Home Theater question

[mustangraven]

I personally run a plain old office ups on my home entertainment setup I got it to pick up the slack in case of a brown out or whatever. I have never had an issue. I think monster cables are a bit of a joke myself its a freakin wire! there has been alot of info posted on the net about comparisons of plain rcas ups etc to monster cable stuff and there has been 0 difference. accept for prettier wires but who looks at them after they are hooked up anyways. as far as ups's go I usually run belkins or apc. I would suggest one that monitors current and uses the battery to pick up the slack in case of a power fluctuation. the cheapo ones dont usually do it for that you will spend about 60 bucks. I have an IBM one I got off ebay brand new for 40 bucks doin the job. This does my stereo dvd sat reciever tv ps2 xbox and my LCD projector too. good luck.

[nysulli]

i agree somewhat with the cables do nothing theory, i think some people look to far into it, and yes, monster is typically garbage, but oddly enough their power filtration stuff is decent, but when it comes to cables, its all about the proper gauge and cable geometry, those can make huge differences in sound quality, resistance, inductance, capacitance all effect signal transfer, and are effected by the size of wire, geometry, let alone RF noise/mechanical noise that goes into the cable, a well made DIY cable can cost a fraction of what a name brand will cost you, and make all the difference in the world.

and chris, i hate to say it, but you got a really nice HD set, problem is, buying a big screen is like buying a ferrari, its great, but no matter what you do, you can't avoid the maintance costs on it, and i think you'll be suprised how long those bulbs will last, we've got a few similar bulbs in lab gear, and with 2-3 hours of use a day, they last 2-3 years, and they get turned on/off a few times a day without any thought given to warm up/cool down

that said, for replacement bulbs, check out bulbs direct, great service and cheap prices

[Pike]

Don't fall for the Monster Power marketing scam. Buy a Panamax piece and call it a day. http://www.panamax.com/products.cfm

A buddy of mine that used to work at Tweeter and went through Panamax training. He said they shocked a Monster hts3500 with 20,000 volts and it just blew up and caught on fire. Then they did the same thing to a $100 Panamax power center nothing happened. And if you read the Monster power bar manual it is recommended you unplug it from the wall during any lighting storm.

[xceebeex]

I like the panamax stuff but it was a little more than I really want to spend, especially without UPS built in as well.

[mikecentola]

Originally Posted by Pike

Don't fall for the Monster Power marketing scam. Buy a Panamax piece and call it a day. http://www.panamax.com/products.cfm

A buddy of mine that used to work at Tweeter and went through Panamax training. He said they shocked a Monster hts3500 with 20,000 volts and it just blew up and caught on fire. Then they did the same thing to a $100 Panamax power center nothing happened. And if you read the Monster power bar manual it is recommended you unplug it from the wall during any lighting storm.

Those look pretty good. I'll have to look into them when I get my new receiver and such.

CB - you have to realize most people who will set up a nice home theater won't care about UPS on the TV. It's better to get clean power and everything for your components than it is to protect a $200 bulb. Especially when $200 is nothing to maintain a $10000+ home theatre.

[nysulli]

panamax is another solid company, i failed to mention them just because they can be a bit harder to get ahold of locally.

chris, $100 bucks is what your going to end up spending minimum for quality prebuilt power conditioning gear, the only thing i'd suggest to protect your gear under that would be an isobar, even then your looking 50-70 bucks, i've heard to many nightmare stories of people losing gear to surges that go right through the 10-20 buck protectors, with a TV that nice, its not worth the risk to go cheap, and i know you know that, i'd very heavily suggest going the route of a surge protector/line conditioner in the 100-200 dollar range

one big suggestion, and i really suggest you do this, stop by your local audio shop, maybe tweeter does this, but most reputable high end audio places will let you take something like a line conditioner home to try out with a credit card number, i'd really suggest taking advantage of that, you might find that a line conditioner doesn't do a thing for you and its all a waste of cash, but you might also find that your picture quality gets noticably better

[Shawn96VR-4]

Wow. I missed this thread. I run the Monster Power Home Theater PowerCenter MPHTS1000MKIII. I installed it all at the same time and use it for a power strip with protection as well as a conditioner. I have a TON of connections but someday soon I'd like to try it with this conditioner and w/o to compare.

It makes me feel good inside tho.

[xceebeex]

Well I think we are all on a similar page. The Belkin unit that I am leaning towards does the Line conditioning and Surge Suppression as well as an added bonus of UPS protection. The Surge Suppression protection is more than adequate for the Belkin unit as well. The unit retails for 400 but a lot of places have it for less than 200.

[Shawn96VR-4]

It makes sense to spend a bit for the surge protection given people with any sort of HDTV setup will have TV/receiver/etc.. that will add up nicely on a single strip. I wouldn't drop all that on a $3.99 strip from WalMart.