DH and I have a situation here. We have a ton of classical music CDs we want to listen to and no good system of any sort to listen to them on. We have wireless sound that is so confusing we can't get it to work properly. We have laptops with crappy speakers. We have a very old Dream Machine which, frankly, is the best sound in the house right now.
Our wireless sound is hooked up to a receiver, DVD (pre-blueray), VCR (can't figure out how to get it to work) and an old TV. We would like to retire the whole system for something with excellent sound that is easier to use.
We have been debating totally getting rid of the TV and just putting a desktop in the living room to watch movies on. We don't watch TV other than to watch movies. BUT that still leaves us with needing a quality, and I mean quality, sound system. I am tired of listening to crap. My mom and dad's old record player had better sound than anything we've got right now.
Any ideas? How are you folks in the tech/younger generations handling your music/sound/viewing needs? We would like to be able to hear the music throughout the house...which means a good set of speakers.
You need to find a teenager - relative, neighbor, etc. They can probably fix your existing system and teach you to use it. That would be the most frugal thing to try first.
If you're looking for speakers first and foremost, you can get some great deals at garage sales. Some of the speakers made in the 70s and 80s are way, way better than what's being produced now. Plus they are dirt cheap. You don't want garbage speakers from the 80s, but any decent brand should keep up with midrange speakers today. I had Marantz speakers and a receiver from the 70s all through college and my early single life, and they blew away the Bose system my hubby moved in.
If you want a TV for watching movies, I would just buy a TV, not another desktop. TVs are getting, if not cheap, at least as affordable as a desktop for what you're looking for. It makes more sense to buy them new anymore than used.
You can get a reasonable Blu-ray player new now too. If you think you really need one, I'd try to get a VCR at a garage sale. I'm not a big fan of surround sound, but if you and your hubby are, I'd get the best garage sale speakers you can get and supplement with a smaller, center channel and rear speakers. It's pretty easy to assemble your own surround sound system, you just need a receiver that will divide up the range of the sound. It sounds like you already have that!
Hmmm...thanks everyone. Mary, the 'kid' who set up our sound system moved 1500 miles away and we are now bereft of 'kids' who understand the system. He custom made it for us, which makes it even MORE frustrating we can't figure out how to use it properly. We've had some other 'kids' in to look at it and they are often left shaking their heads after about a half hour to an hour of going over it and saying "It SHOULD work!" or "How did he do this again?" Well if we knew, WE'd have done it ourselves! :sigh:
Sorry, end of rant.
Abeautifullife: Thanks for the info. I'll talk to DH and see what we can do. We are debating the whole need for a desktop right now. All we need it for is the wireless sound (it's where the music library resides...or as much as we could fit on it before running out of space...which was before we got to most of the classical stuff, which still resides on CDs on shelves.).
The only reason we'd have for buying a blue ray DVD is that some of the movies are not coming out in regular DVD anymore, or are at least hard to find, even at the library.
I don't think we could do surround sound here. Too many doorways to run wires up and over. And the fireplace. Would be too awkward. But it would be nice just to have a nice set of speakers.
ContraryHousewife: thanks. We do notice my Apple sound is much better than DH's Lenovo. But it still has a loooong ways to go!
Sat down and talked to our young boarder. She says her generation uses iPods and laptops/computers for everything. The TV is old technology. Hmm...still thinking.
For watching movies - I suggest a new to you TV if possible.
For music - I'd suggest transferring your music digitally to a mp3/ipod player of some sort and consider buying a portable speaker system so you can take it with you room to room if desired.
If you're looking for bigger sound - see if you can find a mini component system that has an adapter/dock that would work with your mp3/ipod player.
Examples: (there are other brands but this is what I came across with a quick search)
Im in a similar situation. I have an ipod but it also has a radio option on it so the portable docking station thing is what I have been eyeballing for while now. Still can't commit to buying it - yet.
If you have a desktop, as well as laptops, here is what I would do:
Get a larger hard drive for the desktop, and finish ripping your CDs.
Install itunes or mediamonkey on all computers, use that to categorize everything, and turn on library sharing.
Hook the laptop up to anything that has a headphone input (receiver, computer speakers, mini system).
This allows you to have a central source for your music, and then use the laptop to access it from anywhere in your house. You already have everything you need, minus a larger hard drive, but it would take someone setting things up differently.
If that's still a bit too much, you could put everything onto ipods, and then use the mini-systems or computer speakers for listening. This would probably be the easiest, but probably not the cheapest.
I just crank it up in my 1000 sq ft 3 bedroom house. I've never had the neighbors complain.
I tried 3 cheapo stereos from discount stores if $50 is cheapo. NONE WORKED RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. HOW WEIRD!
A stop at the Salvation Army got me an $8 radio/cassette I use a lot in my office when I want radio. Computer has lots of cds loaded and so does MP3. Some radio stations stream now but this uses up a lot of my bandwidth.
What's a soundbar? Never mind, just did the search. Thanks. Will talk to DH about it. Sounds like SIL thinks we'll need more than $2000 for a decent system for our home. Totally NOT frugal!
IMO you do not need to spend $2000 for good sound. Sometimes if you get people who are really into music and the sound thing will have you overbuy what you really want. You need to find someone who you can explain to exactly what kind of sound you want because I think there is a huge difference from the lowest quality to the best.
I also am not fond of surround sound. It's like being in the theatre and the loud sound drowns out the talking.
I bought wireless speakers at the SA and LOVE them. If we are outside I turn on the radio inside and take them out our into another room.
Well, yeah, DH and I will be doing something considerably more affordable than $1500-2000! The last 24 hours we've had developments with the house that are causing us to rethink priorities here rather rapidly. Some infrastructure needs to be dealt with we think. We'll see...
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