Our Listeners of the Week are Fab F., Bastian B., Jason A., and Zachary O. for their donations via PayPal, along with our 76 Patreon Patrons, and Justin B. for talking us up to Blue Jeans Cable, and Frank P. for confirming our comments are working on our website again with his kind message for Lee Overstreet.

In the news, from CES: 

• 0:08:53 Monoprice announced the Monolith HTP-1 9.1.6 Processor with Dirac.
• 0:11:44 Apple AirPlay2 was everywhere (Vizio, Sony & LG) with Samsung adding an iTunes app.
  
• 0:14:44 Samsung refined their Micro-LED display and made a 75″ prototype.
  
• 0:16:41 Sony had huge 85″ and 95″ 8K Z9G LCDs, new OLEDs, and an X800M2 UHD Blu-ray player.
  
• 0:18:34 LG confirmed HDMI 2.1 on all their 2019 OLEDs, including the 88″ 8K Z9 and rollable R9.

Donald G. recommends the Niles SPK-1 for A-B switching two different amplifiers. Karl R. shared a Sound & Vision article: 65 Years Ago Today: The First Color TVs Arrive. Jackson L. strongly recommends keeping TVs upright during transportation. And Gary F. shared a pic of his completed home theater.

0:28:55 Luke H. has an enormous volume of air, but an aesthetic to maintain. We recommend HSU HB-1 MK2 Horn Speakers, or Focal Super Birds, plus a high output subwoofer with the HSU VTF-15H MK2, PSA V1811, Rythmik FV15HP, Monoprice Monolith 15, or SVS PC-4000 all being good options.

0:36:52 Leighton M. gets our recommendation for the RBH EP-SB Bluetooth earphones.

0:37:33 Brian F. discovered his ceiling mounted projector can’t quite fill his entire screen, so we mention the Chief RPAU and LSB100 shift bracket as potential solutions.

0:43:18 Fab F. gets some advice about seating and speaker placement. We discuss the notion of putting a subwoofer behind a solid screen. And we recommend ELAC Debut or OSD ACE650 in-ceiling speakers.

0:52:45 Brandon N. is thinking about changing his GoldenEar speakers to Ascend Sierra RAAL, but he wants in-wall Surrounds, so we recommend the RBH Visage VM-414.

0:55:43 Justin B. wants to connect headphones to his Receiver, which is far away in an equipment rack. We discuss just using a long headphone cable and coupler, using RCA cables to connect a JDS Labs Atom headphone amp, potentially using an Xbox One and its wireless controller’s headphone jack, and considering the HiFi Man HE400i planar magnetic headphones.

1:05:14 Ted M. asks about LG’s automatic brightness limiter and what’s new about the C9 OLED vs. the C8 and when prices will fall. Then we talk about Center speaker dispersion, boundary compensation, and using the Audyssey Editor App to tailor a target curve and disable their midrange compensation filter.

1:14:07 Jay A. has a basement extension and wants the perfect balance of some sound isolation without overspending. So we tackle what we think each wall and his ceiling needs, what to do about HVAC and air return, and how important it is to run conduit for wiring. We also suggest a Dayton APA102 amplifier to expand from 9 to 11 speakers, or an Emotiva BasX A-5175 as a high value 5-channel option.

1:34:12 Chad B. gets our approval to use a Tripp Lite PDUV15 to add more electrical outlets to his rack. Then we discuss which components should plug straight into a wall. And we suggest trying JRiver Media Center.
1:39:51 Kallen has a laugh over some Aurender marketing claims that different hard drives in a NAS can have different audio quality.

1:43:15 Robert G. gets our pick of the LG C8 OLED as the best 65″ flat panel under $3K.

1:45:00 Dan D. gets confirmation about wiring two pairs of Surround speakers in either series or parallel.

1:47:53 Justin R. gets our general opinion of Jamo speakers and some basic tips on optimizing their setup while we await more details and pictures.

1:55:46 Nick A. gets some thoughts about the best order in which to upgrade his 5.1 1080p setup to Atmos and 4K.

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