Help me evaluate this system proposal

[Yana_Carl]

Greetings,

My knowledge base is very low and I've spent the last few days reading forums and reviews trying to get a better grasp. But still I lack the vocabulary and background for indepth discussion. Any constructive advice is greatly appreciated in advance.

Background: I'm an American living in St. Petersburg Russia. I mention this because 1) The prices of high end electronics are usually quite a bit higher because of the import taxes, 2) I don't have all the options for where to buy, and 3) because I'm not a native Russian speaker, it's difficult to communicate in depth with store people.

My wife and I are two weeks away from moving into our newly built and renovated apartment. We've been on a spending spree the last few months as everything is brand new. We had successful year business wise and while not rich, I'm just trying to get across that if an additional $500 in some category will make a big difference in quality, I'll spend it (but not $5,000). My main priority is to have everything bought and paid for this year, so I'm not looking for an entry level set up.

The Monitor will be a gift from my brother in law and is undetermined at this point. Knowing him, it will will likely be near top of the line. It will most likely be a 42 inch Plasma. He is the enthusiast and has directed us to a high end specialty store. The owner has made his recommendations which I'll list below. My main fear is plain and simply making a huge mistake on something out of ignorance such as buying an expensive component that is already out of date. I simply don't have the ear for subtle tonal differences that many/most of you appear to, so while I love the sound of a good quality system I can't even begin to tell you what sounds better between systems. Like the infamous Justice Potter definition of pornography "I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it."

Lastly, a little about the room where the equipment will go. It's between 250 - 300 square feet. The monitor will be on a curved wall. Behind the curved wall is an office and there are some decorative openings in this wall. Across from the TV is the main wall with couch. The distance from TV to wall is nearly 15 feet. The couch wall will be mostly decorative brick. We have had speaker connections wired about 2 feet from the ceiling on both sides of the couch. On one side there is a bay window that will have full length curtains in front of it, and large chair in front of this. The other side is more less open leading to halls and the kitchen. Wooden floor, likely with some area rug. All in all, not a very acoustically designed room.

So this is the proposal in front of us:

1. DVD Pioneer DV-868 $850 US
2. Receiver Pioneer VSX-2014-S $1,070

3. Frontals ELAC FS 207.2 $1800
4. Rears ELAC FS 203.2 $1090
5. Central ELAC CC 200.2 $830
6. Sub ELAC Sub 211.1 ESP $1600

7. 2 RCA/Phono - same $19 x 3 = $57
8. Subwoofer interconnect 1RCA-same $37
9. Coaxial Digital $65
10. TOSLINK optical digital $26

11. Speaker Wires $9 per meter estimating 50 meters = $450
12. Installation, Instruction, and some sort of lifetime service plan $709

Subtotal $8584
Discount 7%
Total $7983

note 1: I did find the same Pioneer DVD & REceiver for about $350 less in another store, though the high end store says it will charge more for installation if we buy separately.

note 2: I think there's some negotiation still to come here for a final price as there is obviously some play here.

All comments are welcome, but afew specific questions I have

1) Any thoughts on the ELACs. I just can find a lot about them on the websites. What I do find is pretty favorable, but I haven't read enough reviews to know how to read between the lines. A few other stores we visited of course had different models they recommended including EPOS.

2) This was the cheapest speaker wire they offered. Is this still much to high a price to pay?

3) Can somebody give me an idea of how long it will take for them to install and instruct? While the imported components will be more expensive in Russia, the labor should be much cheaper. This is is a city where a talented young man in his young 20's is very lucky if he's earning more than $1,000 a month with no benefits. I realize that I'm not only paying for labor, but also for his training, expertise, equipment, store profit, etc. but I'm having a hard time coming to grips with paying $700+ for this when an electrician here costs me about $50 a day.

Apologies for such a long message.

Carl

[Worf101]

I'm glad you're doing well and have decided to take the plunge into H.T. Russia's a fascinating and tragic country. I've always felt they've never been able to do anything "small". All thier history seems larger than life. It's not an insult trust me. I had a Russian Professor or advanced mathematics as a roomie for more than a year. Still one of my closest friends. I've also a portrait of Marshall Zhukov over my desk. Fine folks.

As to your proposed system, while I'm not familiar with Elac brand speakers from use or test, I've heard some good some bad about them. There are other brands I've more experience with but in that your choces are limited you should buy only what you've actually heard in the flesh. The Best option on the speakers would be to test them in your home but since you've no system yet, that might be problematic. If you're buying speakers sound unheard then I'd go with some other brands if you can get them delivered. There are internet based speaker companies that make some great stuff but I'm not sure how man deliver to Russia.

