New Sound System

Christa and I purchased a new LCD television around the new year. To go along with this new video technology, we decided to also purchase a home theater system to go with it. Christa and I did some reconnaissance and also set an initial budget. It didn't take us too long to realize that our budget was not very realistic. We did our main shopping at Best Buy and American. Much of the stuff at American that we were showed was way out of our price range. When we stated our budget the salesmen found us something and discounted it to get it to fit.

We came back a week later to pick everything up (one item had to be ordered). We took home our receiver, 5 speakers and subwoofer and I began to put everything together. I asked the guy at Receiving if the speakers also came with speaker wire. He said yes.

Guess what? No speaker wire! After a few choice words in the other room, I told Christa we needed to go back for speaker wire. Livid, I called the manager of American and expressed my frustration. He agreed to give me the speaker wire at 50% off. OK. I'll take it. We come back from our second trip to American for the evening and I hook everything up.

I want to say that the manual for the receiver is in English, but it didn't read like it. Needless to say after fussing with buttons and wires for over an hour (and a lot of swearing) I packed everything up and decided to return it. It wasn't worth all the hassle.

Right away the next morning, I drove up (third time) to American and wanted to return the items. The gentlemen at Customer Service wanted to help with this and got the salesmen who sold me the items to explain this one last time. He broke down all wire connections and told me exactly how to set up with the receiver.

After reconnecting everything the second time, Christa and I were met with success. After watching action scenes from Gladiator and Star Wars and after paying XBox 360 games on the sound system, it was definitely worth it...all the money and the hassle. Not one of my finer moments.