OT: Home Theater tips ?

[willywhit]

Whit-

Don't buy anything without me.

There are many trade offs - the biggest issue with silly little cube speakers is dynamic compression. Also you have difficulty getting great delineated bass with any driver under 7 inches. Drop to 5.25 inches and you really suffer. Go over 10 inches and you are back to "one note mid bass" but good low bass.

So you have to go to a reallly unusual design. In your price point.

Give me a buzz.

It will run you about $500 which will include a sub, surround sound processor with built in eq, 4 presets, and 5 speakers and amplifiers. Normally runs about $1500

It is the ONLY complete HT system I can say is worth listening to that costs less than $5000. But- you have to set it up properly- and I can show you how to do that.

Anyone catch "Airtime" on INHD ?Kitesurfing BVI with Sir Richard Branson and Martin Vari et al. Ruben Lenten at the Gorge too. great stuff and it's on again tonight at 8. must see tv http://www.inhd.com/product.jsp?prodId=37598&mp=cb2 I'm still looking for the 5.1 audio set up.The 2.1 stereo just ain't cutting it. Gotta love the Red Sox games in HD, esp when they're beating those damn Yankees~

[Enzo]

I saw it. I'm not even into kitesurfing, but it was still cool to watch. In the winter they had quite a bit of snowboarding (1/2 pipe, slopestyle, etc) on Airtime. The Sox games are ridiculous on HD. I actually had a die-hard yankee fan over last week (yes, I actually let him in my house) and he got totally sucked into watching a Sox vs Orioles game b/c of the amazing HD picture quality. Recently I've been watching a lot of the crazy nature shows on HDDSC and the travel shows on HDNet/INHD. The scenery is mind blowing!

[John Gilmour]

After recently upgrading my home theatre, I can throw in a few lessons that I've learned.

- my expensive subwoofer (Monitor Audio) has the annoying habit of going into a sleep mode when not active then suddenly popping to life when the low frequencies kick in. There's an audible pop as it does this. Watch for this.

- my Samsung DLP TV has the dreaded video lag problem. That is, when you pump the sound through the AV receiver, the video lags a microsecond behind the sound. My receiver has a time delay feature but I can't get it dialed in. I read that this is a problem for some DLP chips. There is a processing delay in the video. The TV is going back as soon as I figure out what else to buy.

- HDTV is a disappointment. The only thing that gives you that eye-popping visual clarity that you see in the showroom is the NFL broadcasts. Most other sources look a little bit better than SD and that's it. Golf on ABC this weekend absolutely sucked.

- TIVO is an absolute must. It will change the way you view TV. For instance, I start watching my sports broadcasts about 45 minutes into the actual start time. I then ffw through the commercials and other delays and by end of the game, I am caught up and watching live. I can watch a hockey game in a little over 1 hour this way.

- the best part about home theatre is shopping for the components.

So all I do all day long is set up HT and Audio systems. So when I'm home what do I do?...I tweak my own system once in a while.

Yesterday I set up the most amazing sound system in a Porsche 911 convertible. I like tuning the cars the best- it is a far bigger challenge andwhen you nail it....it is a revelation.

Your Monitor audio subwoofer is set to "signal sensing" so when it hears no low frequency for a while...it shuts off- and then suddenly...turns on late when sub noise comes in. That s okay for most movies with continuous noise in the sound track...and for most movies the 20th century fox or MGM start or THX start will activate the sub for the start of the movie.

You may have a switch on the back of your sub that leaves it "on" constantly...use that. The current draw on a subwoofer amplier can be minimal...particularly if like many of todays subs...it is a digitally amplified class d sub. They are about 90% more efficient than a regular class AB amplifer (your typical amp) Tube amplifers (are very power hungry at idle and use the same amount of power virtually at idle than when in use. The other issue could be that gain (volume level)that you are listening at is too low so your sub is cutting in and out at low levels of listening...say if you have kids sleeping.

Your Samsung has a Motion artifacts reducer. It's default is likely the on position from the factory. It adds a delay to the sound but the amplifer in your TV has an internal buffer to make sure what comes out of the attached speakers is in synch.

