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AV Rant #575: Pedantic About Subs

January 27th, 2018

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Our Listeners of the Week are James and Luke for their donations, along with our 51 Patreon Patrons, including Rob M. and Josh C., as well as Ryan H. for telling SVS he decided on dual PB16-Ultra subwoofers rather than buying a second Klipsch sub because of us, Robert E. for letting SVS know we started him down his multiple subwoofer journey, Jason S. for letting Sound Proofing Company know we sent him their way, and Steve the Geek from NextGenHomeTheater.com for mentioning us in his KEF Q-Series speaker review.

Daisy is ok, everybody. But we’re still giving her nights off. And Rob got an LG OLED65B7P thanks to TVOutlet.ca offering discounts on refurbished TVs in Canada.

In the news, Monoprice Monolith Amplifiers with XLR inputs will be available at the end of January. Sony released their Dolby Vision firmware update for their X1 Extreme TVs, but it doesn’t work with any external sources, and further firmware updates for Dolby Vision sources will be required. And SVS announced their Prime Wireless Speakers and SoundBase.

Travis D. tried playing frequency sweeps from AudioCheck.net, and he found his Receiver’s crossover is functioning as we described. Bari W. tore down the soffit that was covering a pipe on his basement ceiling and installed a false wall at the front of his room. Derek F. shared optimal video and audio settings for Comcast cable boxes. Benjamin B. suggested replacing a Behringer iNuke amplifier cooling fan with a quieter PC case fan rather than replacing the whole amplifier. David F. received his three pairs of RBH A-600 in-ceiling speakers and backer boxes, but ran into an snag installing them. Dave M. shared a Slow Mo Guys video demonstrating “sample and hold” displays vs. CRT. And AJ says last week’s image of 24 speakers is NOT a reasonable number of speakers…according to his wife.

Josh S. gets our thoughts on having a separate video calibration for each source device. Ian E.’s friend wants a 50-60-inch TV for under $600 that’s as future proof as possible, so we suggest either a TCL 55P605 or a Vizio M-Series display. Ian also asks about a strange, constant noise coming from his USB computer speakers that we think might be a USB cable issue, so we suggest a replacement USB cable with ferrite cores. And we suspect some odd “pumping” of his Epson 8350’s light levels might either be due to lamp age, or some heating issues that might be helped by cleaning the air filter.

Byron S. gets our recommendation for a Silver Ticket projection screen along with one of the new $1,500 4K DLP projectors, such as the BenQ HT2550, or paying a bit more for the Epson HC 4000. Rob M. wants a new Receiver with a phono input to drive a 2.1 Living Room setup, so we suggest the Onkyo TX-NR575, Yamaha RX-A760, Marantz SR6011, or a Denon AVR-X3300W paired with an Emotiva XPS-1 phono pre-amp. Steve T. gets our thoughts on why his dual subwoofers sound fine on their own, but have a dip in their frequency response after running and applying Audyssey SubEQ HT. And Ryan H. gets our suggestions for covering his room’s 42-inch entrance, covering his front wall and ceiling in fabric instead of just painting them black, and using Klipsch R-14SA on-ceiling speakers rather than in-ceiling speakers for Atmos.

Brandon G. wants a projector, but he has a lot of ambient light, so we talk about large flat panel options instead. Adam P. has high efficiency, horn-loaded speakers at ear level, but satellite speakers overhead, so we recommend trying an experiment first, and considering the Klipsch R-15M bookshelf speakers. And Nick B. wants us to speculate about large, rollable OLED TVs potentially replacing motorized projection setups.

Heath B. is concerned about a 65-foot subwoofer cable run, so we try to set his mind at ease. And Shane T. wants to know why we always refer to dual subwoofer setups as “5.2” or “7.2.4”, etc. when those are technically 5.1 or 7.1.4 setups that happen to use more than one subwoofer for the LFE channel.

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