Help with Home Theatre

[chargerrich]

So finally sold my home in this crummy market and the family is pretty excited about our soon to be new home.

We are in negotiations on a very large home (6400 sq ft) that currently has its own private home theatre (complete with 160" projector, theatre seats and complete A/V system). At the current offer we made the buyer is not planning to leave his equipment but did offer it to me for $5000 additional (separate bill of sale).

Not knowing all the specifics on the gear would make it hard to ask if this is a good value, but since I am a complete novice I was wondering if some of the more A/V saavy members could tell me if I can deck out a home theatre for that amount of money.

Here is what I currently do know would come with the 5k offer:

* 4 Theatre seats, great condition, black leather, reclining
* 160" motorized projector screen
* 1080p projector (believe it is a mitsubishi)
* 8 speaker setup (JBL) with large sub
* 440 watt receiver
* DVD player (not sure on brand)

$5k does not seem unreasonable, gotta think the seats may cost that much... but can i do better with new gear on my own?

Thanks!

[schild]

Can you get the exact model information? Also, how big is this home theater? What type of receiver? I can't say that the DVD player really matters since I would replace that with a PS3 on day zero. Seriously, 1080p projector? DVD Player?

Hur. Just call the guy up and get the model information.

Edit: I can pretty much assure you that if he's willing to only charge $5,000, he's either unhappy with his gimped setup (how big is the room anyway?) or simply doesn't have room in the new house but doesn't want to feel like he's just giving it all away. I'm going with gimped setup.

[chargerrich]

Can you get the exact model information? Also, how big is this home theater? What type of receiver? I can't say that the DVD player really matters since I would replace that with a PS3 on day zero. Seriously, 1080p projector? DVD Player?

Hur. Just call the guy up and get the model information.

Edit: I can pretty much assure you that if he's willing to only charge $5,000, he's either unhappy with his gimped setup (how big is the room anyway?) or simply doesn't have room in the new house but doesn't want to feel like he's just giving it all away. I'm going with gimped setup.

Well I know they are in a bad way finanically, the seller is a top real estate guy in my area and used to make somewhere in the 7 figure range annually. That has obviously dried up a bit in this housing market. He has told me that he has 3 houses and is trying to consolidate since he is getting married. Original list price was $699,000, tax record says 783k. But it has been on the market for almost a year and he is now negotiating with me in the low 400s!

The home theatre room is 22x18 and it sounds and looks amazing from what my novice eyes and ears can discern.

[schild]

The home theatre room is 22x18 and it sounds and looks amazing from what my novice eyes and ears can discern.

You know, I could go with the "If it sounds good to you, do it" argument. But I find that argument to be bullshit. If you care at all, get the specs. The question isn't "can you do it cheaper?" rather, it's "Is it worth it?"

Of course, if you were totally happy with it, I can't really see you making this thread.

With that out of the way, it may be worth it just for the theater seats if they're nice enough.

[Salamok]

if everything is in working order i'd say it is a steal, decent (leather recliner style) home theater seating retails around 1k per seat and a 1080p projector (actually projecting 1080 not upconverting) capable of projecting on a 160" screen with decent brightness is probably over 5k all on its own.  Too bad you can't write it into the home price but it's still sounds well worth it.

edit: the fact that he is not writing it into the home price makes it sound like he has negotiated a short sale with his bank.

[Sky]

6400sq ft house? You could fit seven of my houses in your house, ffs. That's obscene. Beware the day of the rope.

[chargerrich]

if everything is in working order i'd say it is a steal, decent (leather recliner style) home theater seating retails around 1k per seat and a 1080p projector (actually projecting 1080 not upconverting) capable of projecting on a 160" screen with decent brightness is probably over 5k all on its own.  Too bad you can't write it into the home price but it's still sounds well worth it.

edit: the fact that he is not writing it into the home price makes it sound like he has negotiated a short sale with his bank.

