AV Rant #214: BMW Speakers: AMG Edition
Liz’s audio is much better this week, look for video’s to resume soon. Speaking of video’s check out the one below for Robert Silva’s interview with the Vivitek rep on their new 3D projectors. You won’t believe the price. Tom and Liz have a few things to say about digital copies. Tom has a bad 3D experience. iTunes has special features you might not know about. Who’s right? Dolby or THX? Tom decides. Liz mishears Tom. People with more money than sense with home theaters. An update on Tom’s book. Stay tuned for more from Robert at CES right here on AV Rant. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to vote for us at Podcast Alley! To see our (mostly) complete collection of show videos, click here. To get our iPhone app, visit the iTunes store.
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Robert also gave me a short list of impressions from the show. Here they are:
1. LG – Active Shutter Glasses BAD – Passsive Glasses GOOD – all LG 3D LCD TVs going forward to use passive glasses technology.
2. Sony also Demonstrated 56-inch Glasses Free LCD TV – Might be the same platform as the Toshiba – but the Toshiba looked better – could be the difference in the source material used.
3. Sony Booth was all 3D, except for Google TV stuff – Seth Rogen, the asian actor that plays Kato and Green Hornet Car were special guests.
4. Panasonic – entire line of 3D camcorders (5) and three new 3D blu-ray Disc players – Catching up with everyone else on internet TV apps.
5. Samsung – thinnest bezels for LCD TVs – adding more to 3D lineup – changing screen sizes – because of thinner bezels – 42inch now 43inch, 55-inch now 56inch, etc…
6. Sharp – 70inch Quattron 3D LCD TV
7.Vivitek – interesting video projectors – inexpensive 3D projector for presentations and gaming see video clip above
Hi Tom welcome to the Antipodes. You metioned that it is hard to rip DVD-A. Two programs you might want to try are DVD Explorer (hard) and DVD Audio Extractor (easy). I have ripped some DVD-A stereo to stream to my squeezebox touch upto 96/24. It’s jamming.
On that whole THX ASA surround back speaker placement thing:
the close spacing on the back wall suggested by THX all stems from their THX Ultra 2 listening modes, and the THX Ultra 2 Music mode in particular.
With 5.1 channel music (DVD-Audio or SACD), the recommended placement for the surround channels is different from the recommended placement for home theater. Instead of the surround channels being directly to either side of the listener and diffuse, 5.1 music calls for monopole surrounds placed 30-45 degrees behind the listener.
THX attempted to come up with a compromise using a single 7.1 setup. In THX Ultra 2 Music mode, the diffuse surround speaker’s sound is combined with the monopole surround back speaker (directly behind the listener) to create the illusion that the sound is coming from the rear corner.
In THX Ultra 2 Movie mode, the two surround back speakers essentially just act as one surround back channel. Remember that in the movie theaters, the most discrete channels we ever actually have is 6.1 (Dolby Digital EX or DTS-ES). So yes, you’d be using 7 speakers to really only play 6 channels.
It’s a compromise – a way to make up for the discrepancy between the 5.1 movie speaker placement and the 5.1 music speaker placement. The good news is that THX does not force you to place the surround back speakers so close together. All Ultra 2 and Select2 receivers/pre-amps have an options menu where you can tell the device how far apart your surround back speakers are. The receiver/pre-amp then adjusts the soundfield accordingly. THX says that the ASA’s Music mode works best if the surround back speakers are within one foot of eachother, but the options menu still allows you to place them farther apart. Personally, I prefer monopole surround back speakers with dipole surrounds with the surround back speakers about 3-4 feet apart. That gives me good separation for discrete 7.1/DPL IIx, but still let’s the ASA THX system do its