AV Rant #773: SVS Price Hikes

September 24th, 2021 Comments off

Prices for SVS’ lineup of speakers and subwoofers are going up across the board on Oct. 4th, and LG announced some huge, modular Direct View (DVLED) displays for the luxury home market to take on Samsung’s The Wall.

Congratulations to Andrew on joining https://avgadgets.com/ as a writer.

Check out DJ’s interview with Brett from Kaleidescape over at:
https://www.brightsidehometheater.com/episodes/kaleidescapebrett

Pictures shown in this episode:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWHqpD1

00:00:00 – Intro & Listeners of the Week

Our Listeners of the Week are our 133 Patreon Patrons.
We also want to thank Jonathan, Tom K, Gurinder, Karl, Max, Mike, DJ, Dave, Michael, and Jack for their notes of gratitude to us for keeping the podcast going. Thank you to everyone for continuing to listen!

In the news:

00:12:06 – News: SVS increases prices Oct. 4
All subwoofer and speaker models at https://www.svsound.com/ are going up in price.
Monoprice Monolith subwoofers remain listed at their current, lower prices, although almost all are currently out of stock: https://is.gd/puVS5Y

00:16:02 – News: Roku Streaming Stick 4K
Dolby Vision is added. $50. Ships Oct 14: https://is.gd/Co6fq3

00:16:26 – News: LG DVLED modular displays
LG’s Direct View LED modular displays are taking on Samsung’s The Wall in the luxury home market. Sizes range from 81″ to 393″, with prices from $70K to $1.7 million: https://is.gd/Q5pDS5

00:20:08 – Comments:

– Karl notes that JVC NX Series projectors are selling for quite high prices. Good news for those looking to upgrade to the new NZ Series. Not so great news for anyone looking for a deal on a used NX model.

– Anthony warns that his Sofabaton U1 wouldn’t connect to his Samsung S21 Ultra via Bluetooth, but it was fine with older phone models.

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AV Rant #772: Denon Switch Up

September 17th, 2021 Comments off

There’s finally a way to have more than one HDMI 2.1 input on Denon & Marantz Receivers. SVS looks to enter a whole new subwoofer category. And Amazon is going to push a lot of mediocre TVs.

Pictures shown in this episode:https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWENaHX

00:00:00 – Intro & Listeners of the Week

Our Listeners of the Week are Mike and Jonathan for their PayPal donations, plus our 133 Patreon Patrons, including Rafael and Bertrand, as well as Infinite Gary for sending us a Digital Copy code.
We also want to thank Dave, Dazz, Jonathan, Rafael, Fred, and Bertrand for sending us notes of gratitude for keeping the podcast going. Thank you to everyone for continuing to listen!

In the news:

00:04:29 – News: Denon & Marantz HDMI 2.1 switch
The Denon AVS-3 & Marantz VS3003 are 3-in, 1-out HDMI 2.1 switches to expand the single 8K input on their 2020 AV Receiver and Pre-Pro models.
– https://avgadgets.com/denon-marantz-3-in-1-out-8k-hdmi-switcher/
– FAQ: https://is.gd/Rh5dLb
– AVR Control Setup: https://is.gd/qz5nYP
– Audioholics: New Audyssey Update info: https://youtu.be/jFTBnPMySYc?t=2191

00:15:51 – News: SVS 3000 in-wall subwoofer
Via Clara – SVS won a CEDIA award for their first in-wall subwoofer, which appears to be based on the 3000 Micro.
– https://youtu.be/RaKtgh1Y1x8?t=1122

00:17:36 – News: Amazon Fire TVs
There’s a new Fire TV Stick 4K Max: https://is.gd/jxzZlM
And Amazon’s own brand of 4K HDR TVs, the 4-Series: https://is.gd/yoo2mp & Omni: https://is.gd/FzehFr

00:25:06 – Comments:

– Jason mentions Elac’s Outlet Store: https://is.gd/g3XTmZ

– Nathan reminds us that UPS Battery Backups only spec 3-5 year lifespans for their replaceable batteries.

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AV Rant #771: New 2021 JVC Projectors

September 10th, 2021 Comments off

JVC’s 2021 Laser 8K e-shiftX Procision & Reference Series projectors have been announced! We go through the specs & features of the DLA-NZ7 / RS2100, NZ8 / RS3100 & NZ9 / RS4100. And later in the podcast, we compare them to the previous NX Series and discuss whether they’re worth an upgrade.

Pictures shown in this episode:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWzyqL5

00:00:00 – Intro & Listeners of the Week

Our Listeners of the Week are Dave for his PayPal donation, plus our 132 Patreon Patrons, as well as David for sending a Movies Anywhere code for Tom to use.
We also want to thank Neil for giving Tom permission to use his photos on https://avgadgets.com/ .
And we greatly appreciate the notes of gratitude sent to us for keeping the podcast going from Steven, James, Shannon, Gurinder, Mark, and Neil. Thank you to everyone for continuing to listen!