Definitely not a short sale, already checked on that. I could roll that 5k into the home loan, but that would be stupid on my part...5k note over 30 years means I would pay about 40k in the end 

I was trying to get him to include it (along with a jacuzzi and a pool table that were listed as included at his ask price) but I have him down at an obscene number so if I cannot get it at the negotiated price, I dont mind a separate bill of sale.

[Cyrrex]

6400sq ft house? You could fit seven of my houses in your house, ffs. That's obscene. Beware the day of the rope.

Wow.  How many houses do you have?  Thinking you need to beware too, kettle.

[chargerrich]

6400sq ft house? You could fit seven of my houses in your house, ffs. That's obscene. Beware the day of the rope.

LOL

It is definitely a huge home, also on 6 acres with a 40x60 outbuilding. Sq Ft does not include about 2200 in basement that is studded for wetbar and bath but other than that is completely unfinished. I see a man cave in my future!

[Broughden]

6400sq ft house? You could fit seven of my houses in your house, ffs. That's obscene. Beware the day of the rope.

LOL

It is definitely a huge home, also on 6 acres with a 40x60 outbuilding. Sq Ft does not include about 2200 in basement that is studded for wetbar and bath but other than that is completely unfinished. I see a man cave in my future!

Okay I have to ask. Where?
In what market are you getting all that in the $400k range? Is the house way way out in the country or something?

[Salamok]

if everything is in working order i'd say it is a steal, decent (leather recliner style) home theater seating retails around 1k per seat and a 1080p projector (actually projecting 1080 not upconverting) capable of projecting on a 160" screen with decent brightness is probably over 5k all on its own.  Too bad you can't write it into the home price but it's still sounds well worth it.

edit: the fact that he is not writing it into the home price makes it sound like he has negotiated a short sale with his bank.

Definitely not a short sale, already checked on that. I could roll that 5k into the home loan, but that would be stupid on my part...5k note over 30 years means I would pay about 40k in the end 

I was trying to get him to include it (along with a jacuzzi and a pool table that were listed as included at his ask price) but I have him down at an obscene number so if I cannot get it at the negotiated price, I dont mind a separate bill of sale.

and you know how many people who have carried a 30 year note to term?  If you have cash fine but 5% cost of funds at a locked in rate isn't a bad deal (especially with CC companies arbitrarily doubling and tripling rates).

[chargerrich]

6400sq ft house? You could fit seven of my houses in your house, ffs. That's obscene. Beware the day of the rope.

LOL

It is definitely a huge home, also on 6 acres with a 40x60 outbuilding. Sq Ft does not include about 2200 in basement that is studded for wetbar and bath but other than that it is completely unfinished. I see a man cave in my future!

Okay I have to ask. Where?
In what market are you getting all that in the $400k range? Is the house way way out in the country or something?

Midwest, located not far from Kansas City in a small Kansas suburb... save the Oz and Toto jokes  .

It is definitely in the country but it has comcast and fiber so its not THAT far out. I wont do Sat, kills internet gaming. The only downside to the home is that it is not on city sewer and has a private lagoon for blackwater which kind of freaks me out.

I can get fiber to my door but I cannot have city sewage? LOL strange indeed.

[schild]

A private lagoon for blackwater? I suggest investing in one of those boxed motion activated video setups like in Men in Black. You can track the migration, or lack thereof, of mercenaries.

[Oz]

Kansas City in a small Kansas suburb

Based on markets, home value, and how bad expensive home are, i'd bet $10 that you are in or near Overland Park...

[Sky]

Wow.  How many houses do you have?  Thinking you need to beware too, kettle.

[Polysorbate80]

The only downside to the home is that it is not on city sewer and has a private lagoon for blackwater which kind of freaks me out.

I can get fiber to my door but I cannot have city sewage? LOL strange indeed.

Sewers ain't cheap.  Just getting a tiny square of my street dug and the tap to the sewer line replaced was about $2000.

