Adventures In AV: how buying second-hand allowed me to build my dream home cinema

That sounds simple when written down, but the reality is, of course, far more complicated…

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The initial idea was to use a professional home cinema company for a premium system with a premium finish, complete with room control and maybe even one of those cool star ceilings.

After finding out that there was a home cinema installer only a few minutes from me, I gave them a call and, following a promising initial conversation, we found ourselves standing in the pre-demolished empty garage talking tech for hours despite the cold, like a couple of happy AV-heads.

(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

Of course, as poet Robert Burns famously (almost) said, the best laid schemes of mice and home cinema enthusiasts don’t always go to plan.

Inevitably, come the end of the building works, the hoped-for pot of cinema room money was notable for its absence, and I had to inform my hoped-for installer contact that I wasn’t in a position to proceed.

“Game over, man! Game over!”

As we all remember, (or was it a bad dream?) 2020 brought with it a global pandemic, and while I was grateful that we were cooped up in a bigger house than we previously had, my cinema room was sadly just a spare room with speaker cables dangling forlornly from the walls.

As such, it stayed for a couple of years. Until slowly, gradually, I began to dream again.

Surely, something was better than nothing? Maybe I could cobble a system together by reusing old speakers or an old receiver…

Suddenly, I realised that eschewing brand-new and going second-hand could get me somewhere.

I’d long hankered after M&K speakers, and there, on the eBay screen, were the speakers I was looking for – M&K IW150s.

OK, they were Mark 1 versions, rather than the current Mark 3s, making them around 20 years old, but a text to my wonderfully understanding professional contact reassured me that if they were in good condition, they would still sound great.

Suddenly, enthusiasm got the better of me, and I was bidding.

For a few minutes, I thought I was on the verge of a bargain, when someone else crashed the party. Darn. A bidding war.

Determinedly, I persisted and eventually won, giving me three M&K IW150 speakers for less than the price of a single brand-new one. Not bad, though I tried not to think about the steal they could have been had my original bid been unchallenged.

(It later transpired that the rival bidder was in fact someone I had been discussing the speakers with in a forum thread! All’s fair in love and online auctions, I suppose, but he was only planning to use these classics as height speakers – the cheek!)

This was a collection-only auction, so I soon found myself travelling deep into the country along narrow lanes to a huge house complete with stables. (Oh, how the other half live). The M&Ks’ new home would not be quite so grand, but they would now be calling me their master.

(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

All the talk of the cinema room had clearly got to my wife, who, despite initial scepticism, had caught the bug.

After some inspiration from forum pictures, she found two second-hand recliners on Facebook Marketplace.

The next step was the sofa-bed with another bargain from the ‘bay, soon couriered over.

Finally, we filled out the compact space with two bean bags, which would mean that up to seven people could squeeze into the room if required.

(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

To power the speakers, I realised that thinking second-hand offered up a thrilling possibility: for less than the price of a new one-box solution, I could get a higher-end 7-channel receiver and a second power amp for the remaining four channels.

After Anthem was recommended to me by my contact, I found someone nearby selling an MRX-720. This led to another fun journey, only this time to an enthusiast happy to let me hear it in action before I took it home.

To handle the remaining channels, I also found a second-hand Rotel RMB-1048 – a well-regarded Class A/B amplifier offering 65 watts into 4 ohms.

This would actually make it a good match for the M&K speakers, though, as I’ll discuss later, I failed to take advantage of that…

(Image credit: Future)

For projection, a native 4K model was, of course, what I wanted – but I obviously wasn’t going to get it. At the time, these could not be had for less than £5000 – way out of budget.

The in-person visit to the projector chap turned out to have another upside in that I discovered he was selling his complete system, which just happened to include a pair of M&K LCR-55 speakers and M&K K-4 Tri-poles.

Old and entry-level they may be, but these M&Ks seemed perfect for use as my surrounds and rears, and they were soon in my room waiting to become fully armed and operational.

The final element was the screen, and finding one to match my exact room dimensions was going to be tricky. So, for once, I had to go brand-new rather than second-hand, and I ended up with a 113-inch, 16:9 Screen International with 1.0 gain.

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(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

With all the basic elements in place, it was time to put it all together.

Not having the funds to go for a specialist, I simply grabbed (not literally) the builder who happened to be doing some work on the house opposite and explained to him what I was after.

Fortunately, he totally got the assignment and did a great job constructing a stud wall into which he placed the three M&K IW150s. He then attached the side speakers and built shelves to house the rear speakers.

He also helped me mount the projector above the door, and, with the help of three of his colleagues whom he borrowed for a few minutes, mounted the projector screen.

