Our Listeners of the Week are Robert and Vincent for their donations, as well as Hector F. for telling Silver Ticket he heard about their projection screens from AVRant, and Steve W. for letting HSU know his VTF-3 Mk5 subwoofer purchase was an AVRant recommendation.

Tom and Rob joined Austen to talk about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on the We Watch Movies Podcast.

In the news, we cover some of the interesting topics from CES 2017:

OLED – Sony Bravia XBR-A1E screen is also the speaker. Panasonic EZ1000 forgoes Dolby Vision and a North American release. LG has five 2017 OLED Series, including the W7 “Wallpaper” OLED. And Samsung QLED with “metallic” quantum dots are still LCD TVs, just with a better backlight.

Dolby Vision – Sony, TCL, and Philips TVs, plus LG and Philips Ultra HD Blu-ray players all get Dolby Vision. Sony Z9D flagship LCDs will get a Dolby Vision firmware update. And Dolby Vision Ultra HD Blu-rays are on the way from Lionsgate, Universal, and Warner Bros.

HDMI 2.1 was announced with 48 Gbps bandwidth, new cables required, eARC, VRR, and Dynamic HDR.

Projectors – Optoma 4K UST, Sony VPL-VZ1000ES, and Hisense H10D Ultra Short Throw Laser Projectors are all still expensive, but less than half the price of previous models. And JVC refreshed their e-Shift4 projector lineup.

NVidia Shield TV Gen.2 added Amazon Prime Video. And Andrew Jones unveiled his high-end ELAC Adante speakers. Plus, we mention some things that were conspicuously absent.

Josh C. took our advice to buy a cylinder subwoofer, and he loves it. Nathan D. let us know the Oppo UDP-203 Beta Firmware Update resolves HDCP 2.2 issues. And Ted M. had the same Audyssey settings memory glitch as Bill.

Russel K. wants to know if a split, dual infinite baffle subwoofer is the right solution for his loft. Nathan D. asks about some of the new HDR standards and marketing that were seen at CES 2017. And Ted M. wants to know for sure if he bought “too much sub”, so we point him to Cross-Spectrum Labs and Room EQ Wizard for measurement equipment. We also suggest Fusion Collection Seating or Palliser Seating for theater recliners, talk a bit about room correction, and suggest a Dayton Distribution Amplifier and 8-inch in-ceiling speakers to fill a large space with even sound.

Ed A. noticed a hum and an indicator light that never turns off on his SVS sub. We suggest some settings changes. We also recommend the Yamaha YSP-5600 Atmos and DTS:X Sound Projector, but think he might prefer a new AV Receiver. Eric C. could probably use some Auralex Diffusion Products to combat his slap echo, while we confirm the rest of his setup. Lars M. finds out which speaker configuration is compatible with all Immersive Audio formats, including Auro-3D. And Infinite Gary has three Revel speakers, and he wants to expand to Atmos. We suggest the Revel Concerta2 M16 for his Surrounds, and the Klipsch RP-140SA Dolby Atmos-enabled Add-on Modules as the best upward-firing choice. We mention Dolby Atmos Speaker Setup Guidelines, suggest some Atmos AV Receivers, discuss upmixing, and say to get a Dolby Vision-capable Ultra HD Blu-ray player.

Nick B. learns more about object-based audio vs. channel-based signals, gets our thoughts on the THX Achromatic Audio Amplifier AHB2 from Benchmark, finds out what Tom would do to get Spotify in the kitchen, and shares a story about curved TVs. Karl R. bemoans the lack of 4K video content on iTunes. Jordan B. needs to read everything over at Soundproofing Company for his attic theater, and gets our suggestions for NHT SuperZero, Ascend Acoustics HTM-200SE, and Focal Bird Series wall-mountable speakers. And Steve W. gets Rob to narrow down his Center speaker choices to the Pioneer Elite SP-EC73 for use in his TV cabinet.

Thanks for listening. Now, don't forget to:

• Check out the AV Rant YouTube channel to watch our show videos.
• Download Tom’s FREE superhero-themed ebook Bob Moore: No Hero.
• If you like it, you can purchase the two full-length follow-ups -  Bob Moore: Desperate Times and Bob Moore: Hostile Territory.
• Check out AVGadgets.com where Tom is the new Editor-in-Chief!
• Download Tom's NEWEST book, Touch of Pain from Amazon now!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Liked it? Take a second to support AV Rant on Patreon!