Figured it was time to ditch the projection tv, so I picked up a couple things. Nothing too elaborate, but I'm pretty happy with the way its coming together. I got a 37" Philips LCD. Its a slick looking thing... piano black finish with ambilight. Very happy with the picture quality, menus are pretty slick too. Significantly smaller than my 51" projection, but I moved the couch a foot closer and I barely notice the difference.

Needed a new dvd player, one thing led to another and I ended up with an xbox 360. I've had one before but sold it when I went back to school, hopefully I can pry myself away from Battlefield 2 this time. So thats my dvd player, also connected to an old PC full of mp3s.

I got an airport express for streaming my itunes library to my receiver. Simple thing, can't believe I never bought one of these before. I use it all the time now.

Also got an airport extreme base n base station, which is the white thing on top of the audio rack. I have a couple external hard drives and my printer hooked up to the USB port on it, one less thing to plug in to my laptop.

Got a Bellogetti tv stand, audio rack, and speaker stands today. Never really cared about this stuff before, but I'm really happy I got it. Looks pretty good I think.

So anyway, pretty basic stuff but a big step up for me. I need to clean up the wires, but I just spent about two hours putting this all together and figured I share. Done just in time to watch Lost

 

sweet setup

 

Very nice. The only problem I have with those Bello audio stands is wire management. Pretty slick though.

 

The round part of the stand is hollow actually, I just hadn't run the wire through when I took the pic.

The speaker stands are Bello, the tv stand and audio rack are 'Bellogetti'. Someone said Bellogetti is the old name of the company, and the stuff was more high end, before they became Bello and started selling their stuff in Best Buy. Anyone know if there is any truth to that?

 

Nice, congrats. I always hate trying to hide wires in open backed racks. Even with the ones with hollowed out tubes to run wires. It takes a lot of effort to get it where you can't see any wires in some systems. But you got a nice setup now. I really like the tv stand.

 

Looks good, how do you like the ambilight?

 

Wonderful setup

How much coin did you spend for all of that?

 

No kidding. I spent an hour to get it where it is now, and there are still wires all over. Only one side of the rack has openings for wires, its tough to fit a couple cat5's, components, and power cables through there at once. Definitely a reason to go with hdmi.


Thanks man.

tv - $1,000
tv stand (craigslist)- $100
audio rack + speaker stands (craigslist) - $300

Then the apple stuff was about $300 and the xbox was $400.

 

I love it.

 

Does it actually "enhance" the viewing experience much, or is it more of a wow factor?

Going back to what you paid, you really made some great buying decisions and those speakers look awesome!

 

Good deal on the TV. Even after my discount it's $1260.

 

I think it enhances it a little. It does seem easier on the eyes to have a backlight, and with certain stuff it really does make a big difference. With a discovery channel show on sharks, for example, having the wall lit up in blue looks pretty sweet.


Gracias

I got the manager at best buy to knock $300 off what was already the sale price of the tv... told him I was headed to costco to buy a 37" vizio unless he would sell this one under a grand, and he said ok.

 

looks good. Careful watering those plants.

 

Uh yeah, placing water directly above nice electrical equipment is not a wise idea.

Murphy's Law just drools over stuff like that.

 

i want those speakers

 

Beet, how do you like the TV? I can now order the same one for $1000 w/free shipping. I was going to get the 32" for $850, but I don't think I can pass up this new deal.