In the news:

00:10:40 – News: 2021 JVC Laser 8K e-shiftX projectors
JVC announced new Procision (NZ) and Reference Series (RS) projector models, and we go through all the details.
– https://avgadgets.com/jvc-8k-e-shift-laser-projectors/
– JVC projector lineup: https://is.gd/wNGaKm
– The Screening Room JVC webinar: https://is.gd/MFilRj

00:23:53 – News: Locast shut down
Via Karl – A District Court judge ruled against Locast’s copyright exemption defense, leading them to halt all operations: https://is.gd/U3HYEw

00:26:19 – Comments:

– Jason wound up purchasing a dual tape deck for his son from a pawn shop.

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AV Rant #770: New Remote Tease

September 3rd, 2021 Comments off

We have high hopes for the new Sofabaton X1 Hub-based remote. We talk all about it, as well as the $50 Sofabaton U1 later in the episode. And since we record on Tuesdays, all the JVC projector news will be discussed next week! Missed it by that much.

Pictures shown in this episode:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWxuZ27

00:00:00 – Intro & Listeners of the Week

Our Listeners of the Week are Marc for his PayPal donation, plus our 133 Patreon Patrons, as well as Andrew for sending us Amazon gift cards, Infinite Gary for helping Jason find a good dual cassette deck ( https://is.gd/EcqThC ), and Terry for talking us up to Seymour AV.
We also want to thank David for giving Tom permission to use his photos on https://avgadgets.com/
And we greatly appreciate the notes of gratitude sent to us for keeping the podcast going from: Jack, Daniel, Nick, Jay, John, David, Matt, Steven, and Kevin.

00:09:58 – Nick shared David Fabrikant’s 5-part explanation of everything that’s been going on over at Ascend Acoustics:
https://is.gd/zr5pnA (scroll down to the last five posts on this page)

In the news:

00:13:10 – News: Sofabaton X1
A new Hub-based universal remote is available to back on Kickstarter from the same company that brought us the $50 Sofabaton U1. We have high hopes that this will be a viable Harmony Remote replacement, but also some reservations.
– Sofabaton X1: https://is.gd/7IXvhW
– Sofabaton U1: https://is.gd/asz8vm

00:20:40 – News: 2020 Yamaha AVR HDMI 2.1 debacle
Even after sending your 2020 Yamaha AVR to a service center to have its HDMI board replaced, you’re still going to be limited to only 24 Gbps of bandwidth: https://is.gd/PvwlWP

00:24:12 – Comments:

– Nathan W. says fuel-burning generators typically use a constant amount of fuel no matter how much electricity you’re using.

– Andrew L. is happy with his Mesh WiFi solution, and shares his experience comparing the new Paradigm Founder Series speakers to the Premier Series just below them in Paradigm’s lineup.

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AV Rant #769 – Morally Questionable Generator

August 27th, 2021 Comments off

Monoprice has some beefy new Monolith subwoofer models, and we read the Onkyo TX-RZ50 AV Receiver manual cover-to-cover so you don’t have to.

00:00:00 – Intro & Listeners of the Week

Our Listeners of the Week are Raf for hid PayPal donation, plus our 131 Patreon Patrons. We also want to thank Andrew for giving Tom permission to use any of his photos on https://avgadgets.com/ . And we greatly appreciate the notes of gratitude sent to us for keeping the podcast going from: Jason, Shannon, Victor, Ian, and Gurrinder. Thank you to everyone for continuing to listen!

Pictures shown in this episode: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWtCxP4

Shout out to Aras for correcting our mix up of the movies The Piano and The Pianist. We definitely goofed on that one!

In the news:

00:08:59 – News: Monoprice Monolith 2,000 Watt THX Subwoofers
– https://avgadgets.com/monolith-by-monoprice-13-thx-subwoofer/
– The new 13-inch model is available now for $1,600: https://is.gd/f691RR
– A new 16-inch model for $2,000 is on its way: https://is.gd/plt76N

00:14:57 – News: Onkyo TX-RZ50 AV Receiver details
– The TX-RZ50 product page is up on Onkyo’s website, so we read the manual cover-to-cover and picked out the items of interest: https://avgadgets.com/onkyo-rz50-thx-certified-av-receiver-overview/

 – DTS Play-Fi Home Theater is on its way to compete with WiSA: https://is.gd/9OQFiC

– Via Karl – Ohio State University researchers demonstrated plates with embedded metamaterial resonators that could improve soundproofing: https://is.gd/g1nAi9

00:23:51 – Comments:

– Paul figured out why Dolby Vision from his Apple TV 4K wasn’t making it to his TV, and learned a lesson about testing HDMI cables before putting them inside a wall.

– Gurinder compared a Sony A80J vs. LG CX OLED and was a little surprised by the winner.

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