gofar99 Messages: 1949 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
HT has been going on for a goodly while. Well before the pandemic. Often it was a "man cave" but there were other names. My general feeling is that it may actually be going downhill not up. DVD disks are losing sales and streaming is up. Often on small screen devices like tablets. Just today a major streaming service raised its rates by 40%. I would expect others to follow. The equipment needed for a good HT setup is not all that costly now. A pretty good receiver can be had for $200-300US. Rear speakers are often really inexpensive and the rest are not all that costly. A reasonable complete 5.1 set of speakers can be had for around $500-600. Since many folks will already have a decent stereo system the costs could be a lot less. The remaining issue is source material. Someone with an existing BlueRay player has several options. Those without can do streaming. All this has been possible (except for streaming) for at least 10 years. I have a high end 5.1 and a 7.1 in y shed that are over 10 years old now. I tried it and found much of the hype just that and much of the source material not all that great. I grant that some newer material is probably better. YMMV