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Amazon Prime deals - smart TV's?


zeitgeist57
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I have no need for another TV, but that's a great deal.

 

I've heard really good things about Hisense. My TV in the spare bedroom is a 42" Hisense from like 2011. It has been a great TV.

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I had the Yamaha RX-V6A pre-ordered.

 

It tested ok over at ASR. I would guess it's probably par for the course at that price point.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/yamaha-rx-v6a-7-2-channel-4k-8k-dolby-av-receiver-review.17204/

 

Someone in that thread did mention Costco has a re-branded version that's only $400 as a TSR-700, but it was maybe CA only and that deal seems to be gone. I imagine there might be more deals as the holiday shopping season get's into full swing, this feels like an early reflection of that. In case you still might want one at a lower price point despite the HDMI 2.1 issue. But again, if you have something that works perfectly fine for now and the only reason to want a new one is full HDMI 2.1, yeah, it makes sense to wait.

Edited by Trouble Maker
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I believe that is the EXACT television we have in our bedroom and it's great. I think I mentioned it previously in this thread.

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Gabe, love the idea, any speakers external to the TV will be worlds better than the internal speakers.

 

The Audioengine A5s are supposed to be really good. Maybe a bit overpriced for the segment but they look really good. You can also get them for a bit more with built in bluetooth which is nice if you want it.

 

A few alternatives to look at.

JBL 305P, 306P, 308P. They are full price right now but often go on sale for less, last holiday season was much less. You can probably get the 308Ps (8" woofer, more power, will play much lower and louder) for less than the MSRP of the A5s (5" woofer).

Mackie MR524, 624, 824. I think those are really good looking.

ADAM T5V and above, but those get expensive. The T5V is the same price as the A5 and has a fancy tweeter.

Kali LP6 and LP8 are nice too.

I'm going down this rabbit hole now for garage speakers and I'll probably wait until the 305Ps go on sale again.

 

If you are just going to do stereo or maybe later stereo+sub and not full surround you might not need the receiver. Just use the HDMI switching in the TV and the line (headphones in the case of TCL) out to the powered speakers. Later if you do add a sub get one with line level (RCA) ins/outs. You can run the audio from the tv to them. The sub will split out the sub sound to the sub and will send above that to the speakers through the outs.

 

But if you need some other function in the receiver, maybe no purpose of also having power in the speakers since the receiver can power them. You can get non-powered speakers that are as good as the A5s for less since you're not paying for the amplification in them.

 

For passive (non-powered) speakers, to use the receiver amplifiers.

The Pioneer SP-BS22-LR are almost universally praised as the best value in this price segment. It seems like they are $250/pair street price now, but often go on sale for less than $200/pair. But they also don't look as good as the A5s or some of the other powered speakers listed above.

Earlier this year they ran a deal on a full 5.1 setup of the Pioneers for $354 https://slickdeals.net/f/10080624-pioneer-sp-pk52fs-andrew-jones-5-1-home-theater-speaker-package-best-buy-in-store-for-354

But this seemed like a weird clearance piece together deal. Pioneer or amazon was selling the full 5.0 (no sub) set for $450~$490 or the 5.1 setup with sub for $650. In the grand scheme of things only a bit more than A5s by themselves for a full surround setup with a sub. Though the sub is not great and you could do better with a different one with that $160~$200.

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Gabe, love the idea, any speakers external to the TV will be worlds better than the internal speakers.

 

The Audioengine A5s are supposed to be really good. Maybe a bit overpriced for the segment but they look really good. You can also get them for a bit more with built in bluetooth which is nice if you want it.

 

A few alternatives to look at.

JBL 305P, 306P, 308P. They are full price right now but often go on sale for less, last holiday season was much less. You can probably get the 308Ps (8" woofer, more power, will play much lower and louder) for less than the MSRP of the A5s (5" woofer).

Mackie MR524, 624, 824. I think those are really good looking.

ADAM T5V and above, but those get expensive. The T5V is the same price as the A5 and has a fancy tweeter.

Kali LP6 and LP8 are nice too.

I'm going down this rabbit hole now for garage speakers and I'll probably wait until the 305Ps go on sale again.

 

If you are just going to do stereo or maybe later stereo+sub and not full surround you might not need the receiver. Just use the HDMI switching in the TV and the line (headphones in the case of TCL) out to the powered speakers. Later if you do add a sub get one with line level (RCA) ins/outs. You can run the audio from the tv to them. The sub will split out the sub sound to the sub and will send above that to the speakers through the outs.

 

But if you need some other function in the receiver, maybe no purpose of also having power in the speakers since the receiver can power them. You can get non-powered speakers that are as good as the A5s for less since you're not paying for the amplification in them.

 

For passive (non-powered) speakers, to use the receiver amplifiers.

