Electronics turn-over tempting my LBYM

[JoeWras]

Attaboy!! You know what you really want and have resisted the siren songs of Madison Avenue one more day. (Not so for me, see below)

Friday I say goodbye to the not-broken 19" tv in my home gym room, and hello to the new 55" replacement.

Prices have gone down so much that buying a new TV is almost irresistable! I had planned to get an even bigger one than 55", but the price on the 55" Panasonic dropped $400 on Amazon for about 3 hours and I was able to snag one during that window. I have never purchased a TV from Amazon so this will be a new experience.

OK, so what really started this for me was that I bought a 55" last year too, before my old 26" tube died. Same as you.

Very rare for me to get a new TV before the old one is literally smoking! But I also feel a bit forced into it. Many of the sports programs are now only in HD, so they letterbox on standard def on the old tube. I couldn't see the hockey puck.

I have to say, this 55" plasma is one of the best entertainment values I've experienced. MUCH more function and light years ahead of my 14 year old TV. It is only 720p, but looks fine to me. It was also very affordable. Last year's price was just over $500.

But, looking at that simple HDMI connection... well that got me thinking about pushing the upgrade farther. But I don't need it now. Sound at 5.1 is good enough for me. Picture is great. We don't have time for blu-ray yet. So we're good.

 

[Tyro]

Yeah but.... Tomorrow we say goodbye to our not-broken 26" big ol' tv and hello to our new 55" skinny one.

Congrats -- I'm sure you'll love it as much as we're loving ours!

Tyro

 

[Tyro]

Oh, and hey, I went to my cable TV provider to pick up another box for it, and ended up also getting my first DVR ever! They sure sock it to one with the $20 monthly fees for it, but life is short and I have some extra $$ right now so I might as well.

FWIW, you can buy a really nice one for less than a year's rental from the cable co. We haven't bothered with a DVR because most of the programming we'd use it for is available "on-demand" anyway. We just switched out the cable modem we've been paying them for (for one we bought), and while we were at it, swapped the cable box & remote for newer ones (no diff in rental cost). The new cable box wouldn't set up right, so they had to send a guy out, and while he was here, he replaced all our coax cables with new.

Tyro

 

[Walt34]

This is the telltale sign of stage I G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). It's not too late, still curable.

I know, I know... Between that and finally (mostly) getting my head wrapped around Lightroom and Photoshop I can do better photography than I've ever done before, and even see some - admittedly not a lot - in magazines that I know I could do better.

But I still want the new gear. That's why I was thinking of renting it - perhaps that would cure the fever if I saw that it really wouldn't be that much of an improvement.

 

[Aruba50]

At the risk of becoming the little red voice on your left shoulder, I also caved recently. Our 10 year old receiver was working fine, but I hated that I had to unplug the HDMI cable running to the single slot on the back of our TV every time I wanted to switch between DVD, Cable, AppleTV. This is because the receiver was only audio, and didn't do any video output. So everything we use had to have audio cables as well as video straight to TV. A month ago I bought a $200 Sony receiver with 6 to 1 HDMI inputs to output. I love not having to bend down to pull those cords anymore, and also having just one remote instead of two... also the sound quality is drastically improved. A month later I'm still very happy I did it.

It may be too late for you but for the benefit of others there are HDMI switchers out there. You can plug multiple HDMI sources into it and it will route whichever one you select to a single output all done with a small remote control. The one I have also splits off the audio data from the selected source and outputs it in the form of digital (optical) audio out.

They are not too expensive. I forget what I paid but I think it was around $40-$50.

 

[Nodak]

The one addition I've made to my stereo is an internet tuner. There are thousands of very good stations from all over the world available.

 

[Bestwifeever]

....

Friday I say goodbye to the not-broken 19" tv in my home gym room, and hello to the new 55" replacement.
...
...

The nice young men from the appliance store just left. The new TV has a giant crack in the 55" screen so is DOA but will decorate the room until the replacement comes (not sure why it has to stay here to be an exchange vs taking it which would trigger a refund and repurchase, but oh well). At least we can see that it nicely fits the room.

The warhorse 26" behemoth lives to broadcast another day.

 

[W2R]

The nice young men from the appliance store just left. The new TV has a giant crack in the 55" screen so is DOA but will decorate the room until the replacement comes (not sure why it has to stay here to be an exchange vs taking it which would trigger a refund and repurchase, but oh well). At least we can see that it nicely fits the room.

The warhorse 26" behemoth lives to broadcast another day.

OH NO!! What a nightmare. At least they are not giving you any problems with the exchange.

Mine arrived in town, from Phoenix, at midday today. It is scheduled for delivery tomorrow morning.

 

[ls99]

... (not sure why it has to stay here to be an exchange vs taking it which would trigger a refund and repurchase, but oh well). At least we can see that it nicely fits the room.

The warhorse 26" behemoth lives to broadcast another day.

'cause he did not have fork lift with him?

 

[aja8888]

I was going to upgrade a 20 year old Pioneer system until I had my hearing checked. I guess I'll spring for the $5000.00 hearing aids first....

