Your Home Theatre's Biggest Upgrade is Cheaper Than You Think

I bought all of the components (except the speaker wire) from Goodwill. Each component cost under $20 each! They are the only thrift store that lets you return electronics within 7 days for store credit. Yamaha AVR and front speakers, Kenwood surrounds, Infinity center, and a Jensen subwoofer. Be sure to get an AVR with HDMI if you can. Otherwise, your set up options will be limited. It took time and patience, but it was worth it. I love the sound for movies, and for music! I also bought Blu Ray players for $10 to $20 each. Oh, yeah, the AVR was missing the remote, so I bought an aftermarket compatible from Amazon for under $20.

I find your videos so incredibly entertaining. I have never seen someone who at one time can be so naive (I say that with no negative connotation intended) and so aware and knowledgeable at the same time. Unless you are acting and pretending not to know some of the things you don't know, you seem to instinctively recognize the inherent shortcomings and limitations of things that usually take people a lot of time to learn. With that said, I'll say this... You are really limiting yourself with the shoestring budget. You are definitely on the right track buying used but well maintained gear as someone just dipping your toes into the water for the first time, but you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel in what's available. If you increased your speaker budget by just $500 and spent it on the L/C/R speakers you would hear a world of difference. And behind your TV is not just not ideal, it is the absolute worst thing you can do.

You did well. All the other stuff is a learning curve, that's all. I just upgraded my ancient Cambridge AVR with a new Denon. And yes, it cost more than $200. Navigating around CEC and eARC compatibility was a learning curve for me but I finally have it working fine. The difference between my old AVR is very noticeable. Technology has come a long way since 2008--the vintage of my Cambridge AVR. Despite the frustrations with Market Place, you done good. Great value. Thanks for sharing.

As a kid when I got my first hifi set, the first song I heard on it was Dire Straits "Money for Nothing"! And ever since, it is the first song I play on every new piece of hi-fi tech I get.

You get the best effect separating the front and the surround speakers far apart and elevated. My den is 12x25, the left and right speakers are 25' apart and about 5' off the floor. Sound bounces off objects, it's why clubs and concerts elevate speakers.

Welcome to the club home theater 😊❤ yeah it's a lot of work to get a home theater up and running gets expensive but then you can upgrade everything down the road if you want something stronger or better 😉 does the one great benefit about this hobby upgraded my system twice receiver upgraded my speakers twice to bigger and better my system is a 7.2.4 which means seven speakers for Atmos speakers on the ceiling two subwoofers ❤

If you have wobbly stands for the speakers, replace them with sturdy heavy ones. You can make cheap speakers sound better with rock solid stands. To test it, just try placing them on cinder blocks. Another improvement is also to have a foundation with the points to limit wobble. This works because any movement defeats the purpose of the sound drivers by limiting efficiency through the movement of the whole speaker. Motion is the enemy of high fidelity.

I'm rocking a VSX-D457 from my child hood running through a converter to a Hisense U7G and even though it's a 29 y/o receiver getting essentially a stereo signal from the converter it sounds better than a cheap soundbar and the tv

i went a simpler route, not exactly cheap but i got the audioengine a2+ and their s6 subwoofer. ~$600 USD all said and done. most video players have pretty good surround to stereo decoding these days and more importantly, we have two ears. as long as your stereo speakers are arranged in a way to provide a good soundstage, the sound is very much 3 dimensional. the major plus here is that the a2+ speaker set has an internal amplifier. so as long as your tv or projector has a headphone jack or phono rca inputs, ur good to go! and if u need more hdmi ports, ugreen sells some rly nice hdmi switches that supports 3d, hdr, etc etc

Center channel behind the TV is CRAAAAZY

When you want something of really good quality and value you will pay a premium price, but finding things on sale or clearance is the best way to upgrade. My current system is a Yamaha 7.2 DTS/Atmos receiver, with a Polk HiFi 7 speaker center, Klipsch RM51’s x6, Klipsch 12” Reference SW, and an 8” Yamaha subwoofer. I spent about 8 years building up my sound system, and I couldn’t be happier with it. I am now disabled and regular theaters are so loud that they cause my pain levels to skyrocket, so it is a great quality of life to be able to watch movies, hear everything, and not have it lay me out for days. I enjoyed your video. Rookie mistakes for sure, but you learned and shared your knowledge. 👍❤️

