Windows or Mac UIs, yet you don't hear much chatter about them outside of questions about when the creators might get sued.

Reactions: HipKat

EarDemon

Oct 15, 2026

harshness said:
What is so fantabulous about the Windows UI?

Because it's what I prefer. I know I've said this a few times, I use Open Shell to give me the cascading start menu a la WIN 95 and NT4.0. The only reason I went from Windows Vista to 7 back in the day was because of Classic Shell. I cannot stand anything other than the OG start menu from 30+ years ago. I'm using ExplorerPatcher to give me Windows 10 UI elements of the taskbar and right click context menus.

If you could take a look at how I set up Windows 95, you'd find many similarities to how I use 11.

Reactions: cp2k

EarDemon

Oct 15, 2026

I could probably use that as a starting point, but I don't like the full size icons. If you have to click on each folder that's also a no-go for me, it has to be cascading.

I used to have Peppermint Linux in a VM, that was about as close as I could get to recreating a Windows NT4.0 style of menu structure, but I could never get it to scale properly in VMWare on a 4K display and eventually gave up.

Whatever the boot up time it's fine with me. The longest part of my bootup is the HP SureStart BIOS integrity check. Once that is done, it's only a few more seconds. I haven't done this reg tweak yet since the reformat, but I switched the bootup animation to the Windows 10 style spinning circle of dots, and it's two and a half rotations. I can live with that.

harshness

Oct 16, 2026

EarDemon said:
Because it's what I prefer.

I hope you don't believe that makes it wonderful (especially when you're using workarounds for Microsoft's malfeasance).

I use LibreOffice as opposed to Microsoft office (even in Windows) because it's UI is like the Office of old, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is (in a manner of speaking). The ribbon was one of the worst ideas to come out Redmond.

HipKat

Oct 16, 2026

EarDemon said:
I could probably use that as a starting point, but I don't like the full size icons. If you have to click on each folder that's also a no-go for me, it has to be cascading.

I used to have Peppermint Linux in a VM, that was about as close as I could get to recreating a Windows NT4.0 style of menu structure, but I could never get it to scale properly in VMWare on a 4K display and eventually gave up.

Whatever the boot up time it's fine with me. The longest part of my bootup is the HP SureStart BIOS integrity check. Once that is done, it's only a few more seconds. I haven't done this reg tweak yet since the reformat, but I switched the bootup animation to the Windows 10 style spinning circle of dots, and it's two and a half rotations. I can live with that.

I used to pin the C: drive to the Win Taskbar and it would open in cascading style

"MysteryMan"

Today at 2:25 PM

2026-10 Preview Update Builds: 26300.9818 and 26200.9818 (KB5127936) has been released. Moderate time needed for those choosing to perform a manual download/install/restart. Quality improvements only. No new operating system features.

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TWiT Tech Podcast Network

Today at 2:22 PM · posted in TWiT Tech Podcast Network

Windows Weekly 1007

Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MT4ptWNv2E

Direct YouTube Link - Windows Weekly 1007
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed

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Booredatwork.com

Today at 1:52 PM · posted in BooredAtWork.COM

MacBook Pro PROLED XDR Hands-on

Time for another AWESOME video from BoredAtWork!

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sv9Vp1GGpeU

Direct YouTube Link - MacBook Pro PROLED XDR Hands-on
Booredatwork.com Website
Booredatwork on Facebook

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Comment on my choices

Whats for breakfast?

Song Name Game Part 3!

Wife's iPhone 15 doesn't allow her to choose LTE only for data

Marvel Television’s VisionQuest

Anyone planning to buy the iphone 17?

The new PROLED MacBook Pro has a Dynamic Island 😯

New PROLED MacBook Pro!

Windows 10/11 Download

Windows Weekly 1007

MacBook Pro PROLED XDR Hands-on