AV Rant #373: Noise, Noise, and More Noise
We recorded a day late but still had a great turnout of people viewing on YouTube and Google+ as well as for the Google Hangout after. We generally record on Tuesdays at 9pm Eastern time and have a hangout after for all that want to attend. This week we catch up with two listeners from last week: Efrain (what is noise floor in amplifiers and what specifications should we look at) and Gary (subwoofer reviews and the “Q” of a sub). Comments from Gaylen, Brad, Alexandre, Gary, and Eliezer. Jonathan has a problem with WiDi (as does everyone else we learn) and Rob has some suggested fixes. Tom reviews the Chromecast and Rob reviews the Axiom ADA-1500 amplifier. Tom recommends checkout out the CMP-1 for mounting stuff to the back of your display. Thanks for listening. Now, don't forget to:
- Check out the AV Rant YouTube channel to watch our show videos.
- Download Tom’s FREE superhero-themed ebook Bob Moore: No Hero.
- Visit Tom's website for download links as well as links for the two full-length follow-ups - Bob Moore: Desperate Times and Bob Moore: Hostile Territory.
- Check out AVGadgets.com where Tom is the new Editor-in-Chief!
- Download Tom's NEWEST book, Touch of Pain from Amazon now!
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Shout out to AV Rant Listener Jonathan for this story:
Street Fighter: The Movie – what went wrong? Apparently, enough for a heck of a long article! Good read, though:
http://www.polygon.com/features/2014/3/10/5451014/street-fighter-the-movie-what-went-wrong
AV Rant Listener Gary made use of the popular Viewing Distance Calculator:
http://myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html
But what about screens with different aspect ratios other than 16:9?
Here’s a thread over at AVS Forum with some helpful info:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1004723/chart-distance-x-screen-size-standards-smpte-and-thx
From AV Rant Listener Joel —
Steve Wilson makes some of the best sounding surround sound music recordings out there. He’s got a specific approach to making music in surround rather than just stereo. And he’s very interested in seeing Blu-ray used as an audio-only format. You can check out these articles that were forwarded to us by Joel for more info!
http://soundbard.com/total-5-1-mass-retain-steven-wilson-on-mixing-yes-close-to-the-edge-in-surround-sound/
http://soundbard.com/steven-wilsons-raven-in-5-1-the-undisputed-surround-sound-standard/
AV Rant Listener Niclas tipped us off about the Philips Golden Ears Challenge.
And we’re really glad that he did! It was fun, and Tom and Rob are both in the “Golden Ears” category. So, at least according to Philips, you can trust that we’re not total dummies when it comes to audio
Check it out, give it a try, and let us know how far YOU got in the comments!
https://www.goldenears.philips.com/
ROB IS A DUMMY!
So I utterly screwed up when explaining Q Factor!
I said it backwards. I nearly corrected myself, but then I pressed on and continued to say it completely incorrectly.
A HIGH value of Q is a NARROW bandwidth, a sharper peak.
A LOW value of Q is a WIDE bandwidth.
I mean, it’s like the first thing written in the Wikipedia entry!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_factor
So I deeply apologize. I hate making mistakes like that!