In this special episode of AV Rant, we talk with industry veteran Brent Butterworth. He’s worked in just about every medium in the AV field and has firmly established a reputation for giving fair and rational reviews. We had a great time talking with him and we can’t wait to read what he has coming out next. Look him up at www.brentbutterworth.com. Enjoy!

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Our Listeners of the Week are Tom for his donation, and our 30 Patreon Patrons, including Rob W. who let us know he’s one of them. Also Tate L. for letting Accessories4Less know he bought a Denon AVR-X4300H from them thanks to our recommendation, and Fred R. for letting SVS know that he heard about their SoundPath Isolation Feet and Prime Elevation speakers from us.

Tom begins the episode with a review of the Thiel Aurora Home ($899) and Aurora Tour ($599) Bluetooth and Play-Fi wireless speakers. Stay tuned next week for a followup on the WiFi issue he described in the review!

In the news, Apple is adding automatic mode switching for frame rate and HDR to the Apple TV 4K. And Karl R. sent us word about SpectraCal’s proposals for HDR display calibration as presented by Tyler Pruitt at the recent SMPTE conference.

Jim B. found a deal on a pair of Jamo 6.5CS in-ceiling speakers, and he wanted to share his opinion that combining them with ELAC and NHT speakers resulted in surprisingly good Atmos results with no concerns at all about a timbre mismatch.

Scott S. isn’t pleased that several Blu-ray releases lack Atmos or DTS:X while their Ultra HD Blu-ray counterparts have immersive audio. He asks if there’s a less expensive player than the Oppo UDP-203 that does a good job of down-converting to 1080p SDR, so we suggest the Sony UBP-X800. We also suggest a Denon AVR-S920W AV Receiver and a Vizio M65-E0 or Sony XBR-65X900E for his gaming room and many video game consoles. Jim B. tried the Audyssey Left/Right Bypass target curve and then double checked its results using Room EQ Wizard. He could understand the initial results, but he figured out on his own that he had Audyssey Dynamic EQ active, and turning it off gave him the results he was expecting. And David F. gets our go ahead to buy RBH A-600 or RBH VA-607 in-ceiling speakers, no matter which floor level speakers he ends up getting. We warn him away from shopping at New Audio Video, a non-authorized retailer. And we suggest adding Aperion Audio, SVS, and NHT to his speaker audition list.

Tony K. has an amplifier with no 12 Volt trigger, and he wants to be able to turn it on and off with his Harmony Hub and/or voice control, so we suggest an APC Power Conditioner with Master and Slave outlets or a SurgeX Axess Power Management unit with individual outlet control over IP. Tate L. gets some clarification on menu settings for his 5.2.2 Atmos configuration, and using a Harmony remote to directly access various Audyssey settings. And Rob W. gets our recommendations to save money with a Denon AVR-X4300H instead of an X6300H, to get the less expensive Dayton Audio distribution amplifier, and to use a HEOS Link to connect existing speakers to his HEOS system.

Jack R. gets our thoughts on comparing the value of various 55-inch TVs, as well as our thoughts on Grado headphones. Fred wants to know if adding a second SVS Ultra subwoofer will be a huge benefit in his small room. And Mark H. wants to better understand how movies that were shot on film can be converted to HDR when the original film prints topped out at around 50 nits.

John N. asks about true sine wave power vs. stepped approximations of a sine wave. Shane T. wonders whether he should orient his theater room to be wider or longer, and where he should position his subwoofers in either case. And Christopher M. wants to know if the Xbox One S or One X will make a good Ultra HD Blu-ray player, and whether we think it will get the ability to handle Dolby Vision soon.

Kevin L. gets our recommendation for the Yamaha YAS-207 SoundBar or a Vizio SoundBar as long as it’s one of the models that includes dedicated tweeters. Bill W. gets some more thoughts about soundproofing his theater, flush mounting Ascend Acoustics HTM-200SE speakers, using Focal Bird speakers for overhead positions, placing his Front L/R speakers inside or outside the borders of his projection screen, combining HSU and SVS subwoofers, using a Peerless AV or Quest Manufacturing equipment rack to save money, and budgeting for a 4K HDR-capable projector. And Anonymous gets some home theater-related Christmas gift ideas, including: Harmony Hub-based remote, subwoofer isolation feet, printed acoustic panels and Acoustic Art panels, calibrated measurement microphone, SpectraCal C6 colorimeter, bias lighting, Amazon Echo, Oppo headphones, Monoprice headphone amplifier, NVidia Shield TV, Playstation VR, or neutral gray Sherwin-Williams paint.