BUT...being that the samsung is a budget product...they neglected to put the same time delay buffer circuit for time delay switchable in the external audio outputs so whe you run the sound out of your TV the video lags.

So you can switch off that video artifacts reducer.... and you get a worse picture but synched sound. Or you can use the speakers with your TV abysmal.... Or you can buy "Z-Couplers" which drop down the current level out of your speaker outputs to line level and then run it through your processor...it will now be in synch but you just ran a clean digital signal througha crappy TV d/a converter and mixed it to stereo and now you would have to remix to dolby digital which won't sound as good as 5.1.

That all applies for 480 resolution where your artifacts reduction kicks in. if you run component cables and a 1080I signal you won't ahve these issues because 1080 signals won't go through any artifacts reduction circuitry (doesn't need it).

What a pain in the butt to have to switch cables to ge the sound to synch...but they didn't have to look at your face once they got your money and handed you the box. Sure bang and Olufsen doesn't ahve those issues..but it is way expensive.

As if that isn't enough...some cable companies do not do a good job with audio synching...and nothing can fix that- and you can call all you like...

Don't buy Tivo...rent a bundled DVR cable box. You want HDTV in your recorded stuff right???

Of course in the stuff I sell...we don't have these isssues- some crazy Danish tweakers work it all out. in fact our TV processor now works in every single country regardless of whether it is NTSC, PAL, SEACAM or whatever format...so you don't have to sell your plasma each time you move to a country with a different broadcasting format. And our processor is software upgradeable and supported for over decade..and the plasmas are rated for 20 years to their 1/2 brightness..and the plasmas are calibrated correctly out of the box...and so forth...but doing it right comes at a high price. we have some crazy 80th anniversary price reduction (20-26%) until the 15th of this month..but after that we get very expensive again. The discount goes away, and the processor skyrockets in price and everything else goes up July1st to price us out of the realm of everyone but the top 5%er's.

So while I'm at Bang and Olufsen I think we should put together some killer HD footage and I'll have a party here using our a 60K 65" 6000 watt system.

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Mercedes-benz 400

[willywhit]

JG said :"So while I'm at Bang and Olufsen I think we should put together some killer HD footage and I'll have a party here using our a 60K 65" 6000 watt system"

If you boston boys get a chance, stop in to B&O and check out the system JG's talkin' bout, it's sick !

With all this rain I finally set up my XBox 360 that's been dormant due to lack of a game,hard drive or memory stick.We rented "Burnout Revenge" and the whole thing is like crack tv,I can't put down the joystick. Prob should've spent the $300 on a 5.1 surround system but that's not far off.

JG, familiar with Spearit Sound? http://www.northamptonaudio.com/specials.htm

they've got some goodies for what seems like good deals.

[Jack M]

The TV is going back as soon as I figure out what else to buy.

I'll just say that I'm very pleased with my new 32" Sony Bravia XBR LCD TV. The salesman said that LCD is currently the longest-lived technology available. I think for 40" and below it's the way to go. I would have gotten the regular Bravia, but I recently landed a new job so I splurged for the XBR. It's got an HD tuner and when I plugged it in to our basic cable, much to my pleasant surprise it picked up 4 HD channels! (ABC, NBC, FOX, PBS) There's more HD programming out there than I thought, it's great! Anyway, the picture is superb and eye-popping with any digital signal (DVD, HD channels) and it's about as good as my old tube TV on SD analog channels. With an 8ms response time, there are absolutely no trailing ghost images on fast motion - something I was worried about. One cool feature of the TV is a USB port and a built-in slideshow player - I can take the memory card out of my digital camera, stick it in my USB card reader and plug it into the TV and play a slideshow from the card. Very cool. Also you can hook up your computer to the TV and use it as your monitor.

HDTV is a disappointment. The only thing that gives you that eye-popping visual clarity that you see in the showroom is the NFL broadcasts. Most other sources look a little bit better than SD and that's it. Golf on ABC this weekend absolutely sucked.