 

[foxfirev5]

OH NO!! What a nightmare. At least they are not giving you any problems with the exchange.

Mine arrived in town, from Phoenix, at midday today. It is scheduled for delivery tomorrow morning.

Enjoy your new TV's. DW and I waited forever to replace our old color TV. To the point it was quite the joke with our kids bringing their families to see our retro entertainment area. We upgraded a few months ago since the new big TV was about the price we paid in the '80's for our last one.

 

[W2R]

Enjoy your new TV's. DW and I waited forever to replace our old color TV. To the point it was quite the joke with our kids bringing their families to see our retro entertainment area. We upgraded a few months ago since the new big TV was about the price we paid in the '80's for our last one.

Thank you! Hopefully mine isn't damaged like BestWifeEver's. With any luck, I should be enjoying it by noon tomorrow.

 

[RunningBum]

Echoing a lot of what has been said here, as long as you aren't on the bleeding edge, a lot of the electronics are pretty reasonably priced. Some things are bigger bang than others, so just upgrade what's important to you when it's at a price that doesn't make you cringe (much).

HD for both TV and movies is a big win for me. The thinner screen and less power consumption is a nice bonus, but the picture is the real deal. I can't really see much difference in BluRay over DVD other than it taking so much longer to load movies, so that's one I'd skip, at least for now. 3-D doesn't seem to be catching on so at least wait on that.

If you're happy with your sound, don't upgrade your sound system. I like mp3 for music because I can buy songs I like for 99 cents rather than an entire CD.

 

[audreyh1]

I know, I know... Between that and finally (mostly) getting my head wrapped around Lightroom and Photoshop I can do better photography than I've ever done before, and even see some - admittedly not a lot - in magazines that I know I could do better.

But I still want the new gear. That's why I was thinking of renting it - perhaps that would cure the fever if I saw that it really wouldn't be that much of an improvement.

Don't worry! I recently sprung for the new Canon EOS D6 - expensive but much less $$ than other full frame bodies. And I was replacing a really old generation Rebel Xi bought in 2005. I really should have replaced it years ago as the noise performance of digital cameras improved significantly 5+ years ago, and there I was still stuck with the noisy Xi. But, I guess, the "right" camera hadn't come along yet. I'm glad I held out for the D6.

And I agree - Lightroom, Photoshop - you can do some amazing stuff!

 

[Livefree]

I pulled the plug on Black Friday with a 60" Samsung that replaced a 36" Sony that weighed about 250 pounds. Also, replaced my Denon receiver that didn't have hdmi with a pioneer, and a new blue ray player.

What I like best is I can watch digital movies from a usb stick/drive from the tv or blue ray player

 

[2soon2tell]

My son is still using the Wharfedale speakers that I bought in Hong Kong in 1971. My Sansui 7000 received worked great for over 35 years. When it broke I was told it was not worth repairing.

 

[UserRequested]

My Sansui 7000 received worked great for over 35 years. When it broke I was told it was not worth repairing.

Sansui

Now that's a brand I havent heard in 30 years. My dad bought a Sansui with all the bells and whistles in 1978 just when I was about to head off to Unviersity. Listened to my first Feetwood Mac, Supertramp, Led Zeppelin, Billy Joel, (the list goes on) LP records on that system

 

[Tyro]

I pulled the plug on Black Friday with a 60" Samsung that replaced a 36" Sony that weighed about 250 pounds. Also, replaced my Denon receiver that didn't have hdmi with a pioneer, and a new blue ray player.

I had to check for a second if I hadn't posted that myself!...

We swapped the same 200lb.+ Sony (ours died) for a 60" plasma (Panasonic, but the Samsung was in our "final 3" list). We haven't replaced our receiver yet (not in this year's budget) but got a kick@$$ quasi-soundbar, and with cable music stations and CDs playable on the BR/DVD player, I think it'll tide us over.

Tyro

 

[RobLJ]

At the risk of becoming the little red voice on your left shoulder, I also caved recently. Our 10 year old receiver was working fine, but I hated that I had to unplug the HDMI cable running to the single slot on the back of our TV every time I wanted to switch between DVD, Cable, AppleTV. This is because the receiver was only audio, and didn't do any video output. So everything we use had to have audio cables as well as video straight to TV. A month ago I bought a $200 Sony receiver with 6 to 1 HDMI inputs to output. I love not having to bend down to pull those cords anymore, and also having just one remote instead of two... also the sound quality is drastically improved. A month later I'm still very happy I did it.

I bought a Yahama 800 with HDMI and never regretted it, for exactly the reason you cite. That's downstairs. The old Sherwood up here in the study is on limited time--it doesn't even have component connections, but I can stretch a rca jack from the computer to it. It's a mess; the next one will be wireless.

If you've got the budget for it, go for it, as long as you don't overdo it.
Myself, I used to allow one such purchase a year, as a reward for saving.
Now we can do it a couple times a year, but I don't really need much. I did get the wife a 4/3 camera, so maybe we'll splurge on a few more lenses.