Surrounded Sound

My challenge was to come up with an inexpensive surround system for the den. My only criteria was that it had to cost me whatever I had available on my PayPal debit card–in other words, whatever I sold on eBay would be funding the new equipment. And thanks to some good eBay deals, I was able to squeeze a nice system into den without straining the budget.

One thing to be careful of on eBay is shipping charges. Electronics are the worst–many dealers will inflate their shipping charges so that their auction price is lower. Luckily, Pioneer Electronics sells refurbished components directly on eBay and their shipping fees were very reasonable. I’d found my eBay seller.

Now, to look for the deals. My main goal for a digital source was a universal player. Since I own many surround music titles, I wanted the ability to play back DVD-Audio and SACD. The Pioneer DV-578A is the unit to get, and fortunately, Pioneer had a couple of refurbished units online. The street price elsewhere was around $99 at the lowest. The refurbished model I got was $79, and as of recently, I’ve seen the same player close between $50-$60. Heck of a bargain for this player! I got the 578A, in silver.

I was at a loss for receivers. I’d heard good things about the slim Panasonic receiver that has a supposedly digital amplifier. A “giant killer” so to speak. But, I could not find any good deals online. Staying in the “family”, I looked at a few of Pioneer’s offerings. The current lowest priced model with all the surround modes I wanted was the VSX-515. Last year’s model was the VSX-D514, which is what I ended up getting for $104. The list price on this one is substantially higher. What I ended up with was a receiver that puts out 100 watts into five channels, and has all the current surround modes I needed (Dolby Digital, DTS, Pro-Logic II, etc.), along with analog 5.1 inputs so I could hook up the universal player.

Speakers were not a problem–I had repaired a few pairs of Boston Acoustics speakers, so I put my A-150s in the front, 525v in the center, and A-40s in the rear. I had a full surround setup, but wondered how a subwoofer would sound. I used the old Carver M400 amp with the subwoofer box from the car, and while it wasn’t ideal, it gave me a taste of what I’d been missing. I watched Parts Express, and they had their 12″ Dayton subwoofer on sale for $120 with free shipping, which is darned cheap! Can’t say it goes as low as I wanted it to (it seems to fall off a bit around 35Hz), but it still does a decent job with movies and most music. For the budget, though, I’m happy enough!