AV Rant Listener Eliezer M. —

wanted to know where we found the outro music for the podcast.

It was donated to us by an AV Rant Listener, Ted M.!

His website, http://www.thesysmusic.com , appears to be offline these days. The Wayback machine is acting a bit flaky as I type this, but perhaps you’ll have better luck if you search 😉

—————————————–

In the news —

Sonos, makers of popular wireless “whole home” audio systems, have sued Denon over their Heos line of products, which Sonos claim violate “at least” four patents and make “little to no effort” to distinguish themselves from Sonos’ products.

You can read Sonos’ take on their blog: http://blog.sonos.com/news/protecting-what-we-invented/

—————————————–

In the news —

Now we know what you do after Google buys you up for 3.2 billion dollars:

Nest bought Revolv, makers of the $300 Revolv Hub, for an undisclosed amount of money. While this is no doubt good news for the people working at Revolv, it isn’t such great news for consumers of the Revolv Hub product since Nest immediately shut down sales of the Hub after the acquisition:

http://recode.net/2014/10/24/nest-acquires-home-automation-hub-revolv-but-will-stop-selling-it/

—————————————–

AV Rant Listener Lee V. —

sent us some very important warranty news for Onkyo AV Receiver owners.

Onkyo is addressing their infamous “no sound/no network” issues by extending the warranty on many AV Receivers sold between 2009 – 2012 to the end of 2018 and offering free two way shipping and repairs.

You can read all the details at the UK website: http://www.uk.onkyo.com/en/articles/customer-care-program-119261.html

And if you’re in North America and would like to make a claim, you can use this link: https://repair.onkyousa.com/na/

—————————————–

AV Rant Listener Tony C. —

really studied up on DIY acoustic absorption materials. He found the great, comprehensive chart in the link below. After studying all the figures, Tony settled on Owens Corning 703 rigid fibreglass, which is certainly a popular choice amongst DIY and professional absorption panel builders alike:

http://www.bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm

—————————————–

For those looking for DIY acoustic absorption materials, this is by no means a comprehensive list of retailers and resources, but it should certainly give you a start if you weren’t sure where to even begin:

GIK Acoustics DIY Supplies: http://www.gikacoustics.com/product-category/building-supplies-diy/

Acoustimac DIY Materials: http://www.acoustimac.com/acoustic-insulation-materials/

Ready Acoustics Panels and Parts: http://www.readyacoustics.com/products.html

ATS Acoustics DIY Materials: http://www.atsacoustics.com/cat–DIY-Acoustic-Materials–102.html

—————————————–

AV Rant Listener Andrew N. —

wanted to use his PC to create room correction and EQ curves, but then apply them to his whole audio system.

Doing so requires some sort of box that can go in between whatever you’re using to switch between all of your sources (most often your AV Receiver or Pre/Pro) and your amplifiers. And right now, there’s no more cost effective or powerful solution that we know of than the miniDSP. And right on their homepage, they’re showing their newest products that make use of Dirac Live, which was a program we’ve mentioned on the podcast for doing advanced room correction using a PC. The Dirac Live products certainly aren’t cheap – especially if you’re correcting more than just two channels at the moment. But at least it’s an option, and the rest of the miniDSP products are still very affordable and powerful, too:

http://www.minidsp.com/

—————————————–

Several AV Rant Listeners asked about acoustic room treatments this week. In our opinion, one of the best things to do is to take advantage of the FREE analysis services offered by several companies these days:

GIK Acoustics Room Advice: http://www.gikacoustics.com/acoustic-advice/

Auralex Room Analysis: http://www.auralex.com/praf/default.asp

ATS Acoustics Room Analysis: http://www.atsacoustics.com/page–Free-Online-Room-Acoustics-Analysis–ora.html

—————————————–

AV Rant Listener Jay C. —

wanted some recommendations for paints that could be used to create a front projection screen.

Screen Goo performs extremely well, but it isn’t exactly cheap: http://www.goosystemsglobal.com/indexb73f.html?cont=home

In fact, you can purchase a Silver Ticket brand fabric screen with a frame and everything – as recommended by The Wirecutter – for about the same or less: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-projector-screen/

But if you really want to keep the price to a minimum, Projector Central searched for the best store brand paint they could find and settled on the Sherwin-Williams ProClassic Smooth Enamel Satin: http://www.projectorcentral.com/paint_perfect_screen_$100.htm

—————————————–

AV Rant Listener Ashley S. —

wants to be able to use HDMI outputs from his sources, but still enjoy surround sound from his speaker system that can only accept S/PDIF optical, digital coax, or multi-channel analogue via 3.5mm jacks.

Ashley found a Sewell HDMI switch with optical and coax digital audio outputs on his own: http://sewelldirect.com/4×1-HDMI-Switch-With-Ethernet-3D-Support-4Kx2K-Resolution-and-Remote.asp

It appears that it should do the trick, but without any first hand experience, we cannot say for 100% certain.

So just to offer a couple of alternatives, Monoprice has a couple of options – both of which have clearer documentation of being able to pass along a 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS signal via optical or digital coax:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=5557&seq=1&format=2

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=7974&seq=1&format=2