I want that home theatre system.... its a steal!!!

How many times have all you gadget freaks heard yourselves saying that????Well, being a self confessed gadget freak myself and not wanting to blow all those hard earned bucks on ready made systems which will not give me all that I need...... I ended up with something pretty simple... providing you are willing to mess being the system for some time trying to figure out where the cables go!!... Gotcha.... Nah, fitting in a couple of systems together to make a home theatre system is as simple as taking a spoon to your mouth in the dark!! OK... that is a little out of sync.....

Here are my questions when you are out buying that awe inspiring home theatre system with the best of options and the neatest of gimmicks!!

Do you really need all that sound power? (not unless you are staying a palatial mansion that has some huge rooms, big enough for you not to get that echo!)

Does the disc player on that system play that cheap 50 buck disc that you bought off the street? More often than not.... NO WAY NO HOW!

Do you really need all the fancy HDTV settings? India does not even have HDTV cable signals yet!!!

Why go for the LCD/Plasma screen which gives you the same clarity as a standard CRT? The cost can be quite prohibitive for and LCD or a plasma TV! The best part is the current generation of CRT (boob tubes ;) occupy much less space and offer an equal/higher definition and clarity at a fraction of the cost!

Here is the biggie - does your disc player play all those dvds? ALL THOSE DVDS from everywhere in the world? More realistically, is it region free?? Nix. This is one system created to rip you off and make more money for all the big companies out there!

I am not attacking any brand or any big name out there.... what they are doing is caching in a market of lazy morons who wouldn't mind paying that extra buck to get something branded or something that is tagged cool!

Lets get down and dirty!Here is what we need:

~One good quality CRT TV with good built in speakers (a lot of them come with surround sound and woofers)

~one normal DVD player that supports 5.1 surround sound output - make sure that it also plays WMA and DIVx. (Take a couple of ripped dvds and a couple of your fav mp3s or wmas on CD to test it out) - preferrably with a built in graphic equalizer and some sound settings. Also make sure that the DVD player is an all region player!

~One set of 5.1 speakers which have an output of 1000 to 1500 watts (you don't want to blow the neighbour's walls considering the building quality nowadays!)

~Some connecting cords for all these

~Most importantly, a universal remote (again - no need to go for the jazzy branded ones)

Add it all up and now see the cost.... whoops... why is the home theatre maker charging so much???? Now you see the point!

Get them all and now relax.... all the pins and wires are colour coded and they do not need any more education than that.... unless you are color blind :-p If you really cannot make any sense of the cables, call your teenage nephew or your neighbour's kid. He probably will fix it for you and even set it up in a jiffy! Voila, now you are ready to experience the same thing that your neighbour paid a bomb for!

What do you do with the additional money that you had earmarked for the home theatre? Well....... call me and I'll give you my account # ;) Enjoy!