My FREE home AV, thanks to Sony & Panasonic (Pic Heavy)

Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 09:20

Hi all.

I have been lucky enough to take part in an incentive scheme run by Sony & Panasonic. Basically what you sell earns you points and we all know points win prizes.

The incentive scheme really is a good idea and it gives us a kick up the backside to sell more. Where i work its not particularly busy all the time. Its only a small town so i cant imagine some of the free bits and bobs the more pupular areas have.

Sony give you points towards their products, they have a selection of produtcs from radio's to LCD TV's. Panasonic have a choice, you can either have points towards their products or have vouchers to the shop of your choice.

On to my old setup.

TV- LG50PS3000 - Bought the day after we moved in (Dec). I wanted a Sony or a Panasonic but we could not afford either. We opted for this as it was within budget and received good reviews.

AE Aego P5 - One of the best budget SS systems back in 2004-2005, was about £600 new back then. It has been a really good system for me and introduced me to 5.1 . I'll never forget playing games like Ghost Recon on the Xbox, i thought i was their, the atmosphere was awesome.

PVR - Humax PVR9200 - I have had this PVR for about 2 years, i had it when i was at my old house, a great PVR that is just so easy to work, series recording etc is a doddle.

Blu-ray - Sony BDPS560 - This was a freebie through the company i work for. It works very well, produces a stunning picture. The best bit to me is the built in wifi for updating the software.

TV Stand - This was bought a few days after the TV, you can imagine a 50" TV on one of those typical 32" CRT stands, yeah it had to go.

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Then I had a delivery.......

The Amp was through the Sony incentive, the speaker stand were courtesy of the Panasonic incentive.

As you can see its the Sony STRDH800, i did a lot of research about this amp, its been rated very highly as a first step onto the av ladder. As it was free, I just had to have it..

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So, onto the swapping / building process.

As you can see from the first picture all of the gear was up through the middle. Well with the amp in place (and something else turning up) nothing would fit. We decided to make use of the drawers (which were full of junk) and hide the PVR & Blu-ray player, they fit perfectly.

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Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 09:21

Dont ever put your Christmas light back in the box and up in the loft :

Keep hold of them, they do make a nice glow of light. (The pic does not do it justice).

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I havent got a picture of the other boxes when they arrived yesterday. I was a bit too eager to get it setup. You will have to make do with it all setup. I do apologise about the quality of photos, my girfriends camera is useless.

Some of you may know what the speakers are. In case you dont, they are the Q-Acoustics Cinema 2000 pack. Including 1x Centre, 4x Bookshelf, 1x Sub. I did read a lot of review on this as well. Rated very highly and given Product of the year and best speaker package up to £1000. I had to have it.

The next picture is not good quality, the camera nearly had a fit when i tried to take it. The blue glow is a lot more subtle in real life, the camera seems to make it look a lot worse, you get the idea though.

Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 09:21

This next picture was taken this morning, you may see a little clue as to what else i received through Sony

.

In case you are wondering about the lights and the wiring etc, here is a pic. The Christmas lights just run up from the power socket, up the middle of the TV and then go across the beam. They are blu tacked with a hook at each end.

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It didnt stop there either. The old AE Aego P5 system had to go somewhere. In my Games room (Or spare room as my missus calls it) I had space for a nice new TV in there and the Aego system.

Forgive the mismatch of wood etc, it is just a room where i chill out, one day i will get better cabinets etc but it does the job nicely for the moment.

Sony KDL37V5500

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Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 09:22

There is one more thing, we had been using my girfriends Acer netbook thing, you know the 10" ones. It has been great for the last year and was ideal for what we needed, but why stop there when you can have slightly bigger and better. This ws bought with the remaining amount of points : Sony VPCCW2S1E

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Its a bit mad really what we have built up, we are so lucky and we do genuinely appreciate it. I do owe a lot to Sony & Panasonic for the scheme they have run. This is something that would have taken us a long time to save up to buy.

I have been working in the Audio & Visual field for 7 years and to reap a reward scheme like this is amazing.

Im happy to post up any other pics or whatever if you want. I hope you enjoyed the journey

Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 09:25

The obligatory OcUK bread post. Although Epic Fail on the Hovis front.

Jamesbcd · 18 Mar 2010 at 10:23

Looking good mate. Would like to hear more about this scheme! :eek:

Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 10:37

Jamesbcd said:
Looking good mate. Would like to hear more about this scheme!

Yeah sure.

I work for an independant company in my town. We specialise in Sony & Panasonic goods (Only audio & visual) not laptops etc.

The Sony scheme started in August, you sell Sony products and receive points depending on what you sold i.e sell a Sony KDL40Z5800 and get 40 points. Those points can be put towards a Sony product, in my case this was a laptop for 700 points and an amplifier 300 points.

When you have built up your points you can choose whatever product you wish to have.

The Panasonic scheme works in a similiar way, you sell Panasonic goods and recieve points, you use those points to either have Panasonic products or vouchers from certain shops or one you specify.