Gosh, I've been very impressed with what I'm seeing in HD on my new TV. I'd say the NBA playoffs are the most impressive picture I've seen so far, but the primetime shows in HD are way better than SD. And I'm loving TV in the 16:9 format. 4:3 just looks so small and cramped now! And now I'm seriously contemplating upgrading from our $12/mo "ghetto" cable package just for the summer so I can watch the Red Sox on NESN-HD!!

[Enzo]

Gosh, I've been very impressed with what I'm seeing in HD on my new TV. I'd say the NBA playoffs are the most impressive picture I've seen so far, but the primetime shows in HD are way better than SD. And I'm loving TV in the 16:9 format. 4:3 just looks so small and cramped now! And now I'm seriously contemplating upgrading from our $12/mo "ghetto" cable package just for the summer so I can watch the Red Sox on NESN-HD!!

Upgrade NOW!!! It'll put a smile on your face every time you turn that TV on.

[patmoore]

A year and a half after buying a 52" DLP I'm still loving it! The only downside is that I've gone from 110 channels down to 10 because I refuse to watch anything that isn't in HD....

[John Gilmour]

Well, so much programming is SD and you don't want to watch SD on a large screen unless you have ED (enhanced definition) so the B&O system has line doubling and frame doubling to make SD look almost like HD...yeah I wouldn't believe it either---but I see it everyday.

So much is Mixed definition (only interviews in HD all file footage in Sd or establishing shots in SD) nowadays that you can't watch a lot of shows that are supposedly HD on a larger screen because the picture looks blurry on the SD shots.

Best thing I have yet seen on HDTV was the US Open (tennis)- amazing court side shots...and I think it was not 720p but 1080i....at least the shots of the stands.. you really felt like you were sitting in the corners of the court.

If you get LCD don't go bigger than 40" because you will start to notice trails. Under 35 inches is ideal. Also LCDs backlighting quickly loses luminence after 3 weeks and so will be less bright than plasma. The bright side is you can replace the backlight..but who wants to do that so often. View LCDs ina slightly darkend room and they can be very nice for slower action and most movies.

The real cool thing will be the biolumenscent displays which will be very bright and quick in time..but we have a ways to go.

Our current 65" weighs 176 and requires some wall reinforcement of you have metal studs... so even if you have a 140 inch plasma.....you would need it to be light and probably thin...

The best battle ground seems to be at about 50 inches where nearly everything regardless of definition can look good on the B&O.

A lot of people compare the Pioneer Elite to the Bang and Olufsen and don't see much difference in the stores. But in the store the signal is made from a signal generator that is PERFECT and without noise or weak signal.

If you take a B&O plasma and feed it a slightly noisy weak signal...you still get a perfect picture... currently we are using a cheap 5 foot antenna in a back alley surrounded by buildings and just barely get one HD channel (the worst one for wavelength WGBH -2)...but if you look at it...even at the limit of being able to pull it in....the picture looks perfect. Despite noise and weak signal.

So the other day I installed a Pioneer Elite in the Ritz for a friend of mine. I tried to sell him on the Bang and Olufsen TV but he said he was going to save 3 grand and buy the top of the line Pioneer Elite.

So we install the TV and fire it up... and his first comment was..."Why is the picture like that??????? It looks like the low line Pioneer series- and I paid a ****load ($2900) more so I wouldn't get this (lower quality) picture."

Well the Pioneer as well as many other models don't like a signal that isn't perfect. The signal that goes into the Ritz apts. is amplified and split, amplified and split etc.. many times over...and you can bet that the Ritz does a better job with the cable than other buildings.

So in some cases you get what you pay for (1brand) and in other cases....you don't (many brands)

...but you end up living with it for the next 10 years.

BTW I don't expect anyone on bomber to buy a B&O tv..in fact you should never blow cash on a TV when you spend it on groomers or a week of heli boarding. I refuse to sell one to any customer that can ride and owns a middle of the road carving deck. At least I can be sure to get your priorities in order.

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