Whaaa? Me??? Long-winded???

Lol

That Audyssey LFC is a great idea in concept, but it seems more like just another checklist item designed to get you to buy yet another new receiver next year.

Sound doesn’t go through walls, it’s that the walls/ceiling/floor physically shake in sympathy with your subwoofer and thus the structure of your building actually transmits the sound. If you’re really worried about bothering your neighbors, what you need to do is physically decouple your subwoofer/speakers from the floor using something like an Auralex SubDude. From the sounds of it, Audyssey LFC just EQs down common resonant frequencies and pots up other supposedly non-resonant frequencies to make it seem like that bass is still there.

Besides, the REAL problem isn’t us AVRant listeners who actually care about sound quality and bothering other people. The REAL problem are OUR stupid neighbors who DON’T care and bother US!

I believe the story of the Musicmask’s creation goes a little something like this:

“During a hot Florida summer, a half-filled paint can in a grandmother’s garage exploded and coated her sunglasses in a thick layer of sound-enhancing magic (ie. paint). A $45 price tag and GoDaddy registration later and the AMAZING Musicmask was born!”

Need a better and less expensive solution to Audyssey LFC? They’re called headphones.

I like Tom’s list of features to look for in a receiver. When looking for a budget receiver, don’t accept anything less than 5 way binding posts for the speaker connections. Spring clip terminals are downright awful! I love the fact that most manufacturers will now let you download the instruction manual.

As much as I ragged on Audyssey for their new LFC programme, I do have to give them credit and say that I find their 2EQ/MultEQ/MultEQ XT/MultEQ XT32 auto-setup/correction programmes to be the best of the bunch out there. Pioneer’s MCACC, Yamaha’s YPAO, and Harman’s EZSet just aren’t quite as sophisticated and nothing else really comes close to the newest MultEQ XT32 version.

For that reason, Onkyo/Integra, Denon and Marantz always jump to the front of the pack for me when considering a new receiver. Out of those three, Onkyo seems to be the most aggressive in terms of given features at certain price points. Onkyo also tends to include THX processing/certification on more models and at lower price points.

That said, Onkyo remains somewhat infamous for certain features not quite working perfectly out of the gate and they consistently take a hit for how hot their receivers run. Marantz always seems slower in bringing out their newest models, so they sort of fall behind a bit. As a result, Denon basically gains the mantle of the “go to” receiver manufacturer. Denon usually isn’t the absolute cheapest, but they aggressively bring out features early, they have a very good reputation for reliability and functionality, and they’re still reasonably and competitively priced. So to me, it’s pretty easy to just recommend a Denon and really only look at some other brand if you really need to hit a budget.

I’ve got a fun Bose quote I heard from a buddy of mine the other day. “No highs, no lows it must be Bose.” That may be my new email tagline.

From the Musicmask website: “Late in the evening when it’s dark your stereo seems to sound the best.”

That is true in my experience. I think it’s a real psychoacoustic phenomenon…maybe an artifact from prehistoric times when it was important to identify sounds in the dark.

In my light-controlled home theater, what I do is simply turn off the lights to produce the “eyes open in the dark” enhanced listening effect.

There are a few other reasons why things sound clearer at night. For one, it’s often quieter outside – fewer cars, nobody doing construction, just less ambient noise all around, which naturally allows you to hear better!

Second, the temperature is usually cooler at night. During mid-day, as the air warms, it physically rises as well. Similarly, in the evening, as the air is cooling, it physically falls. The sound being carried through air-borne transmission actually follows this rising or falling of the air. When the air is falling downward in the evening, sound gets reflected off of the ground, whereas during mid-day, sound actually “curves” upwards and away from our ears.

So there are scientifically measurable reasons why we are better able to hear at night. Distraction is a huge part of it though and so too is our tendency for our brains to pay more attention to what we see than what we hear.

The basic idea behind the Musicmask is not entirely without merit. Lessening visual distraction in order to focus more on sound is a perfectly reasonable idea. But we can’t help but make fun of the $45 price tag, the stupid looks, and most of all, the outlandishly exaggerated claims and “testimonials” that are printed on their website. I’m fine with the basic premise, it’s just the way they’re conducting business that earns them such scorn 😉

By the way, I’d be much more inclined to buy the Musicmask if it were at least partially made of 99.9999% pure silver. We all know that silver makes music sound better – no matter how it is involved in the process!

😀

Tom, dont hate on us Zone 2 users. I have a HT adjacent to my exercise room. I use my Integra 9.1 Pre/Pro to supply video/audio to both rooms. But, i also agree that zone 2 outputs can be useless. My $1800 pre/pro also lacks DACs for the Zone 2 RCA outs. WTF???? But, the main use I have is to get video/audio from my STB and PS3 to both rooms. Thus, I would STRONGLY recommend to look for TWO HDMI outputs on any receiver or pre/pro that anyone is considering purchasing. I run one HDMI out to my projector and the other to a 2nd Yami receiver in my exercise room (which then powers a 2.0 setup with my very old and very very large Toshiba CRT RPTV circa 2002). So, yes, Zone 2 RCA outs are worthless even on semi-expensive gear, but duel HDMI outputs are invaluable and I will never get a Receiver or Pre/Pro without two outputs (for my setup).

Michael