The only trouble with the lagoon, is if you have dogs or seriously drunk friends.  Both are prone to go swimming in the turd-pond. 

[chargerrich]

Kansas City in a small Kansas suburb

Based on markets, home value, and how bad expensive home are, i'd bet $10 that you are in or near Overland Park...

Ding Ding Ding...you are correct sir!

[Baldrake]

I hate to ask something that I'm sure you've thought of, but you have looked into the utility costs, right? Heating and cooling that place could cost a mini-mortgage all on its own. Oil and gas are cheap today, but...

I guess you have room to install your own windmill.

[chargerrich]

I hate to ask something that I'm sure you've thought of, but you have looked into the utility costs, right? Heating and cooling that place could cost a mini-mortgage all on its own. Oil and gas are cheap today, but...

I guess you have room to install your own windmill.

That is actually a great point and something I missed but my wife did not. The seller sent us thier gas and elec bills for the year and the average is actually lower than our older 3900 sq ft house. Of course ours was built in 76' and this one is 2003. Gas is propane and you have to pay up front so its not as "consistant" but the average was decent.

Love the windmill idea, but i would opt for solar if I were so inclined... that or if Ed Begley were to threaten me. 

[bhodi]

tl;dr: Take the theater. It's well worth the money and it's pretty clear he just doesn't want to unhook and transport all that shit, not when he can just buy the latest and greatest when he makes his next home theater. Ignore the paranoia, that is exactly how I have gotten very nice home theater gear myself.

Awesome house, congrats.

[schild]

No matter how you slice this home theater though, I find it strange he uses a standard old receiver with that gear. Separates. Though, still, probably worth it just for the chairs.

[Salamok]

440 watt reciever driving an 8 speaker system don't sound standard to me.

[schild]

440 watt reciever driving an 8 speaker system don't sound standard to me.

Unless they're not good JBLs. That was sort of my point. That's why I asked for model numbers. 440 watts wouldn't really efficiently drive my 5 JBL Studios. And those aren't even that great.

[MahrinSkel]

Frankly, if the projector is all that you describe, it's worth the price by itself.  But the rest sounds like shit, even to my non-audiophile standards.  Fortunately, much easier and cheaper to replace than the projector, and probably more than adequate for most purposes (the most critical pieces of a home theater are the projector and the receiver/decoder).

FAKE EDIT: I take that back: 1080p projectors have dropped a long way since the last time I priced them.  If it was me, I'd turn him down, and bet 50-50 odds I'll find the stuff still there after he moves out.  You can replace it with better for the same price or less.

--Dave

[schild]

Yea, 1080p Projectors are much, much cheaper. The chairs are the expensive sounding thing here.

[Broughden]

I did some google shopping. I know nothing about 180dpi projectors. Most were $2-3000.
I found one for $15,000. The Mitsubishi HD8000. Maybe thats the one he has in the house? 

[schild]

I did some google shopping. I know nothing about 180dpi projectors. Most were $2-3000.

Yea. New. Who knows how much this one has been used. The clock is pretty easy to reset and he HAS been trying to sell the house for a year.

[MahrinSkel]

Another thing to look at is the cost of the bulbs for the projector, they usually cost about $300-500 and only last 1000 hours (most people watch that much TV in less than a year).  My brother-in-law has a home theater setup that originally cost him $30K (for that he got additional insulation in the walls as well as pre-wired speakers, he still got robbed) that he almost never uses because he's constantly thinking about how each hour costs him 50 cents, and sitcoms aren't worth it.  So he watches all his TV on a 25 inch SDTV in the master bedroom.

I suggested that he get a 50 or so inch plasma in a "pop-up" housing to use as an alternative for routine viewing.  He looked at me like I had grown a third arm, apparently *all* of his friends have theater rooms representing the cost of a new car that they use only when showing off for friends and relatives, actually living in them would wear the furniture down and then *nobody* would want to come over for Superbowl parties.

