Advent - 27" Flat-Tube HD-Ready TV

[Shoutout33]

Hi all! First time on these forums and hoping you all can help. Now, a lot of this audio and video that you all have, I've never heard of before in my life! I just know about the common stuff: Sony, Pioneer, Onkyo etc., you know, stuff you see in Circuit City and Best Buy. LOL!

Well just for an FYI, I'm BIG into video games and anime (yeah, I like the regular movies too...) and I've started to see where home entertainment is going and I'm trying to jump on the bandwagon with a small budget, so here goes. I'm interested in the television I listed in the subject box and was wondering how it was as far as quality, dependability, etc. They also have a regular flat screen tv I like and Apex has a nice regular 27" too.

As far as the home theater part goes, I was looking into getting an all-in- one home theater system to play music, movies, and whatever else I can do with it. I really like the Sony systems, but everytime I tried a stores demo, it seemed difficult to get the CD to go in there in the first place!

Now Panasonic has a nice DVD player that does EVERTHING for about $100 but I havent found a nice receiver/speaker combo that's in my price range yet. (under or around $300 if possible, but I think I could swing $400, not sure yet...) There is one from Onkyo that I saw in Circuit City that I liked, but I can't remember what it was. Now, if push came to shove and I got the TV I wanted, I'd be looking at the Sony WEGA's because of their 16:9 ratio they can play movies on. I know it's not the same, but a poor man's got to play somehow!

Also, what online stores, if any, do you all suggest to get some good deals from? Crutchfield is cool and all but they're waaaayyy too expensive for me right now. Well, this is all I can think of right now. Look foward to some replies and thanks in advance people.

[woodman]

You've got a bit of a challenging road ahead of you, fella. I can give you some tips, pointers, insights, etc. about the TV portion of the equation for starters.

First off, I'd urge you to steer clear (waaaaaay clear) of both Advent and Apex brands ... they're simply a totally unknown quantity at this point in time. No "track record" - no company history - nada. Stick to one of the major brands ... any but one of the following (which I don't recommend):
RCA
Sony
Zenith
Philips (Magnavox)

My personal choice in direct-view sets would be Toshiba, followed by Hitachi, Sharp, JVC, and Panasonic.

However, if you have control over the ambient light in your viewing room, I'd suggest you look into a front projector such as the InFocus X-1 which you can buy for less than $1K! Perhaps that's over your budget - you didn't say how much you're allotting for a TV set - just for the audio side.

There are as many different ways for you to go in the pursuit of this hobby as there are people at this forum - or any other. Be patient - take your time - don't be misled by well-intentioned souls that try to tell you about "the ONLY way to go".

Hope this helps you