planning on a home theater system for Black Friday. Need help with game plan

Considering the time between now and then not sure if we could give specifc models of what to get. The advice I can give is not to give into the convience of an all in one system because generally the quality will be so low compared to a true built system. With that said I would start with a good head unit, ie Onkyo, Yamaha or Denon with a couple HDMI in and an HDM out, try for a deck with 7.2 for future expandability. As far as speakers, start with 2 tower speakers and a center channel and build from there. As far as brands, well there are many that run the gammet but I find Polk to be a good starting point. Check out audioholics.com for alot of good info. By the way if you think your computer is a money pit, youll have a quick wakeup with hifi audio

Alright, help with game plan time. So first you need a notepad to write things down. I'm personally a fan of 3 ring binders as you can take pages out, add pages in and you can put them in any order you like. That said, you then need paper for your 3 ring binder, but it can't be any old paper unless you have a 3 ring hole puncher. Now if you want normal paper then you have to add the 3 ring hole puncher to your list, but I think that might add some unnecessary cost to your game plan which I'm trying to help you avoid. Personally, I think it's better to go with hard copy rather than write this all down on your PC because then what if your PC crashes and you lose the game plan? You'll be out of luck and I'll be here to tell you. "I told you so."

Anyway, after you've gotten the 3 ring binder and the 3 ring binder paper, (which by the way you need to decide if you want copy paper or bonded paper which is higher quality and I suggest. It's worth the extra expense) you need to decide whether you want to go with some form of metal tip permanent marker to write with, a fountain pen, a ball point pen or perhaps some marker/stencil. I don't suggest crayon as that can get messy. It leaves crayon residue on the paper which can smear too. It's best to choose another option that I've stated so far. My personal favorite is the fountain pen, but it does add a bit to the expenses. Still, when writing it's a dream. Very fluid and the ink looks miraculous on paper.

You now have all the supplies for a game plan. Now you need to create an order for the game plan. How are you going to neatly postulate this game plan if you don't have an orderly way to move forward? I personally recommend sections that are laid out in the beginning to help you navigate through it all. We'll call this a table of contents (TM).

After that you'll start each section with large text so it'll be easy to read and you'll know exactly what the section is about. Underneath you'll have smaller text and will state what you plan to do here. I recommend starting off with the budget you'd like to have and why you tihnk the budget is a good one to have. You'll need to debate whether you can afford more or if you need to think about your finances and see if maybe you'll have to do without.

From there you can move onto the equipment you'll need. What brands you may be thinking about moving into and if you want a certain sound.. Then you'll need to think about power. How are you going to power all of these things? What type of speakers are you looking for? What characteristics. This can all be put in another section or multiple sections if you see the need.

You can add more as you see fit, but ultimately you'll come to a conclusion in which you decide everything you'll want to buy leaving the only thing left to do being purchase everything and assemble it.

Hope I've helped you on how to create a game plan.

lol not sure if he needed lesson's on how to take lesson's and notes but either way lol.

Hey I'm in a similar situation as you but I'm still deciding on audio or a tv, I'm gonna be starting small tho considering to use these speakers & pair it with this receiver. Already have a Recon 3d sound card cause I mainly game, movies/music sound pretty good too. So just my 2c... gl

@ Simca I see what you did there