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AV Rant #577: You’ve Been Duded Rick

February 9th, 2018

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Our Listeners of the Week are Christopher for his donation, and our 54 Patreon Patrons, including Niels, as well as Jeb B. for telling Accessories4Less that it was “all our fault” that he bought a Denon AVR-X4300H Receiver and four Focal Little Bird speakers from them.

In the news, via Chris, RBH sent out word that the next generation of the RBH Impression Series speakers should be unveiled by the end of the month. Steve from Next Gen Home Theater alerted us that LG re-released the Dolby Vision firmware update for their UP970 Ultra HD Blu-ray player. And Kris let us know that Onkyo released a Dolby Vision firmware update from some of their older Receiver models, but it has a glitch involving the HDMI output settings.

Dan opted to mount his Bose Center speaker directly below his TV that pulls down in front of his fireplace. Mike M. decided to use a Monoprice Fiber Optic HDMI Cable, and confirmed with SVS that it’s ok to recess their sealed subs within a wall. And Byron received his Silver Ticket projection screen and is absolutely thrilled with the results.

0:18:52 Dave B. wants to know more about refurbished products.

0:23:12 Karl R. wants to talk about projectors: the value, comparing their performance to flat panels, the importance of the screen, and why we don’t encourage people to switch to a projection setup more often.

0:37:08 Dan P. asks about switching sources when using the HDMI standby pass-through feature on his AV Receiver, leading us to recommend the Sewell SwitchDeck HDMI switch for automatic HDMI switching.

0:40:58 Josh S. would like to know the specifics about what the Xbox One does wrong when it comes to audio output.

0:49:02 Rob M. has Bluetooth headphones, but they don’t have AptX, plus he would like to have Dolby Headphone or DTS Headphone:X processing. We suggest just using a wire, using an Avantree Bluetooth transmitter without worrying about AptX, getting an Avantree AptX transmitter and receiver set if he really wants AptX, using his Receiver’s “Virtual” listening mode in place of Dolby Headphone processing, or getting Astro A50 Wireless headphones if he really wants it all.

0:58:54 Alex upgraded his video and now he wants to upgrade his audio. We like his choice of a Denon AVR-X3300W Receiver, but think he should opt for 5.1.2 instead of 7.1 in his setup. We highly recommend he add GiK Acoustics or Acoustimac DIY acoustic panels, suggest HSU horn-loaded or Focal Bird Series speakers, and mention SVS PB-1000 or HSU VTF-2 MK5 subwoofers to hit his budget.

1:15:17 Niels B. ran into an issue with his LG OLED TV’s HDMI Ultra HD Deep Color setting. If all sources go through his AV Receiver to a single HDMI input, some of his 1080p SDR sources have problems if Deep Color is on, but he loses HDR from his 4K sources if Deep Color is off. One solution is to use an HD Fury AVR Key to separate the audio and video or any problem source, allowing Niels to use a different HDMI input just for that source.

1:24:00 Chris A. has older Paradigm Atom speakers that all started buzzing. We suspect their foam woofer surrounds have degraded. He already has an impressive list of replacement candidates, but we add Focal Bird, RBH Impression, and RSL speakers as options.

1:27:33 Ryan T. is disappointed the Dolby Surround Upmixer cannot use Front Wide speakers, so he asks if we think he should forego Front Wides, or nix his Surround Back speakers so that DTS Neural:X upmixer will keep Front Wide speakers active.

1:31:04 Tom W. wants an affordable AV Receiver, so he asks if Atmos really needs four overhead speakers, or if 5.2.2 is good enough. We recommend the Marantz SR6011 so he can have 5.2.4, and potentially expand to 7.2.4 later.

1:37:32 Andrew N. is getting a large volume difference when using stereo listening mode vs. any upmixing mode, so we explain using his Denon’s 2-channel level adjust feature.

1:39:13 Nick B. gets our speculation on when we think it will be an optimal time to buy an HDR-capable projector.

1:45:19 Jay W. needs a new subwoofer for his open-concept family room. Out of his list of candidates, we like the HSU ULS-15 MK2, but we also highly recommend he consider an SVS PC12-Plus cylinder.

1:50:12 Nathan W. gets our thoughts on using third party software to create custom tone mapping curves for JVC projectors, as well as using Oppo’s newest beta HDR to SDR conversion options instead of the strip metadata feature.

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