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On this special episode of AV Rant, we interview Charlie Jones from SurgeX. If you would like to see us live and in person, we’ve posted our interview on YouTube. If you would like to contact Charlie with any follow up questions about SurgeX, power protection products, or anything else, contact him at Charlie.Jones@ametek.com or www.espsurgex.com.

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Our Listeners of the Week are Nate, Daniel, and David for their donations, our 30 Patreon Patrons, including Kyle G. who let us know he’s one of them, and James C., Josh A., and David F. for mentioning us to SVS, Accessories4Less, and HTMarket, respectively.

We’ve posted our interview with Charlie Jones from SurgeX in which we discuss all things power protection. And we have scheduled our interview with Brent Butterworth for Thursday, Nov. 9, so send any questions you have for Brent to Question@AVRant.com.

In the news, we’ve made the decision to no longer make individual YouTube videos for each question. With our limited time, we want Producer Austen to prioritize helping Rob with the Topic List each week instead. Hisense is launching their 100 L8D 100-inch “Laser TV” that’s actually an ultra short-throw DLP projector with built-in speakers and an ambient light rejecting screen for $10,000. And Dunkirk releases on disc on Dec. 19 with switching aspect ratios and no immersive audio, just as Christopher Nolan wanted.

Jaremy P. is selling his Marantz AV7702 MK2, three Emotiva Gen1 amps, and the Denon AVR-X6400H he found at a discount at Best Buy, all in favor of an AV7704 and a new Emotiva XPA-11 Gen3. Nick B. suggests trying Roku’s “universal search” feature to find movies across a multitude of streaming services. Jeff G. moved his Top Middle speakers and achieved the convincing sense of sounds coming from directly overhead that he desired. Joseph H. recommends FreeNAS open source software to convert and PC into network storage. And regarding Patrick P.’s search for wireless, Bluetooth, open back headphones, Jim W. gives the Sennheiser RS120 a thumbs up, even though they lack Bluetooth, and Nathan W. suggests the Apple AirPods.

Bobby M. is saving up for dual SVS PB-1000 subwoofers, and he asks if temporarily using dual Onkyo SKW-204 subs is a reasonable stop gap. Matt S. picked up a used Aperion Center speaker to replace his Pioneer Andrew Jones Center, and now he wonders if the matching Aperion Towers would be worth buying. And Bill W. continues his questions about the house he’s building from scratch, so we discuss: acoustic ceiling tiles, Harmony Hub and Harmony Home Hub Extender, recommendations for dual HSU VTF-3 MK5 HP subwoofers, Ascend Acoustics CMT-340SE and HTM-200SE speakers, and a SeymourAV Center Stage XDscreen.

Ken M. needs to replace some Belkin surge protectors that sacrificed themselves, so we suggest a combo of an APC J35B and a Back-UPS BE850. Justin B. wants something new in his 2-channel and headphone rig, so we suggest the new Sennheiser HD 660 S or RBH Beryllium HP-2 headphones with the Monoprice Monolith Desktop Headphone Amp, and using the Tidal website to find Tidal-compatible products. Kyle G. wants to make sure it’s ok to run a long extension cable for an Audyssey microphone. Dave gets our thoughts on connecting two pre-pros together to allow him to connect more sources. And Greg B. gets our list of recommended TV models (Vizio M Series, Vizio P Series, Sony X930E or an LG OLED if Dolby Vision support is desired; Sony X900E if HDR10-only is ok) to look out for on Black Friday.

