AV Rant #593: Wi-DoG
Our Listeners of the week are Marty and Karl for their donations, our 62 Patreon Patrons, and Toby H. for telling Accessories4Less that his Integra DTR-40.4 and Yamaha RX-V583 Receiver purchases were because of us.
In the news, Onkyo announced three new RZ Series AV Receivers that all have nine amplifiers built-in. Byron S. let us know about the new miniDSP Wi-DG WiFi to USB adapter. Karl R. sent us a heads up about Redbox now renting some Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, and we remind everyone about Rent4K.com if you want Ultra HD Blu-ray rentals by mail. Steve from Next Gen Home Theater ponders if DTS:X is in trouble. And THX shared the original sheet music for the Deep Note logo theme.
Tom shared a list of vinyl record accessories. And Chris T. says he has now listened to every available episode of AVRant.
0:20:13 Marc N. sparks a discussion about using Plex on an NVidia Shield.
0:26:06 Brian R. finds out what kind of microphone stands we use for AV Receiver auto-setup. Rob uses a Yorkville Tripod Base with a Boom, and Tom recommends whatever is least expensive on Amazon.
0:30:05 Jonathan T. finds out what gear is on Tom’s shopping list if he were to move into a new house.
0:36:37 Ted M. has reached the end of his attempts to improve the imaging of his on-wall Legacy Silhouette speakers. And we suggest the HSU VTF-1 MK3 and RSL SpeedWoofer 10S as good performing, inexpensive, compact subwoofers.
0:46:29 Cesar wants to pressurize his small room with bass for under $1,000, so we recommend dual SVS PB-1000 or dual Monoprice Monolith 10″, or possibly dual SVS SB-1000 if those are physically too large.
0:51:48 Jordan gets our tips for compensating for stronger reflections on one side of his room than the other. And in what becomes a running theme for this episode, we recommend replacing his current subwoofer with two new ones.
1:00:27 John B. gets us to choose the Xbox One S as the highest value out of the three Xbox One console models.
1:04:40 Clara wants a 7.2.4 pre-pro, so we suggest the Marantz AV7703 for maximum features at the lowest price. But we also have full confidence that a Denon AVR-X4400H could handle powering just the Surround Back and two pairs of overhead speakers while an Emotiva BasX A-5175 powers the Fronts and Surrounds. We also discuss RCA to XLR conversion and checking to see if an amp with no RCA inputs probably has 1/4″ TS inputs instead. We talk about switching to very high efficiency speakers. And we touch upon the future of AVRant.
1:22:31 Joel N. is worried that the tweeters in his speakers are degrading over time. We go over his Audyssey measurement results, talk about the popular advice that says EQ should only be applied to bass frequencies, and suggest one reason why his high frequencies might be rolling off more steeply than when his speakers were new that he probably shouldn’t check (but we say it anyway).
1:34:15 Infinite Gary got some Dynaudio Focus 20XD self-powered speakers that have a DAC and volume control built-in. We go over the best connection methods and player output settings. And we discuss the latest advancements of LG’s rollable OLED displays.
1:47:48 Mauricio G. gets our pick of the HSU VTF-2 MK5 as the top subwoofer value choice for a medium-sized room, although the SVS PC-2000 cylinder might be worth the price for its form factor.
1:51:07 Jeremy W. gives us an easy choice between Ultra HD Blu-ray discs with HDR10 and lossless audio or streaming movies with Dolby Vision and lossy audio.
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