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AV Rant #600: No NAD!!!

July 23rd, 2018 Comments off

Our Listeners of the Week are Andrew for his donation, as well as our 61 Patreon Patrons, and Kris Petrin once again for providing the Insteon Hub for last week’s giveaway, and now offering to help on Twitter – @KrisPetrin – with anything Xbox, Windows, or Insteon-related.

In the news, Xbox One S/X will be getting Dolby Vision support, however, only Netflix is for certain. And LG Display received approval from both South Korea and China to build their new OLED production facility, which means they’ll be able to double panel production in 2019 and almost certainly lower prices on OLED TVs as a result.

Andrew T. recommends checking if your HDMI wall plates for in-wall HDMI cables are fully High Speed compliant, since they might be a bandwidth bottleneck instead of the cable itself. And Richard I. corrected us that the NAD T 758 v3 Receiver got Dolby Vision pass-through support three months ago. Read more…

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AV Rant #599: Just Joshin’

July 13th, 2018 Comments off

Our Listeners of the Week are Chad for his donation, along with our 60 Patreon Patrons.

Congratulations to the winner of our Insteon Hub giveaway, Joshua A.! And our thanks once again to Kris P. for providing the Insteon Hub.

In the news, Karl R. forwarded the announcement that Sonos is going public with the aim of raising $100 million with their IPO. And Netflix is testing a more expensive Ultra tier that is actually just a price increase to the existing Premium tier, while removing either HDR or two of the current four streams from the Premium tier price point.

Rob Z. corrected Rob H. for getting some numbers wrong, and reminds us that sound travels roughly one foot per millisecond. And Herb from Cross-Spectrum Labs weighs in on the AudioTools App for iOS, the Dayton iMM-6 measurement microphone for phones and tablets, and Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curves. Read more…

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AV Rant #598: Olé, Olé Olé OLED

July 10th, 2018 Comments off

Our Listeners of the Week are Justin B. and Nathan D. for their donations, along with our 62 Patreon Patrons, and Kris P. for providing the Insteon Hub that we will give away next week!

Tom is away on vacation in Puerto Rico, so Lee Overstreet joins Rob H. as our guest co-host this week.

Justin B. is hoping someone might be interested in purchasing the 10 foot wide stage and proscenium he is selling along with  a 2.35:1 acoustically transparent screen for $999. Andrew T. suggested searching US Audio Mart for Paradigm speakers, since they often cross-list items with Canuck Audio Mart. And Roger J. recalls how wool used to be a better choice than synthetic materials for acoustic batting, but things have changed over the years. Read more…

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AV Rant #597: Tom Sandwich

June 28th, 2018 Comments off

Insteon Hub Giveaway – This is your last chance to send an email directly to Tom and let him know why you’d like a free Insteon Hub. June 30, 2018 is the cutoff date. Our thanks to Kris P. for providing an Insteon Hub for this giveaway!



Our Listeners of the Week are our 61 Patreon Patrons, including Niels.

In the news, AMC Stubs A-List is a subscription to AMC theaters in the USA that appears to be quite flexible and reasonably priced. And Blue Jeans Cable has added Series-3 Active HDMI Cables with 18 Gbps bandwidth in lengths from 20 to 50 feet.

Sushmit surprised us by letting us know his wife is the one pushing to add a wall and a door to close in their new basement home theater. Robert G. shared a link explaining the Audyssey Midrange Compensation dip. Tom K. thinks Surround Back speakers are very worthwhile, particularly for upmixing. And Don G. shared a short article about the original Marantz products from 1952 – 1963.

0:17:26 Aidan achieved pretty good bass uniformity across his two main seats strictly by experimenting with dual subwoofer placement in his small room. But one seat still has a null, so we suggest a GiK Scopus Tuned Membrane Bass Trap to potentially help.

0:26:01 Marlon E. double checks his sound system upgrade plans with us, and other than thinking he could save a bit of money and space by opting for RBH R-5E Bookshelf Fronts and RBH R-5 Surrounds, we’re very much on board with his choices of a Denon AVR-X3400H Receiver and dual SVS SB-1000 subwoofers.

0:34:15 Infinite Gary asks about carpet thickness and density options, and wonders if the statements in a video by music producer Bobby Owsinski about the floor covering being of little to no consequence in a studio render any concerns about carpet and rugs moot.

0:43:08 Earle B. had a failure in the amp of one of his SVS SB16-Ultra subwoofers, and he wants to know if using an APC P8V surge protector means he can eliminate his electrical circuit as a culprit. We encourage him to get in touch with Charlie Jones from SurgeX to enquire about diagnostics solutions.

0:50:51 Bob wants to know if using a VPN to access US Netflix from the Philippines is legal.

0:55:10 SuperOhioBros wants to run a 2.1.2 or 3.1.2 Atmos setup, also known as Dolby Atmos for Compact Entertainment Systems, and while we aren’t sure if the Sony Receiver he’s eyeing can do it, we know that Denon Receivers can.

1:03:11 Damien D. gets us to repeat our refrain to him that he should wait to find the house he intends to buy before spending any money on new home theater gear, although we mostly agree that Focal Little Birds are likely to work well as Atmos overhead speakers in almost any setup. Then we suggest a Rode SC6 dual microphone adapter and Rode smartLav+ Lavalier Microphones for recording two people on a smartphone.

1:15:18 Kris P. gets us to talk about the interesting effect of shining colored light onto a colored wall to make the wall appear gray or white to our eyes.

