AV Rant #608: Rob Is Ridiculous
Our Listeners of the Week are Chad and Brian for their donations, our 68 Patreon Patrons, including Ilango, and Miguel for telling HSU that his VTF-2 MK5 subwoofer purchase was because of us.
In the news, JVC, Sony, Epson, and other projectors were announced at CEDIA. Emotiva says their 9.1.6 RMC-1 Processor is shipping this year, but they’re already talking about upgrading it. Nathan D. spotted new nine and 11-channel Monoprice Monolith amplifiers. And Nick B. was the first to ask us about the new IMAX Enhanced certification program.
Tom recommends contacting Simply Speakers if you’re looking for speaker repair or refurbishment. And (0:13:57) Rob shares his story of being ridiculous all for the love of home theater.
0:21:22 Iris Z. asks what phase and time domain mean, and what a speaker with bad time domain performance would sound like.
0:33:21 Brannon M. bought progressively larger Ascend Acoustics speakers, and now he wonders if they’re too big for his room, if it’s ok for the tweeters to be rotated 90 degrees, whether custom cabinets are necessary, what he should do about his subs and speakers if he gets an even larger room, and whether we have any tips regarding his future projection setup and finishing of his room.
0:51:38 Robert G. is playing FLAC files through his Oppo 203, but they sound bright, lack bass, and sometimes have static, so we go through some settings that we think might be causing his problems.
0:56:35 Just J. is getting a hum whenever he uses a mix of three and six-foot RCA cables going from his Processor to his amplifiers, but no hum if all of the cables are the same length. We discuss what could cause such a hum.
1:00:10 Jeff B. wants a 65-inch TV and a SoundBar for his bedroom for under $2,000 total. We recommend the TCL 65R615 with a Yamaha MusicCast BAR 400.
1:03:41 Jonathan F. has a 4K TV, but it doesn’t do HDR. He’s got Atmos, though, so he is enticed by Ultra HD Blu-rays. We recommend he gets a Sony UBP-X800 player for a balance of price and HDR-to-SDR conversion options. Then we discuss filtering films for content and the intersection of artistic intent, commerce, and consumer choice.
1:17:15 Brian R. wants to reconnect with music-listening and recapture the feelings of his youth. We discuss music-listening setups and our approaches to critical listening.
1:25:23 Justin L. wants to add Surround speakers without running long wires, so we suggest the Amphony Model 1800 Wireless Speaker Kit, while also mentioning the Outlaw Audio OAW4 if he decides to use self-powered speakers.
1:30:27 Miguel M. asks about speaker and subwoofer placement after having moved his setup to a larger space. We also point him to RTings for Vizio TV settings, and give a description of how to position the measurement microphone during Audyssey setup.
1:39:04 Chad B. gets our thoughts on where he should place his Surround and Atmos speakers.
1:48:41 Boshko already owns an APC G5 power protection unit, but he wants to add battery backup, so we suggest the APC Back-UPS BE850, the expensive APC Back-UPS Pro 500 Lithium Ion if he wants the smallest size possible, or the APC J25B, which is what we’d recommend to most people.
1:52:02 Chris M. asks for a room size guide for determining subwoofer output requirements, and then we talk about why we say you might not want to fully pressurize an open concept living area.
Thanks for listening. Now, don't forget to:- Check out the AV Rant YouTube channel to watch our show videos.
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