Our Listeners of the Week are George for his donation, as well as Martin for letting Oppo know he bought a UDP-203 UHD Blu-ray player because of us, Jay for telling Gary Yacoubian at SVS that he bought four Prime Elevation speakers because of Tom’s review, and a huge thanks to Mike for speaking so highly of us to Mark at Accessories4Less that Mark has decided to send Tom a Pioneer Elite Atmos Receiver (which pack a lot of amplifier power and a 3 year warranty at attractive prices over at A4L).

Tom is away this week, so we’re very happy that Producer Austen was able to co-host with Rob. You can check out Austen’s other podcast over at We Watch Movies Podcast.

In the news, Karl R. sent us links to stories that detail Sonos preparing a smart speaker that works with multiple voice assistants, while confirming that Amazon Echo now supports multi-room music with a growing list of partnership companies. Dirac will debut their Mobile Dirac Live App at CEDIA for more user-friendly setup and adjustment. JVC announced new e-Shift 5 D-iLA projectors at IFA. And Sony launched new genuine 4K resolution SXRD projectors at their lowest price points to date.

Marc praised SVS’ build quality, especially their metal subwoofer grill that stood up to some forklift abuse. Fred got a quote from EluneVizion and discovered that Seymour AV projection screens are still slightly less expensive in the USA. George heard our voices in the back of his mind telling him his speaker wires were to blame for his Receiver going into protection mode. And Mark shared a successful Denon repair story.

Michael S. asks if a single subwoofer could be paired with a single tower speaker that has a self-powered, built-in subwoofer, rather than having to use both self-powered towers that would result in less than ideal placement. Byron S. is loving having four subwoofers, but he wonders about headroom, hitting full Reference Volume, and what he should do to accentuate the most tactile bass a little bit. And Justin B. would like to better understand binaural recordings, and wants to know why all (or at least more) recordings aren’t made that way.

Blaine D. wants to maximize his upgrade budget, so he asks about replacing Surround speakers, replacing Atmos speakers, replacing his subwoofer, or just adding a second sub. Nathan D. has questions about eARC – enhanced Audio Return Channel. And Jon gets our thoughts on the Paradigm Millenia LP on-wall speakers, which leads to some suggestions to check out Revel on-walls, Martin Logan Ultra-Slim Motion, or KEF T Series speakers.

Infinite Gary wants a “final word” on Surround Back speakers, asks about HDR10+ for projectors, wants to know what a 4:4:4 12-bit input would be useful for, and confirms what visible improvements we’d expect to see with a genuine 4K resolution projector. And Bobby M. wants a comparison of the SVS PB-1000 and HSU VTF-1 MK3 subwoofers, and asks about Surround speaker height.

Nick has a nice theater, but some older equipment, so he asks about ideal screen size, upgrading his speakers, whether 5.2.4 Atmos is worth it over 5.2.2, whether it’s ok to use wall-mounted rather than ceiling-mounted Atmos positions, whether dual subs are still worthwhile in a small room, and what streaming devices support the latest formats. And Tony K. asks about curved projector screens, gets our suggestions for a PinPoint Center Speaker Wall Mount and Premier Mounts Low Profile projector mount, confirms if on-ceiling Atmos speakers are ok, asks if the APC J35 with voltage regulation is really necessary over the more affordable J25, gets our recommendation for the Audio Source AMP100 or Dayton APA 102 2-channel amplifiers, and our suggestion to use an NVidia Shield TV or Xbox One for his streaming services.

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