Karl R. wants to know why Blade Runner 2049 literally shook both a Dolby Cinema and an IMAX theater, and according to Scott Wilkinson’s measurements, it’s because the bass is unusually loud. Dan C. wants to upgrade his sound system a little at a time, and we like the ELAC Debut Series speakers he’s eyeing, so we give our recommended order of upgrades, and discuss the Atmos configuration and placement he could aim for. And Bill could experiment with two subwoofers, but he has limited time, so he asks if his current gear is up to the task of testing, and we suggest an SVS PC-2000, HSU ULS-15 MK2, Rythmik E15, or Power Sound Audio S1500 as physically smaller subs with enough output for his room size.

Byron S. would like to understand why a couple of specific frequencies result in ringing or reverberation in his room, even though the room is acoustically treated, so we talk about tuned membrane bass traps. David F. gets clarification about setting Tower speakers with built-in powered woofers to “small” and still setting an 80 Hz crossover frequency, although a wrinkle is thrown our way when there’s only room for one subwoofer in the rear corner. And Josh S. tried to explain the ins and outs of dual subwoofers on Reddit, but wound up doubting himself, so we go over output, power, and perception levels when using multiple subs.

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Our Listeners of the Week are Bill for his PayPal donation, our 28 Patreon Patrons, and Steve from NextGenHomeTheater.com for telling SVS that we are the reason be bought two new SB-2000 subwoofers.

In the news, Rob begins the podcast with a rant about HDR video. And LG’s 2017 OLED TVs support lossless Atmos after a firmware update that provides Dolby TrueHD decoding capability.

Lee Overstreet, our AVRant Co-host Pinch Hitter, realized that its his 5th anniversary of appearing on AVRant. And Nathan D. heard Gary Yacoubian, President of SVS, talking about some upcoming products on the Beginner Audiophile Podcast, including: bringing 16-Ultra Series tech down to lower price points, introducing DTS Play-Fi products, and showing a prototype Prime Wireless speaker at CES 2018.

Jonathan F. wants to understand the meaning and purpose of Mark Henninger’s AVS Forum article, “How To: Converting Passive Speakers to Active Speakers“. And he also gets our thoughts on TickBox being sued by…well…everybody for copyright infringement. And Daniel A. wants to expand his whole house audio system to his outdoor hot tub, so we recommend the RBH R8 Outdoor Rock Speaker or Yamaha All-Weather Speakers, connected with Direct Burial Outdoor Speaker Wire to a Dayton Audio APA102 amplifier if the rest of his whole house speakers are already self-amplified, or to a Dayton Distribution Amplifier.

Brandon M. wants a Kodi or Plex Server that’s easy to maintain and can handle some light transcoding for accessing his content library remotely over the internet, so we recommend an NVidia Shield TV as his server and playback device, and suggest a Synology J Series NAS device for his storage needs. And Ronnie S. lives in Alaska, and he plans to move to a larger house next year. He wants an amplifier for 11 speaker Atmos now and with the headroom for any future setup while considering shipping costs and potential repairs in the future. Tom thinks he should spend as little as possible on an Audio Source AMP100 and only add more amps later if necessary, while Rob thinks an Emotiva BasX A-5175 strikes the right balance of power, price, and size.

Antonio T. found a used SVS PC-Ultra subwoofer and wants to know if he can pair it with his SVS PB10-NSD. Patrick P. understands our previous recommendation to get open-back headphones, but he wants them to be wireless and support Bluetooth. We urge him to still consider the Sennheiser HD 559, but we mention the Sennheiser RS 120, which are wireless, but not Bluetooth, and the Sennheiser PXC 550, which are wireless, Bluetooth, and offer a Talk Through feature with a double-tap of the ear-cup, but they’re expensive. And Rob G. is struggling to get his dual subwoofer bass to integrate well with all 11 of his speakers, so we talk about phase settings, and our suspicions that his Front Towers are set to Large or a low crossover frequency.

Adam K. double checks the way he goosed his subwoofer output level, and he’s noticed a noise floor hiss for the first time, and he wants to know if connecting more speakers will only make it worse. Robert F. wants to know if his 2016 LG OLED can provide better audio via HDMI-ARC vs. TOSLink, and also whether his Marantz SR6010 requires HDMI-CEC to be active in order for HDMI-ARC to function. And David B. elicits our thoughts on the latest Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer.

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