Our Listeners of the Week are Donald and Micah for their PayPal donations, our Patreon subscribers, including Kris I., Michael I. for telling Ascend Acoustics that his Sierra-2 speaker purchase was thanks to our recommendation, James C. for letting SVS know his PC-2000 subwoofer purchase was because of us, and Oppo for sending Rob one of their UDP-203 Ultra HD Blu-ray players to make sure we’re always up to date with its latest abilities.

We are still working on scheduling interviews with RBH Sound, SurgeX power protection, and Brent Butterworth. So if you have any questions you’d like us to ask them, please email them to us at Question@AVRant.com

In the news, David B. made some awesome fan art for our Producer Austen’s podcast, We Watch Movies, which you can see in the YouTube Video for this episode. Efrain, who lives in Puerto Rico, let us know that he’s alive and ok, but communication is still very limited. The Home Theater Geeks Podcast was cancelled by the TWiT Network. The mini SNES Classic Edition has already been cracked to run side loaded game ROMs. And the TCL 75C807 brings a 75-inch screen size with Dolby Vision and Roku 4K down to just $2,000.

Tim K. updates us on his rattling fireplace and using an Oppo Ultra HD Blu-ray player as an HDR10 and lossless audio splitter. Jonathan shared Paul and Storm’s “Thanksgiving (George Lucas)” song (with some NSFW language). Michael I. compared a pair of KEF LS50 speakers to a pair of Ascend Sierra-2 and quickly decided which pair he’s keeping. Marc N. tried one of the Marseille mCables, but had some issues with it. And Justin B. says he has a cat who really did use his speakers as scratching posts, so he suggests the older Pioneer Andrew Jones FS-51 Towers or Martin Logan Motion Series Tower as options with metal grills, while Tom recommends the Catscram Electronic Cat Repellent.

Jaremy P. resisted the temptation to open a brand new Denon AVR-X6400H and will use an AVR-X4300H instead. He wants to know which external amplifier he should buy now, and while we think he should just keep one of the amps he already owns, if he’s going to buy a new one, we suggest a Monoprice Monolithmodel. And Don G. gets more of our thoughts on seating distance, we recommend Focal Bird speakers mounted on his ceiling for Atmos, we remind him of the Outdoor Speaker Depot MK650 in-ceiling speaker model, talk about potential projection screen and projector placement, suggest installing 20 amp electrical circuits, and offer HT Market HT Design Seating as an affordable option for recliners.

Daniel A. wants to check whether any of his speakers are wired out of phase, so we suggest the Spears and Munsil HD Benchmark 2nd Edition setup disc or using the THX Tune-up App, although that will require manually moving some wires around. Bobby M. has finalized his seating, which might mean a different choice of Surround speaker model is in order. And if he decides to build DIY subwoofers, we think a Behringer NU3000 amplifier would power it nicely. And Patrick P. wants an inexpensive desktop speaker so directional, it won’t be heard by anyone but him. We couldn’t think of anything that meets all of his criteria, so we suggest a pair of open back headphones like the Sennheiser HD 559.

Karl R. wants to know what picture mode and settings he ought to use with his JVC X750R projector when watching the slightly unusual 1080p HDR signal being used for Star Trek: Discovery, and he also asks what BT.2020 content is all about. Marc N. wants to know all about the miniDSP nanoAVR-DL with Dirac Live room correction and how it compares to Audyssey MultEQ XT32. Lemuel G. has a large room and five Focal Electra speakers, so we once again recommend the Focal Bird speakers for his Atmos positions, and discuss which configuration would be best. And Byron S. is using 12 Volt triggers, but he’s getting a hum, so we troubleshoot his connection paths.

Jonathan F. shares a laugh at the idea of using virtual and mixed reality to simulate mundane tasks and office work. Mike F. wants to stream 4K Vudu content to his 1080p projector so that he can retain the Dolby Atmos audio, but he’d need a $180 HD Fury Linker to ensure that works properly. Kris I. has us go over his computer’s output settings to make sure they’re all correct for his Epson 5040UB projector. And Dave M. gets our thoughts on figuring out the optimum height for mounting a display.

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