I also sourced black flock to go around it to maximise contrast as much as possible. Again, though, this had to be new.

Time to relax and watch some movies, right? Wrong!

Inevitably, there were… issues.

A key one was that the builders had decided to troll me by leaving random lengths of cable coming out of the wall. Most had reams to spare; some were shorter than a T. rex’s arms.

The first time I tried to hook things up, it was like Doc trying to connect the power cable on the Hill Valley Clock Tower.

Trying to figure it all out was a bit of a nightmare, and in the end, I was forced to place the Rotel power amp at the top, or the cables wouldn’t reach.

More recently, I sourced some spare speaker wire and some connectors to extend the existing cables, allowing me to rearrange things as I wanted, but it was a lot of work to get it all sorted in the first place.

(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

The next installation issue was the KEF Ci200QRs ceiling speakers.

They had been in their boxes for months, and only once I got them out for installation did I realise they had not come with their “dog-leg” clamping system.

To get around this, the builder was forced to screw them directly through the rims into the plasterboard.

It worked, but it means there is no mechanical decoupling, and under volume, it causes some vibrations.

This mainly occurs when doing the calibration test sweeps, but the front height left also rattles during actual movies.

I’ve yet to deal with this issue, but I plan to use some makeshift material between the speakers and the ceiling to try to solve it.

The biggest issue by far, though, only revealed itself after several years of use. During one movie, the Anthem receiver suddenly shut down without any warning.

As I had CEC enabled to turn off the projector, too, I went from happily watching to a cold, disturbing silence. It was not a good moment.

It came back on, but from then on it kept happening every 20 minutes or so during operation. This was devastating, as it meant my home cinema was out of commission – and the funds for replacement amplification were simply not there.

To keep costs and time to a minimum, rather than going the official out-of-warranty repair route, I found a local engineer who would take it on – and, after a week or so, I had it back, repaired for a reasonable sum.

(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

My component issues weren’t over, though.

Having realised early on that the M&K V8 wasn’t going to cut it, I upgraded to a V12 (second-hand, of course). Eventually, I added a second, second-hand V12 to make a pair.

However, after a year or so, one of them started to “pop, pop pop”, indicating a faulty internal amp. This meant having to purchase a replacement.

So yes, I’m now on my third, second-hand, V12.

For a little while, all was running smoothly. Just a couple of weeks ago, though, my Anthem had another panic attack.

This time, it stayed on – and I hoped that it was a resolvable overheating issue. The room was very hot when it shut down after all, not helped by the fact that I had set the projector to full brightness to get more lights into the deep shadows of Sinners on 4K UHD Blu-ray.

Research on a solution led me to realise that by foolishly only using the Rotel for the height channels and leaving the Anthem for the flat layer, I was making the latter work too hard, especially when trying to drive demanding 4-ohm speakers such as my M&Ks.

This was compounded by the fact that the amplifiers of the five main channels in the MRX-720 are Class A/B (as is the Rotel-1048), which explained why, when under load, the receiver and amp were producing as much hot air as Donald Trump.

Armed with this knowledge, I rewired and recalibrated the system so that the Rotel would take the load and leave the Anthem for just the front channels.

I was hoping the unwanted mid-movie shutdowns were now behind me.

Sadly, however, this hope proved to be misplaced.

Initially, things seemed very promising – with the Rotel handling the surround and backs, Atmos demos sounded more fulsome and detailed.

After around two hours of testing, though, the system suddenly shut down again. Sad faces all round.

It may actually be my Rotel receiver and not the Anthem that’s causing the problem, so I’ll be disconnecting the 12V trigger and doing some more testing this week to see if I can get to the bottom of things once and for all.

(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

As you can see, it’s all been, as the touchy-feely might say, “a bit of a journey” – and while I can see the destination, I’m still somehow not quite there.

Going it alone rather than going through a dealer has certainly allowed me to do more for the budget, but there are risks involved, and you have to expect bumps along the way.

While you can save on the budget initially, buying out of warranty means that when things go wrong, you will need to be prepared to pay for repairs or replacements.

Of course, even with a professional install, equipment can fail after a warranty has expired, but a great installer will at least be someone you can fall back on, even years after the initial build.

And while I hooked everything up successfully and have greatly enjoyed the room, many issues, such as the short cable runs and overburdened amplifiers, would have been foreseen by a knowledgeable professional.

So, would I recommend going second-hand?

In truth, it’s a lot of fun, and you will learn a lot – whether you want to or not.

If you have the means, I still recommend going to a professional dealer, but as long as you’re aware of the potential pitfalls (which you should be now, having read my story!), buying second-hand will get you a system beyond what you might have dreamed.

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