Of course, then I found out he planned on throwing away all the towels we had used while visiting, and I remembered that I really don't like superficial yuppie twits who turn everything into a dick-measuring contest of conspicuous consumption.

Except for the part about getting a pop-up plasma (and maybe a couch or loveseat to keep the over-priced powered thrones from getting worn out), you can ignore the digression.

--Dave

[Oz]

The chairs are the expensive sounding thing here.

I remember seeing some good chairs awhile ago at either Costco or Sam's Club.  They were surprsingly nice. Leather 3-4 seats ~ 1-2K.

[chargerrich]

440 watt reciever driving an 8 speaker system don't sound standard to me.

Unless they're not good JBLs. That was sort of my point. That's why I asked for model numbers. 440 watts wouldn't really efficiently drive my 5 JBL Studios. And those aren't even that great.

Schild got me wondering so I had my agent get a list from him of the specifics. The audio portion is a Bose V20 5.1 with 8 speakers, a sub and something called an acousticmass module. Also determined that the projector is a Sony VPL-HW10. The whole setup is less than 9 months old (so says the seller).

[Cyrrex]

That Bose system retails for close to 2k, or thereabouts.  Unfortunately, Bose is complete and utter crap, and that is before you consider how terribly overpriced it is.  It may sound decent is a smallish room, especially if they worked on the acoustics.

The projector, OTOH, looks pretty sweet.  Probably around 3k MSRP.  Would be nice to get an indication of the lamp life remaining.

Given all that, plus assuming that there is a good screen (which aren't cheap, btw), I'd probably do it.

[Salamok]

Sounds about like 8k worth of stuff if you shopped it not counting installation cost.  I'd say worth it just because of the PITA of reshopping for it all plus this is a canned solution that you seem to like.  I guarantee if you go shopping to rebuild it with the temptation to upgrade this or that bit of it you will end up spending far more than 5k or even 8k.

[LanTheWarder]

I would totally keep it.

It's a 3k projector with the seats that's worth 5k. Also on top of all that if he does take everything with him you are looking at a ton of work to replace the wiring, rehang the projector and hang a screen and replace speakers that probably aren't the same size. It's worth a few hundred to me just to not have install everything again.

[schild]

440 watt reciever driving an 8 speaker system don't sound standard to me.

Unless they're not good JBLs. That was sort of my point. That's why I asked for model numbers. 440 watts wouldn't really efficiently drive my 5 JBL Studios. And those aren't even that great.

Schild got me wondering so I had my agent get a list from him of the specifics. The audio portion is a Bose V20 5.1 with 8 speakers, a sub and something called an acousticmass module. Also determined that the projector is a Sony VPL-HW10. The whole setup is less than 9 months old (so says the seller).

The projector and chairs are the only things making it worthwhile. That Bose system is complete shit. Gut it when you get there. Also explains why he has a DVD-Player hooked up to a 1080p projector and it's only 10 months old - he's an idiot. I wouldn't be surprised if it was wired with composite.

[chargerrich]

440 watt reciever driving an 8 speaker system don't sound standard to me.

Unless they're not good JBLs. That was sort of my point. That's why I asked for model numbers. 440 watts wouldn't really efficiently drive my 5 JBL Studios. And those aren't even that great.

Schild got me wondering so I had my agent get a list from him of the specifics. The audio portion is a Bose V20 5.1 with 8 speakers, a sub and something called an acousticmass module. Also determined that the projector is a Sony VPL-HW10. The whole setup is less than 9 months old (so says the seller).

The projector and chairs are the only things making it worthwhile. That Bose system is complete shit. Gut it when you get there. Also explains why he has a DVD-Player hooked up to a 1080p projector and it's only 10 months old - he's an idiot. I wouldn't be surprised if it was wired with composite.

LOL I know the DVD was an addin when he removed his PS3 that he was NOT throwing in. I am an Xbox 360 guy but might have to buy a PS3 for the blue ray. What would you guys recommend I add to this system? Any good A/V sites worth checking out?