Posting this podcast early is Tom’s way of stopping twice at the next stop sign. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, you’ve never driven with someone over 50. This week there is no news because of CES SARS. Tom and Rob still manage to talk for over an hour while Liz catches up on work. We’ll see her next week for sure. This week, more on Net Neutrality courtesy of listener Jonathan. We have more from Gary about video color gamut and big ugly dishes. Check out SatTalk for all your satellite talking needs. If they talk about lasers, Tom wants to know. Michael wants to know more about amplifier specs and how to interpret them. Austin wants our opinion on Pass Labs’ one-off VFET amps. Rob is excited about VR and Valve’s announcement that they are working with Oculus Rift. Gary recommends this iPad stand for your bathroom, Rob recommends these B-tech Speaker Wall Mounts, and Tom suggests you look up Attack on Titan on Netflix.

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Wow, Tom was very tardy in posting this podcast. He has lots of excuses but none of them really all that good. This week, net neutrality and Aereo are in the news and we recap the things that bugged us most about CES (curved TVs anyone?). Listen questions include Gary on Luminance (and others), Paul on big satellite dishes, Andy on DIY display calibration, and a couple of comments from Richard. Rob recommends this Kinect mount and Tom recommends this nuclear soap.

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Liz is still on vacation so it is just Rob and Tom this week. As far as Tom is concerned, the only important news out of CES was from SVS about their new Series 2000 subs. Of course, Michael Bay’s meltdown is what everyone else seems to care about. We have listener questions about sub placement behind a couch and sub pairing, ~$600 receiver recommendations, HTPC video cards, and dealing with HTPC HDMI issues. The VIZIO P-series Ultra HD 4k displays, Dolby Vision, Seiki’s upconverting HDMI cable, CES trends, and this video of using sound to levitate stuff is all on the menu as well. Rob recommends a fun website — wordsforthat.com — where you can vote on new words and sayings and Tom recommends this NSFW video and Suspend – the best game ever.

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It’s our last show (probably) until the New Year! So, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from AV Rant! We’re minus Liz this week. And we said goodbye to yet another famous actor, Peter O’Toole. We discuss Oculus Rift’s big new round of funding and what it could mean for gaming and other uses. Some great Listener Feedback this week. How do you set up two subwoofers with only one subwoofer output? Tom and Rob have slightly different methods, but they’ll both get you where you need to be. What’s the difference between DACs and decoders? And a whole bunch of suggestions for $2000/pair speakers. Here’s the excellent AV Forums YouTube video in how to position your auto setup microphone. We speculate about how some vintage Koss speakers might sound, purely based on photos. And Sean is our Listener of the Week! Listener Roland tipped us off about some big Chromecast and Plex updates. And we finish off with Canada Post, sonic windshield wipers, and FOUR PS4s! Rob recommends the Extech 407730 SPL meter. And Tom might have finally found a great OTA DVR.

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It’s been a crazy week and only looks to get crazier as we get closer to Christmas. We start this episode off with mini-reviews from Tom of all the products he’s been working on for the last few weeks. This includes the Emotiva Stealth DC-1 DAC/Headphone amp, the JLabs JBuds EPIC in-ear monitors, the thinksound On1 on-ear headphones, and the Sennheiser Momentum over-ear headphones. We tackle questions about Integra receivers, how to get sound from your source to your TV without turning on your receiver, can a room be designed to sound good in both two-channel and surround modes, and a question about which speakers to get. Rob runs us through all the different surround modes (Dobly, THX, DTS, and Audyssey) for a deep dive topic.

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