*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

After years of HD envy I finally made the jump to HDTV.  I know it is hard to swallow that a confessed geek like myself doesn’t already own an HDTV.  The reason is I bought my 32inch Sony TV at the worst possible time years ago.  I wasn’t about to run out and buy another one until the prices were lowered.  When I purchased my Sony, at the time anything good started at $5,000.00.  Plus the newer components such as HDMI, 1080P and others were still being tossed around.  So, I waited.

After researching HDTVs for months I decided on the Samsung LED DLP HDTV Model HL-T5687S 56inch (pictured to the right).  This model has a lot of features:

1. 10:000:1 contrast ratio
2. SRS TruSurround XT
3. 3 HDMI Inputs
4. 1080p
5. Slim model (14 inches deep)
6. Built-in Tuners: NTSC/ ATSC / Clear QAM
7. LED – No lamps to replace or color wheel

The biggest feature of this model is I don’t have a lamp to replace and the color wheel (I’ve heard this was noisy).  With LEDs the word on the street is it will start up in about 15 seconds of turning it on.   The funny thing about this whole ordeal is I had to order three TVs to get one. 

Last Thursday night I ordered a 61inch from Amazon.Com because the price on the 61inch dropped to $2149.00.  I patiently awaited for confirmation for my order which didn’t get sent to the vendor it was actually shipping from until late Friday night.  Saturday morning I woke up to check the status of the order and went to the page the TV was on and instead of being sold from some random vendor it was selling directly from Amazon for the same price but with free shipping!  Thus I called the vendor and canceled the order. They just got it anyway and hadn’t even processed it.  As soon as the order was canceled I placed another order for the same 61inch model. 

Some of you are probably thinking at this point, didn’t you order a 56inch though?  The back story is on Saturday, after I placed the second order, the wife and I went to town looking for a new entertainment center to hold this 61inch beast.  We shopped and shopped and shopped and thought we finally found a unit that would really complement the house.  A timeless style we would enjoy for many years (picture to the right).   We drove back home and it hit me. I never measured the height of the TV for the entertainment center.  I kept measuring the width.  I called back to the store and the sales person measured it for me.  It was 37 inches.  The 61inch TV was 37.8!  I’m screwed!

I jumped on Amazon.Com real quick and canceled the 61inch.  Buying a TV this big was starting to become a chore.  I drove back to town to re-measure and see if I could make the 61inch TV work.  I fought a hard battle but in the end I was forced to get the 56inch.   No matter what I tried, the 56inch was the only size that was going to work with the furniture we chose (and no there were no other choices we liked).  Wife was now happy because she loved the furniture, but my manhood lost 5 cool points.  Wife 1, Husband 0. 

I got back home and ordered the 56inch TV which turned out to save me $300.00.  The 56inch was shipping from Amazon for $1849.00 and Free Shipping.  Yeah!  Last night it boarded a plane from Dallas and is probably sitting in the Jackson, Ms airport crying wanting its daddy.

Remember part of the subject?  ……so much to upgrade?  Well it doesn’t stop with just a new TV and entertainment center.  Now that I have HDMI inputs and outputs everywhere, my Sony receiver isn’t going to cut the mustard anymore.  After endless hours of shopping, reviews, feature comparisons, etc.  I settled on the Onkyo TX-SR705 7.1 receiver.

1. 7.1 channel
2. 130 watts per channel
3. 1080p upconversion (big time plus)
4. XM and Sirrius ready
5. WRAT
6. Audyssey MultiEQ XT
7. 3 HDMI inputs

I think it truly is the best bang for the buck out there in mid-range receivers.  Last on the list is the Logitech Harmony 890 Advanced Universal Remote Control.  This will serve as my magic wand to run this whole setup.  It supports up to 15 components and of course is programmable to 175,000 different components.  I think I’ll be covered 🙂