As for Pioneer. Avoid them like death and taxes. I've had nothing but bad experiences with their electronics and their service was so bad I sicced the Better Business Bureau on them. They flat out stink. Only their top of the line "Elite" series was worth a damn and I'm not even sure about them any more. No, go either Yamaha, Onkyo or Denon. I've installed systems with all three and they are the gold standard of integrated A.V. receivers. Avoid Sony as well as they've gone down the crapper quality wise and their warranty considers anything that goes wrong "an act of user abuse " or an act of God and they don't honor their warranties.

I hope this helps and please tell us what you wind up getting.

Da Worfster

[recoveryone]

"As for Pioneer. Avoid them like death and taxes. I've had nothing but bad experiences with their electronics and their service was so bad I sicced the Better Business Bureau on them. They flat out stink. Only their top of the line "Elite" series was worth a damn and I'm not even sure about them any more. No, go either Yamaha, Onkyo or Denon. I've installed systems with all three and they are the gold standard of integrated A.V. receivers. Avoid Sony as well as they've gone down the crapper quality wise and their warranty considers anything that goes wrong "an act of user abuse " or an act of God and they don't honor their warranties."

Man Worf let me get that Pioneer mint out of your mouth, if it taste that bad lol......here take some Tic Tac's lol

[BRANDONH]

"As for Pioneer. Avoid them like death and taxes. I've had nothing but bad experiences with their electronics and their service was so bad I sicced the Better Business Bureau on them. They flat out stink. Only their top of the line "Elite" series was worth a damn and I'm not even sure about them any more. No, go either Yamaha, Onkyo or Denon. I've installed systems with all three and they are the gold standard of integrated A.V. receivers. Avoid Sony as well as they've gone down the crapper quality wise and their warranty considers anything that goes wrong "an act of user abuse " or an act of God and they don't honor their warranties."

Man Worf let me get that Pioneer mint out of your mouth, if it taste that bad lol......here take some Tic Tac's lol

I love my pioneer.
And my Sony TV
But the Sony customer service is poor.

[Yana_Carl]

As for Pioneer. Avoid them like death and taxes. I've had nothing but bad experiences with their electronics and their service was so bad I sicced the Better Business Bureau on them. They flat out stink. Only their top of the line "Elite" series was worth a damn and I'm not even sure about them any more. No, go either Yamaha, Onkyo or Denon. I've installed systems with all three and they are the gold standard of integrated A.V. receivers. Avoid Sony as well as they've gone down the crapper quality wise and their warranty considers anything that goes wrong "an act of user abuse " or an act of God and they don't honor their warranties.

I hope this helps and please tell us what you wind up getting.

Da Worfster

Worf,

Thanks for your reply. I was a little surprised at first to hear your comments about Pioneer, because I had read positive reviews. But I guess the secret to reviews is reading between the lines and it is certainly noticeable that few of the posters here have Pioneer and they don't come up for discussion much, probably for a reason.

A few other stores pointed us towards Denon, and one said the Pioneer DVD player was fine, but the Denon receiver in the same price range was much better, so your comments reinforce this.

Thanks again,

Carl

P.S. I live just off of Zhukovskovo Street.

[recoveryone]

I don't get on here and preach about how great Pioneer or any other system is, due to the fact I know there is going to be someone that has had a bad experience with it. So where does that leave you then when your trying to evaluate opinions. Like you said you read reviews that Pioneer had good AVR's and read that Denon has some too. I have own serveral Pioneer AVR:

VSX 505

VSX 309
VSX 510
VSX 411
Elite 26TX

And never had a problem with any of them. The 505 I sold to a co-worker after upgrading to the 26TX, the 309 I gave to a neighbor after upgrading to the 411 for the bedroom. The 510's are in my kids rooms. But this doesn't mean you would like Pioneer or have trouble free service out of one. So my advice to you would be is to sit down and write down what you need and see which AVR will take care of your needs and future upgrades. And in your case I would look at availability as a very important factor and service repair just incase something does go out. Now I respect worfs' opinon, but I'm not going out and replacing all of my AVR's over his view. If money was not a issue for me I would have a full blown ROTEL system with a Pioneer DVD player still.

[Yana_Carl]

the 309 I gave to a neighbor after upgrading to the 411 for the bedroom.

Innovative technique for keeping the neighbors from complaining about your volume

[recoveryone]

Innovative technique for keeping the neighbors from complaining about your volume

The wife keeps that from happening, She doesn't like it when she is upstairs and feels the shake of the sub from downstairs. I gave the neighbor a full 5.1 system that I have given to my older brother. He past away (He never got a chance to use it) his wife gave it back to me and I gave it to the neighbor.