I was so close to seeing if i could get OcUK vouchers for my next upgrade, i decided to get the surround sound setup instead. Who know's, i may upgrade my machine later this year

.

I only set the gear up last night, gave it a quick blast with the ipod and band of brothers. I think we may have to watch a film tonight.

K1LLSW1TCH · 18 Mar 2010 at 10:37

Nice pics dude. Nice spare room too haha.

Loving the wood!

By the way the Christmas tree lights look pretty funky, I'm sure they are nowhere near as bright as what those photos portray! Nice to hear you're getting rewarded based on your work achievements.

Love that laptop!

Participant · 18 Mar 2010 at 10:43

Lovely, so how does the new setup sound then?

Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 10:46

K1LLSW1TCH said:
Nice pics dude. Nice spare room too haha. Loving the wood!

By the way the Christmas tree lights look pretty funky, I'm sure they are nowhere near as bright as what those photos portray! Nice to hear you're getting rewarded based on your work achievements.

Love that laptop!

Thanks mate. Yeah the wood........ its er lovely. The computer desk i have had for ages. The cabinet with all the bits in came free from my girlfriends granparents, i thought i would make use of it for the time being. The chest of drawers were already here when we moved in, they are full to the brim with spare cables and adaptors etc.

Your right about the lights, they do give a really nice glow when it is dark, like i said in the earlier post - the camera really didnt enjoy the low light level. I thought i would give the lights a go, and they work a treat. Although im not so sure about the percieved improved image everone talks about on AVF.

I am very lucky, we all have a few perks here and there in our own jobs, me and my good lady dont go out too much. We enjoy watching films so why not make the most of it. I just cant wait to ramp it up tonight

Luckily for us (and the neighbours) we live above a shop, the shop shuts at 17:30, we dont have any neighbours above, below or to the side of us. The nearest occupied building is about 20m away, no one can here us

.

Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 10:49

Robbie G said:
Lovely, so how does the new setup sound then?

I have not really had a chance to properly sit down and compare. From the 5 minutes I played Band of brothers, i could definately hear a lot more, the room was filled with more sound but in higher detail. Its hard to explain, i'll have a good listen tonight when the shop closes. I think from what a lot of people are saying it takes a while for the amp to settle down, how true this is i dont know.

Maniacfest · 18 Mar 2010 at 19:32

Cool set up mate, love those xmas lights

Do you know if the scheme is national, as I handed my CV into our local Panasonic dealer the other day?

Megahurtz400 · 18 Mar 2010 at 20:49

Pana points! Love 'em!

Got myself a 42G20 on them a few weeks ago, and have had a TX32LXD85 and a DMCTZ6 off them, plus stupid amounts of vouchers for shops

Really are a godsend on top of your wages

RJC · 18 Mar 2010 at 20:52

Nice setup

Grumps82 · 18 Mar 2010 at 22:59

Robbie G said:
Lovely, so how does the new setup sound then?

I am now in a position to give a better account of how it sounds. We watched Transformers 2 tonight and it was awesome. The effects were epic, every ding and clang could be heard in more detail then I imagined. When we first sat down i had to turn the subwoofer down a bit as it was far too loud and it was vibrating the whole place.

The nice thing about the amp is that it comes with a calibration mic, you set the mic to where you sit and it does the hard work for you. I love that about it, saves fannying about yourself.

Maniacfest said:
Cool set up mate, love those xmas lights Do you know if the scheme is national, as I handed my CV into our local Panasonic dealer the other day?

Yeah those lights have come in handy, im sure the purists would laugh but they do a great job and cost nothing really. I just wish the pics do them justice.

I would have thought the scheme is national. I would think that most Panasonic dealers have access to this, good luck.

Megahurtz400 said:
Pana points! Love 'em!

Got myself a 42G20 on them a few weeks ago, and have had a TX32LXD85 and a DMCTZ6 off them, plus stupid amounts of vouchers for shops

Really are a godsend on top of your wages

Definately, every little helps and its a nice bonus to have the things we enjoy. The best thing is that I dont think there is an end date set

.

richyfingers · 19 Mar 2010 at 15:41

Very nice, I have the same amp but currently running a 2.0 setup with some old 700series misson bookshelfs, find my self struggling to make out dialogue when there is lots of action on screen. Seriously considering the Q acoustics package you have there, I heard it's supposed to be a great match for the DH800 and I think will finish my projector setup nicely. Any other comments to make about then before I take the plunge?

The blue lights look great.

**edit

Doh, its the STRDA3500ES av amp I have.

Grumps82 · 19 Mar 2010 at 17:05

Im at work at the moment. I will give you some details later :-)

Grimley · 21 Mar 2010 at 20:49

I used to 'take part' in these schemes. Sods law dictated that I didn't do that well in these though. The bosses only wanted to stock lots of the cheapo stuff & advertise it heavily, so that would all the customers wanted in 2/3r'ds of all my sales. All the incentive stock (what little there was) used to sell quickly at the other shops. I couldn't be arsed in the end.