My first home! What to buy? How to set up?

Ahuvi

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Hey everyone, thank you all for taking the time to help me create the best entertainment room in my new home with my fiancé. We moved in together shortly before the covid lockdown. I hope you all had an easy time and are all happy n healthy.

Anyway, I’m a big gamer, and he is an audiophile. We love movies and music and I love the games. I currently have a 55” curved Samsung tv which I got from Costco Black Friday back in 2014. I plan to upgrade sometime this year. I also plan to surprise my fiancé with a banging sound system rigged up in here. Thing is, I’m a little over my head and so I am educating myself by joining this forum and reading and getting tips.

This is my living room right now. We are on the 3rd floor of a building.
CEBBF6E7-0D06-4970-B4EC-25C286779BA7.jpeg

As you can see it is very bright in here. There is 13.6’ between tv and sofas and chairs. With sofa backed against a wall. So placing speakers behind sofa may not be doable but I might be able to scoot the sofa up like maybe 1’

so I have my Xbox (which I’ll upgrade when series x releases), my pc (will upgrade soon as well), a cable box and a DVD player all connected via hdmi cords, the modem/router/cablebox also connected with hdmi and all these systems are connected to the modem with cat 8 cables. I have the best internet package altice optimum offers, but may consider switching to Verizon fios.

I don’t care too too much about costs because I just want to do things right, but for us.

I plan to upgrade the tv to a 75” or 85” preferably not OLED because while I’m aware that burn-in is rare, it still exists and given that we can be forgetful and leave a game in a menu for a while I would be high risk for it probably, or at least the tv would degrade faster due to improper treatment (sorry lg, you look so beautiful and nice on paper) my fiancé loves Samsung and the qleds look nice, it’s just does it support Dolby Atmos? Hdmi 2.1? eARC? Dolby vision? Which features are most important and which aren’t needed? My fiancé is showing me 8k sets (it’s always Samsung’s top of the line) when I didnt think I needed more than 4k right now, but will consider an 8k set.

sound systems... it needs to be wireless because we hate wires, a power wire for an otherwise wireless speaker here and there is fine though. my fiancé loves Bose, I’m not totally sure... there is Dolby Atmos, dts:x, what else? Does the tv need to support it? I plan on getting a Soundbar a speaker sets, subwoofer etc. I was reading about Sonos being great with wireless sound, not totally sure though. do I need an av receiver? eARC? Samsung sells surround sound systems that look like they were made for the TV set, are those good?

so as you see, I know little about audio and visual tech, and I have to buy everything. When we came to this home we came with nothing. We had to buy everything to start our life together from scratch.

please help! 😂
 
@Ahuvi that's a very nice room. A good idea posting on a uk site, your room size is closer to the uk norm.
Do you want the last degree of thunderous bass from a sub (considering your neighbours) I recommend a stereo system.
 
@Ahuvi that's a very nice room. A good idea posting on a uk site, your room size is closer to the uk norm.
Do you want the last degree of thunderous bass from a sub (considering your neighbours) I recommend a stereo system.

Thank you so much, my fiancé is very talented in decorating homes. This 1500sqft apartment feels like a palace. I found this site by searching for reviews on various TVs and surround sound systems. Then I saw forums and made an account. Internet has made it possible for me to have friends all over the world without travel! I really wanna see the world too, uk, etc...

The neighbors moving downstairs next month, their living room is similar to this and directly under us. We plan on buying the building within the next 3 years and kicking them out and turning the building into a a 4000sqft home above a spa. My current living room you see in the picture will eventually be the master bedroom. Downstairs will be all the entertainment areas.

as for subwoofers, if the subwoofer is facing forward instead of downward, would that minimize how bad of a neighbor I am? 😂😅 Does this mean no Dolby Atmos? 😅
 
Those look nice.

a friend of mine was telling me that BOSE is capable of handling Dolby Atmos??? Is this true? It would make my fiancé most pleased.
 
Those look nice.

a friend of mine was telling me that BOSE is capable of handling Dolby Atmos??? Is this true? It would make my fiancé most pleased.
You will find that there's not much love for Bose equipment on this Forum. Over priced and under performing is perhaps the best way to describe them. You will get better performance from a good amplifier and speakers.

You have to decide what kind of set up you want. Just a stereo set up or, with Atmos mentioned, a full surround sound system. To be able to guide you through an Atmos set up a diagram of the room, with the potential screen position and seating arrangements would be useful in showing where those speakers would be best placed.

There are three ways in which you can accomplish a good Atmos set up. First would be the provision of speakers in the ceiling. The second would be upfiring speakers and the third speakers set high on the front wall firing towards the seating area.
 
You will find that there's not much love for Bose equipment on this Forum. Over priced and under performing is perhaps the best way to describe them. You will get better performance from a good amplifier and speakers.

You have to decide what kind of set up you want. Just a stereo set up or, with Atmos mentioned, a full surround sound system. To be able to guide you through an Atmos set up a diagram of the room, with the potential screen position and seating arrangements would be useful in showing where those speakers would be best placed.

There are three ways in which you can accomplish a good Atmos set up. First would be the provision of speakers in the ceiling. The second would be upfiring speakers and the third speakers set high on the front wall firing towards the seating area.

Thank you for your response.
It’s kind of hard to get a full view shot of my living room because of the way my apartment is. I might draw (I’m an ok artist.) a diagram depicting and overhead view later when my fiancé goes to work. (We have really odd schedules.)

I think I can set up upfiring speakers. Or downward from the front wall speakers.

I’m pretty sure I want to go the full surround route. Considering the Sonos Arc set with the wireless speakers.
 
Upfiring speakers need the following rules. The ceiling must be perfectly flat and made of a reflective material. It must be between 8 and 14 feet high with the speakers set no more than 50% of the height of the ceiling. The upfiring speakers should be placed on or as near as possible to the front left and right speaker.

Downward firing speakers should be mounted high on the front wall. There are upfiring speakers on the market that can fulfill both upward firing and high wall positioning. I again would avoid the Sonos route as convenient as they are are not as good as a separate receiver and wired speakers.
 

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