THE $3K HOME THEATER

By Brent Butterworth

The home-theater industry has run off its rails. It used to be about delivering a kick-ass experience that washed away the cares of the day and totally absorbed you in some stupid action movie. But these days, home theater is all about looks: making this year's flat-panel TVs thinner than last year's, slimming speakers to match, and doing just about anything to hide those hideous black boxes.

It's time for those of us who truly love home theater to get back to our roots, to create a space where audio and video come first and nothing else matters. To do that, we have to start with a real theatrical video experience, which in my book means a front-projection system with a screen measuring at least 7 feet diagonally. Then we need real speakers, not cute boxes designed to look pretty next to a flat-panel TV. Of course, we need a real subwoofer, not one that's been cruelly compacted to hide under an end table. Finally, we need a real receiver, not some feeble electronics squeezed into a plastic chassis that looks like a spaceship.

For this theater, we also need a space where a home-theater fanatic can really be a home-theater fanatic. It could be a spare bedroom, part of a basement, or that home office you use only on April 14. The key thing is, it has to be your space, where you make the decisions. Depending on who shares your domicile, that might take some selling. So, to make the pitch easier, we're going to limit your expenditure to $3,000. That's right, $3,000. For everything.

Budget System Building

Key to this $3K system is the $999 Vivitek H1080, the first ever under-$1,000 projector with 1080p resolution - something I'd been waiting for. You can often improve the performance of an inexpensive projector through calibration and proper screen pairing, but 1080p is 1080p, and there's no way you can get that from a 720p projector.

Now I needed speakers. I wanted five identical satellite models, because budget- priced horizontal center speakers seldom match the tonality of the main speakers they're intended to accompany. The least-expensive satellite I could find that fit this criterion (and seemed to employ competent acoustical engineering) was Infinity's Primus P152 minispeaker, at $109 each. The P152 has a 51?4-inch woofer in a ported cabinet and a 3?4-inch tweeter - a simple yet potentially potent design.

The obvious source for a subwoofer was Hsu Research, a company that made its name selling overperforming budgetpriced subs. Hsu provided its $349 STF-2, which combines a 10-inch woofer and a 200-watt amp in a reassuringly sizable enclosure. Bass extension for the STF-2 is spec'd at 25 Hz ±2 dB.

For the receiver, I wanted something with DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD processing so I could get the best sound from Blu-ray Discs. And I wanted at least 100 watts per channel. Luckily, Pioneer's $499 VSX-1019AH-K gave me all that and more. Its hybrid amps are rated at 120 watts per channel (although it's measured at 1 kilohertz, so the rating's a little generous), and it has an interface cable that connects to an iPod or iPhone and lets you browse your music collection through your video display.

We still need a projection screen here, because there's no way you'll get a cinematic experience by pointing that Vivitek at a white wall. The least expensive projection screen I could find that looked decent is the Elite Screens EzFrame. I tested a different Elite model for a recent screen roundup (search soundandvisionmag.com for my "Private Screening") and found it a great value. A 16:9 black-felted 84-inch (diagonal) frame with Elite's 1.0 CineGrey material lists for $584.

Living On The Cheap

Let's start with the projector, which I found nothing short of amazing. The H1080 delivers real, honest-to-goodness 1080p video, with detail that competes with any projector I've tried. I found the picture vivid and involving, whether I was watching action junk like Peter Jackson's King Kong or old episodes of The A-Team streamed via Netflix.

What the H1080 doesn't give you are gain and bias controls for red, green, and blue, which means you can't do a proper calibration. But there's little need for it. After merely selecting the Movie mode and adjusting the brightness and contrast controls, I measured an average color temperature of 6,702 kelvins, a barely noticeable 200 degrees above the industry standard of 6,500 kelvins. The video processing looks surprisingly good; the only artifact noticeable on normal program material was a bit of noise. (Turning on the projector's noise-reduction processing barely had any effect.)

The Vivitek's weak point is contrast, which measured a low 710:1 after adjustment. However, a gray screen goes a long way toward fixing that. And with a maximum output of 22.73 footlamberts, this projector will still look plenty bright on that Elite CineGrey. Picture uniformity at very low levels also isn't good; when it fades to black, the image's upper right corner looks reddish and the lower left looks bluish.

Although the Hsu Research STF-2 sounded awesome from the very first note, the Infinity Primus P152s proved cantankerous. The speaker sounded fairly smooth and imaged pretty well, but it exhibited a glaringly bright tonal balance. Measurement confirmed what my ears told me: Response jumps up by 3 to 4 dB from 600 to 8,000 Hz, then rises another 4 to 7 dB between 8 and 20 kHz. The brightness made voices sound harsh enough to hurt my ears when I cranked the system up. Fortunately, the receiver offered an easy fi x (or so I thought).

The VSX-1019AH-K includes Pioneer's MCACC (Multi-Channel Acoustic Calibration) system, which compensates for flaws in your speakers and your room acoustics. I figured MCACC might tame the P152's brightness, but after connecting the MCACC microphone and running the program, I got mixed results.

Fortunately, the VSX-1019AH-K let me tweak the MCACC settings to a degree I've never before encountered, which is astounding for a $499 receiver. I soon stumbled upon its X-Curve feature, which attenuates frequencies above 2 kHz. With X-Curve set for a 2-dB/octave treble rolloff, the P152 suddenly sounded like a great budget speaker. The sound wasn't what I'd call detailed or delicate, but the tonal balance was right on, and to me that's the most important thing.

Cheap Thrills

Finally, the $3K system was giving me the thrill ride I hoped for. Even when watching Watchmen - a tour de force of stupid action - I never got the sense I was using one of the least expensive component home theater systems one could possibly assemble.

The vivid colors and crisp details of Watchmen's over-the-top visual effects came through beautifully; only in the darkest scenes did I notice the H1080's so-so black level. Even at bombastic levels, I never heard distortion from the P152s or the Hsu STF-2. The STF-2 delivered a satisfying, massaging experience as it pressurized my 3,100-cubic-foot home theater, and the Pioneer's MCACC smoothed out minor flaws of the sub and my room's acoustics. I also enjoyed flicking through dozens of music tracks from my iPod while comfortably lounging in my recliner - and was delighted to see the cover art appear onscreen along with the artist, album, and song names.

But you won't match this performance unless you defend the integrity of your home-theater space with all the vigilance of a mother grizzly. Getting the best possible experience may require you to do some things that others might consider unsettling. For example, you'll get better contrast by painting the walls and ceiling of your theater black, and installing black or dark gray carpeting. You'll get better contrast still by putting blackout shades (or black-painted plywood) over the windows. You can get better sound by sticking a half-dozen 1-foot squares of 4-inch-thick wedge foam on each side wall between the speakers and your listening chair.

None of these "furnishings" will look good, but those who care about such things can go watch their stylish, skinny fl at-panel TVs somewhere else. This room is for you - and anyone else who understands that there are times when you gotta put performance first.