Interesting video on your audio journey. Not surprising the results were so good. Fake surround sound from soundbars or headphones is nowhere close to real surround sound. Only people who don't use a surround sound daily will tell you it's close. As for sound quality, soundbars can be decent like a nice portable bluetooth speaker but the more affordable options lack the volume (as in physical speaker cabinet space) to allow a decent sized speaker to perform well. There's an incredible amount of engineering that goes into getting around this limitation but there is simply no replacement. I've always been a huge fan of proper surround systems since I was a teen and saved up since my first job while I was in college to start building out a system. My dad helped the receiver but I focused on getting the rest of it on my own and setting it up myself. I find it enjoyable and relaxing. Cutters for wires are highly recommended by everyone but while I do have wire cutters I use a box cutter for quick and sharp cuts into the wire jacket. Subwoofer cables have always been an RCA/Coxial cable, yes there are subwoofers that support speaker wire as well but this is NOT the ideal way to connect a subwoofer to your system. That is a compatibility feature for older receivers or specific hardware/setups that DO NOT have a dedicated subwoofer output port (like music oriented receivers that only support 2.0 channels). This is for powered subwoofers. Much older passive subwoofers would draw power from your speaker channels instead of power from a wall to power the subwoofer. I'm sure there are decent ones out there but I've never heard a good one for home theater use.

I went with the GearIt speaker cables with the factory installed banana plugs ordered to length. Don’t cost much check them out.Also the Klipsch 625FA OR 626FA Theater pack with one or two Subwoofer’s pnly $1,200 to $1,400 Good Luck out there.

Just randomly discovered this channel and I absolutely love this girl's energy.

I've always been a surround sound fan. From going to the theaters when I was a kid to when I grew up and could afford the stuff on my own. I have been through a lot of equipment, there are drastic differences between sound bar and even an entry level surround sound kit. I currently have an expensive setup (Klipsch Reference Premiere speaker Dolby Atmos setup) but I enjoy every bit of it, it's like being in a theater. I actually prefer to watch movies at home vs in theaters because the surround sound is identical to what i would get and the image quality on the OLED TV is much better than that of the big screen, the only thing you get from the theater is the larger screen at the cost of clarity. I get to sit at home on the couch enjoying adult substances, make my own popcorn, pause it if i need to go to the bathroom, it's just much more convenient.

I have had surround sound since the earliest days. The first real decoder was the Yamaha DSR70- Pro. 3 channels (Left, Right and Rear). My fiends and I nearly wore out the Top Gun VHS as that was one of the first to utilize the setup. It was quite the tower of equipment. Pre-Amp - Decoder - 2 separate amplifiers. I later upgraded to 5 channel and at that point there were 3 amps in the system (left/right, Center, and rear with a self powered subwoofer. There were quite a few wire connections to make all of that work. Today with the surround sound receivers life is so much simpler. I still only run 5.1 due to room limitations, but it sounds SO much better than with a sound bar or worse, internal TV speakers. The speakers are the same ones I got for my 16th birthday back in 1986, but I did have to replace the rubber rings holding the cone steady. I am only on my 2nd fully integrated Yamaha AV receiver since the early 2000's. I can only run 1080, but my TV isn't 4K so that's fine. Good to see you got good results.

for cable management I like D-line raceways, you can paint them the color of your walls, put them in the corner and no one will notice. run them along your baseboard, or crown moulding and leave them white, again, no one will ever notice, unless they look really hard.

It's amazing the value you can get buying used. The only issue is sometimes how long those items will last or worn those things are. I've been lucky in open box buys and used but had my share of junk as well.

This inspires an idea. 3 devices for people who don't want 6 to 8 devices: center / woofer in one (is that even possible?) + left soundbar (on left/back part of room) + right soundbar.

I've upgraded my setup with a 7.2.2 and I'm very happy with it!!