World's nastiest HT setup?

[Tube60]

Okay folks, this is what I currently watch movies with!
To wit:

26" Philips TV, given to me by a co-worker;

1960 Trio (now Kenwood) stereo receiver, circa 1960, thrift shop find, $5.00;

Seven year old Samsung DVD player left behind by my ex, cost, don't ask;

Mitsubishi HiFi VCR, given to me by a friend in the service industry;

10" powered subwoofer from MCM Electronics, on sale for $79.99;

5" two-way Sony bookshelf speakers, on sale at Circuit City for $39.95.

Sitting on the receiver is a ribbon tweeter for the center channel, from MCM as well, and VERY good sounding BTW, $9.95 ea. This receiver is actually a three channel unit, and it passively decodes some dialog channels somehow!
Overall it's actually pretty startling how good it sounds for the scalp-lifting 8 watts per channel the receiver produces! I'd say the big negative would be the Sony speakers. They're a little muddy on the top end.
All in all, however, for bang-for-buck value, it's priceless!:rocker:

 

[MotorToad]

Heh, nice. I'm a believer in the art of second-hand, free, ancient, and unloved audio systems.

I'll have to promise pics later (the camera is out on loan taking pictures of a kitten :-\), but the audio half our TV system is pretty hokey, too.

First, the best/worst of it: The fireplace was modified by the previous owner of the house.... poorly. There's this thing, like a mantle, we call the "Gaping Hole of @$$," that he trimmed with shower molding that was cut to not fit with metal shears (you can easily see the marks) and I made a 90º tilted shelf to mount my roommate's 42" Westy LCD on. So as far as TV goes, we're covered! However, there's a home-built, floor-to-ceiling shelf on one side and plaster wall on the other, so no way to mount speakers there.

When my roommate bought the TV, it came with this free everything-in-one DVD/surround system (Phillips HTS3450). It has the DVD player, 5 "speakers" and a sub box that holds all the power bits. [I have to admit there's one plus to this system, the sub actually doesn't sound bad... it's not good, and there's not a lot of bass, but can actually hear it and it doesn't BOOM BOOM BOOM at that one port-tuned frequency like *every* other little sub box I've ever had the poor fortune to sit near.] The little speakers that came with it, though... you wouldn't believe them. The center channel doesn't seem so bad (it's still in the system) but the main and surround speakers are so awful they were hooked up, listened to, unplugged, and gone forever. I broke the little speaker plugs open that go into the sub box and wired in some Radio Shack MC-600 speakers that I'd had in the garage system (hooked to an Advent receiver with, get this, a Vernier dial on the tuner!). To be honest, I've always been very impressed with the sound of these little gems, one of those random acts of fate that sometimes afflicts the Tandy Corporation with a good product. These were too big for the shelf the TV sits on so they sat on the floor and did fine.

Until we got a DVR cable box with digital audio out (the HTS3450 has a coax digital input), and then the speakers really sounded like they were on the floor. So I broke out my brand new to me JBL 2600s (acquired from a presbyterian church yard sale for $30 in as-new condition!), and put them on bar stools to get them off the floor. I just can't find speaker stand that are simultaneously nice enough to have in the living room and cheap enough to use to hold up $30 of speakers. I can't imagine how having padded stands is helping the bass output of the little ported 6½ inch "woofers!"

With the system just running the mains and center channel, it really doesn't sound bad. It's certainly within my tolerance of TV systems, anyway. It strikes me as odd how the center speaker is quite bearable where the "mains" were so offensive it makes me question Phillips as a company. Maybe if I come across another center speaker I'll feel differently... Hrm... Circuit Chity had a $400 Boston center on sale for $240...

Heh, that reminds me. When I brought the Logans home my roommates were somehow confused and came up with this silly freaking idea that they'd be integrated into the TV audio system. I mean, I can understand a full theater type system if you're into the movies and such... but thinking that a cable box, amp (or worse, that thing that powers the JBLs), and MLs would make a TV system. That really defines the gap between us and "them," doesn't it? ;-)

 

[Audiophiliac]

Dont make me break out my homemade CD-tape adapter/radio shack 8" whizzer cone in a cardboard box with a boom box am/fm tuner setup!! I WILL find pics!

 

[Beat_Dominator]

You need to start somewhere! I started off with a Pioneer reciever with seperate CD player and mono-VCR

 

[kcl]

And if I dig really deep, maybe I can find the Heathkit transistor radio I built back in the '50s.

 

[lugano]

Mine is nastier than yours

Okay folks, this is what I currently watch movies with!
To wit:

26" Philips TV, given to me by a co-worker;

Here's how to turn your tube TV in a flat screen one, and also the dog's HT

 

[MotorToad]

I took pics. This setup is too ghetto for me to not share.

As you can see from the flash, the TV points right at you on the couch. It really sits too high, but there's no place else to put it.

The second pic is the shelf covering the Gaping Hole.

 

[Tube60]

I hope this thread continues...... I just snorted a brandy & ginger ale out my nose! Painful yet satisfying at the same time!:haha1:

 

[Pcar928fan]

Love the handicap parking sign...shows REAL CLASS! The guy probably has a giant "L" tatooed on his forehead!

 

[socialxray]

the first set of pics is lovingly referred to as a "redneck flatscreen."

What I love about the second set of pics is the high quality speaker stands.