The Pioneer SP-BS22-LR are almost universally praised as the best value in this price segment. It seems like they are $250/pair street price now, but often go on sale for less than $200/pair. But they also don't look as good as the A5s or some of the other powered speakers listed above.

Earlier this year they ran a deal on a full 5.1 setup of the Pioneers for $354 https://slickdeals.net/f/10080624-pioneer-sp-pk52fs-andrew-jones-5-1-home-theater-speaker-package-best-buy-in-store-for-354

But this seemed like a weird clearance piece together deal. Pioneer or amazon was selling the full 5.0 (no sub) set for $450~$490 or the 5.1 setup with sub for $650. In the grand scheme of things only a bit more than A5s by themselves for a full surround setup with a sub. Though the sub is not great and you could do better with a different one with that $160~$200.

 

Audio is way more important to me than video. Hanson in Dayton and Cinci are worth the trip if you want to demo nice stuff. Each location stocks different stuff. They normally have a 250k-500k system at the cinci location that makes the trip worth it.

 

Higher end receivers have good built in room correction and negate the need for a DSP. Main reason I chose mine. Also dual sub outs for when I can afford dual JL E112. I watch older movies and listen to music so surround is useless to me. 2.2 all the way.

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Audio is way more important to me than video. Hanson in Dayton and Cinci are worth the trip if you want to demo nice stuff. Each location stocks different stuff. They normally have a 250k-500k system at the cinci location that makes the trip worth it.

 

Higher end receivers have good built in room correction and negate the need for a DSP. Main reason I chose mine. Also dual sub outs for when I can afford dual JL E112. I watch older movies and listen to music so surround is useless to me. 2.2 all the way.

 

I should have quoted AwShet, I was responding to him.

 

I'm definitely in the same camp as you.

It's semantics, but I would call room correction a form of DSP.

My direction right now is Denon AVR-x3600, 3700, 4500 or 4700.

5.2.4 setup with Revel in walls for the main 5 channels, heights not sure, subs 2 x Rythmik L12s.

Check out the Rythmik's if you haven't already. The JLs in general are definitely top of class, but have the price to match!

I just have to convince myself to spend the money. For some reason spending $xk on this flooring project is an easy decision, but that on a semi-permanent surround setup feels harder. :)

 

If you are just doing 2.2, there are some really interesting options. Check out the stuff from https://www.minidsp.com/ I think the SHD seems like an amazing solution for 2.2 w/ room correction/DSP.

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Happy to hear (:lol:) what you guys recommend for a sound bar or other good-but-cheap external sound systems for a new flatscreen...

 

Me and Gerg were just talking about this offline.

 

I don't have any direct experience, but this is where I would look.

Rtings seems to do some really good quantitative testing. You can also sort all of the results by test category like dialogue, movies, music, so you can picked based on whatever your priorities are.

https://www.rtings.com/soundbar/reviews/best/by-price/under-100

https://www.rtings.com/soundbar/reviews/best/by-price/under-200

I wonder if for example your price target is $100ish if some of those $200 ones might go on sale for low enough to splurge up to $125-$150 on them.

My usually go to for this kind of stuff is The Wire Cutter, but I'm turning away from them a bit. Their scope of view on number of items the check seems narrow. But anyway it's another data point to cross check.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-soundbar/

 

Edit: Most sound bars in this price range are going to be 2.0 or 2.1, even the x.1 with 'sub' is probably not going to go very low. The sub name here is kind of misnomer. Some of the powered 'studio monitors' I listed above would be some possible alternatives. But probably the cheapest you'll get there are the JBL 305P on sale at maybe $200/pair. With the soundbars at least you probably get HDMI with ARC for super easy connection and some DSP features like virtual surround, dialogue enhancement or the like. With the powered speakers you get stereo and that's it. Almost anything at any price point is a compromise of choices. The good thing with the stereo speakers is that their sole focus was sound quality VS form factor and features with the sound bars. So, it's a chose your own adventure game.

 

I meant to mention before the Google Nest is a left field alternative. Only a 3" low end driver, but the audio wold seems to be raving about the sound quality. And they have Chromecast Audio built in, which is a huge tech bonus and super convenient if you will use them for streaming audio. You can get a pair and run them in stereo. But there is a problem with an audio delay during streaming. If only doing audio I guess it's only an annoyance. But if trying to run video on your phone and audio on the speakers it won't work. But you can hook them up to your TV wired and it should be OK.

Edited by Trouble Maker
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BOT IT.

 

Thank you, gerg.

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How'd you even find it in stock? I ended up going to Walmart and paying twice that for it. Since they have such a good return policy I will probably end up returning it when I can find one for the sales price.

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How'd you even find it in stock? I ended up going to Walmart and paying twice that for it. Since they have such a good return policy I will probably end up returning it when I can find one for the sales price.

 

buy online and pickup in store, but you are also about 4 days too late?

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