How many years of use before upgrading your Home Theater system?
Jeff
Posted on
I know it is hard to say, but how often do you guy's replace your speakers or your DVD players, recievers ect. Do you keep them for 5 years then decide on new ones or keep them longer period of time? I know it is very hard to keep up with new stuff coming out all the time and i know some people here change their system often replacing with new technology, but how often do you guy's change your systems? thanks...
John A.
Posted on
When some new technology is put on the market there are usually improvements in the first few years, and they can be worth waiting for. After that, people "upgrade" if they find they have more to spend, want more power, want a new "feature" etc. Some people just enjoy spending money, and can afford to. Where, really, is the "new technology"?
Speakers have been much the same since around 1960-1970, though the comparative price of a medium-to-high quality speaker had come down a lot in real terms by about 1990.
CD players have been fairly stable since the late 1980s and have also come down in relative price. The first ones (1982-3) were absurdly expensive and sounded awful.
Amplifiers and audio receivers (amp plus radio tuner). See speakers.
DVD-players are only a few years old, having displaced laserdisc and other, earlier digital formats. DVD-Video looks stable enough. Direct digital connection to the TV has advantages.
Audio-Visual receivers (multichannel amp plus radio tuner plus digital audio inputs and surround sound processing) see DVD-players. Most DVDiscs are now in 5.1 format which is not going to go away in the foreseeable future. DTS is better than Dolby Digital and would justify an upgrade if you don't have it. 6.1, 7.1 etc. may eventually be a marginal improvement over 5.1, but nothing to lose sleep over, there are few discs, and it will probably stay that way.
Video tape players/recorders came in the late 70s and will not continue to evolve, having been displaced by DVD. Their price has recently dropped a lot in consequence. Audio tape cassette players are older and also on their way out, eventually displaced by CD. Dolby Prologic and other devices for extracting surround sound from stereo sources have nowhere to go because genuine multichannel is better.
Turntables have reached serene old age, like speakers. There are almost no bad ones on sale today, but there were, once.
DVD-Audio is coming, but your DVD-Video player may be all you need to get it. "Real" DVD-Audio reverts to analogue connection to the receiver for the time being, but there is no real technical reason for that.
SACD is a confidence trick by companies worried about declining CD sales.
TVs are evolving rapidly with new technologies such as LCD, plasma, and, recently, DLP adding alternatives to the old Cathode Ray Tube. But CRTs are still alive and fighting.
Of the above, only tape players and TVs actually need ever wear out. Even then, replacement of worn parts should an option, but obsolescence is usually part of the design, especially at the lower end of the market.
There is nothing in the pipeline comparable with the introduction of CD and DVD. Digital recording with MP3 players, iPod, and video equivalents has a lot of interest but companies strive to stop people making their own digital copies of recordings through encryption and copy protection. Digital broadcasting is another story, again.
Whatever the source of the signal, good amplifiers/receivers and loudspeakers are essential, and are going to last. If you want real value, get the best you can afford, and look after it.