1:18:58 Dave gets our recommendation for an NVidia GeForce GTX 10-Series GPU with at least 3GB of RAM for upgrading his HTPC for cutting edge video and audio output.

1:20:47 Nick B. asks for our thoughts on the NAD T 777 v3 AV Receiver, which seems to have mostly drawn Nick’s attention by including Dirac Live LE room correction. We suggest adding Dirac externally with a miniDSP DDRC-88A.

1:29:00 Richard G. gets a split decision on a 55-inch HDR TV with Tom favoring the less expensive TCL 6-Series, and Rob willing to spend a bit more on a 2018 Vizio P-Series.

1:33:34 Niels B. asks for our take on Sonarworks True-Fi headphone equalization for Windows or Mac.

1:37:40 Brent W. confirms the differences between Denon’s X4300H and X4400H Receivers, and we give him our go-to suggestion for speaker stands: Sanus.

1:39:36 Will T. has a multiple subwoofer setup where we think his best approach for upgrading is replacement with dual SVS PC-2000 subwoofers rather than trying to augment what he already has.

1:44:05 Everything is Awesome gets our votes for the standard FlexiWhite Projection Screen Material from Carl’s Place as opposed to any gray screen material options.

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AV Rant #596: Jurassic Park DTS:X Review

June 23rd, 2018 Comments off

Insteon Hub Giveaway – email Tom directly by June 30, 2018, and let him know why you’d like to have an Insteon Hub. One lucky person will be selected. Our thanks to Kris P. for providing the Insteon Hub for this giveaway!


Our Listeners of the Week are Zachary for his donations, our 61 Patreon Patrons, Nathan W. for telling Power Sound Audio that he heard about them from us, and Jason D. for mentioning us in his SVS PC-2000 user review.

Tom kicks things off with his impressions of the DTS:X immersive audio soundtrack present on the Ultra HD Blu-ray release of Jurassic Park.

In the news, miniDSP introduced their EARS headphone measurement rig. And Odeon Cinemas in the UK have announced their plans to open seven Dolby Cinemas, joining the small group of countries outside of the USA and China to now have Dolby Cinemas.

Joseph H. let us know about a small, affordable 12 Volt timer delay circuit. Karl R. shared a podcast episode from Twenty Thousand Hertz that’s all about the THX Deep Note. David F. opened up his external USB Asus Blu-ray drive and found something very different from what he thought he had purchased. Kris B. was disappointed with an imperfection and the customer service of his Screen Innovations Black Diamond projection screen. And Heath B. wrote back with some more details about his dual SVS SB-4000 subwoofer setup that keeps blowing amplifiers.

0:25:47 Nick B. asks what to do to keep Front Wide speakers active if Dolby’s mandate to only ever use the Dolby Surround Upmixer with any Dolby signals goes into effect, and why Dolby treats Front Wides the way they do. Then he asks about using multiple measurement microphones all at the same time to potentially adjust for uniform bass in real time. That gets us to mention the discontinued Velodyne MIC-5 Kit, or the possibility of using several smartphones or tablets with their own measurement microphones, like the Dayton iMM-6, miniDSP PMIK-1, or MicW i436. Nick asks if the Oppo 203 Ultra HD Blu-ray player will live on in the form of the Cambridge Audio CXUHD. And we talk about how loud bass needs to be for pressurization.

0:46:26 Kris I. gets our recommendation for the Sony UBP-X800 Ultra HD Blu-ray player to use with his projector.

0:49:28 Christian S. saw the ultra-wide display that Bethesda used at their E3 press conference, and he wants to know how that’s done and how much it costs, so we mention Matrox multi-projector edge blending graphics cards.

0:53:03 David shared an example of the unwatchable level of macroblocking he’s seeing on his OLED TV, so we delve into possible culprits.

0:58:38 Infinite Gary asks us to clarify our acoustic treatment placement advice. And he isn’t enjoying the 4K HDR displays that he owns, and he wants to know if we feel the same way.

1:04:39 Joe K. wants to show two Xbox One feeds on a single 2.35:1 projection setup, so we talk a bit about video multiviewers and tilers, but our real advice is to buy a second projector, such as the BenQ HT2050A if 1080p is enough, or the ViewSonic PX727-4K if an affordable 4K unit is desired.

1:09:50 Sushmit G. just bought a house, and he’d like our advice on which section of his basement to use as his home theater and how to orient and position everything. And for his $1,500 budget, we recommend he buy blackout curtains, a BenQ HT2050A projector, a 92-inch Monoprice manual pull-down screen, acoustic ceiling tiles, some Acoustimac DIY Panel Kits, and Ascend Acoustics HTM-200SE or Focal Little Birds for his Surrounds.

1:23:59 Jim B. wants to know why some of his DVD backups are 480i resolution, while others are 480p.

1:26:05 Patrick P. is trying to track down the first 231 episodes of AVRant.

1:31:36 Greg wants to know if we think a $2,000 B-Stock JVC DLA-X570R projector would be a worthwhile upgrade over his older 1080p JVC model.

1:34:05 Lee gets our reassurance that he will love the new OLED TV he ordered, and we suggest either the 2018 Vizio E-Series or TCL S5 Series for his den, along with a Denon AVR-X3400H Receiver.

1:42:29 Joseph S. updates us on getting his HTPC to play 4K content smoothly on his OLED TV. Jim B. offers another settings suggestion. And we try to sort out why HDMI-ARC isn’t working with Joseph’s Yamaha Receiver.

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