Our Listeners of the Week are Jay for his donation, and Fred R. for letting Accessories4Less know that his recent Denon AVR-X4300H purchase is the second AV Receiver he’s bought from them because of our recommendations.

In the news, Tom K. let us know about the $843 million Elbphilharmonie in Germany with its algorithm-designed central auditorium for perfectly balanced reverberation. The Internet Archive is digitizing a large collection of 78’s. And Disney is leaving Netflix in 2019 just as Shonda Rhimes leaves ABC for Netflix.

Bobby M. asks how far apart his Atmos speakers should be, which Klipsch speakers he ought to use as his Surrounds, and how high his 92-inch projection screen should be mounted. Matt H. raises an eyebrow at Engadget’s “best home theater gear for back to school” video, and gets our alternative suggestions of a TCL P-Series Roku TV, and Fluance AB40 SoundBase or Vizio SoundBar, plus what we think college students will really find useful, which are Audio Technica ATH-M50x or Sony MDR-7506 headphones, AudioEngine A2+ Powered Speakers, and maybe a Pico Projector.

Andrew asks if it’s ok to use satellite speakers for Atmos, whether bi-pole Surround speakers are worthwhile, and how important timbre matching is for the Surround and Surround Back positions. TJ likes his B&W speakers, but has a new room with aesthetic concerns, so we suggest B&W in-walls, KEF in-walls or a KEF Passive SoundBar, or RBH in-walls or the RBH Ultra Series on-walls. And lazboy74 wants to improve his dialogue intelligibility and asks about seating distance from his back wall, using high-backed, leather seats, and what he can do to make voices easier to understand.

Geoff R. is planning to use a portion of his family room as a theater area, so he asks about a dual screen solution, what his Atmos configuration should be, whether it’s better to use wide or narrow dispersion speakers, plus we offer thoughts on subwoofers in his irregularly-shaped room, seating placement, and acoustic treatments. Son D. wants to add a subwoofer to his 2-channel system, and he wants to know if a REL subwoofer is better than the offerings from SVS or JL Audio. And David B. is having lip sync issues when using his Xbox One S, and he also wants to know what audible difference higher or lower output subwoofers would actually make, as well as when AVRant will go HDR and Immersive Audio.

Rob W. made some construction upgrades that ate up some of his soundproofing budget. We go over insulation options, ceiling construction, and plans for mounting a projector in the future. Infinite Gary wants to know if the “digital blanking” feature offered by some projectors and video processors would be useful to him. And Ken W. wants to know how to make certain an AV Receiver offers a full set of pre-outs, what happens if his speakers are something other than 8 ohms, and what features to look for other than Atmos.

Marc N. wonders if it would heighten the movie-watching experience to include senses other than vision and hearing. Justin B. wants to know what the multiple filters options included with the Trinity Phantom Sabre in-ear monitors actually do. And Mitch R. has applied a lot of our advice, but he was disappointed by the results when he tried our suggestion of placing auto-setup microphone measurement position #1 equidistant from his Front Left/Right speakers rather than in his actual primary seat. We go over why that hurts the imaging when listening to 2-channel stereo, and also talk about Atmos speaker positioning, suggest the Focal Bird or SVS Prime Elevation speakers, describe assigning amplifiers in his AV Receiver, give our thoughts on painting the room and using an ambient light rejecting screen, and make a suggestion to add drapes.

• Check out the AV Rant YouTube channel to watch our show videos.
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