AV Rant #374: Suck Valley
Surprise podcast! Once again, we are behind in our questions so Rob and Tom need to catch up. This time, we get away (mostly) from subwoofers and talk about other AV related things. We’ve got Richard on 3D, high-end movie theaters, and Mapleshade, Paul on antennas, and Ashley on how to get your PS3 to output DTS for games. Gaylen wants to know which (satellite, cable, or fiber) provides the best picture quality, has a problem with his picture turning to static, and a question about subwoofers. Nicolas wants to know how big of a room he needs for two rows of seats and do we recommend bookshelf or tower speakers. Jay wants to know about crossover settings and Richard has a question about passive subwoofers. Lastly, Gary and Niclas want to talk about room correction. We dive in and tell you what it does, how it works, and what are the limitations. Thanks for listening. Now, don't forget to:
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- 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.
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From AV Rant Listener David –
Oppo isn’t just for Universal Blu-ray players anymore!
Actually, they’ve been making other products, including smartphones like this one, for a while now. But this is a “Quad HD, 2K Resolution” smartphone! Careful, though, just to confuse matters, that actually means 2560 x 1440 resolution. It’s 4x 720p!
Yup.
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/oppo-find-7/4505-6452_7-35873276.html
We poked some fun at Mapeshade for their silly cable designs. But AV Rant Listener Richard has kindly reminded us that we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water! Mapleshade might not be our choice for cables, but Mapleshade Records puts out some really, really good quality recordings!
http://mapleshaderecords.com/main/catalog.php
We talk a lot about “room correction” programs this week. AV Rant Listener Gary is currently using Anthem’s ARC version of “room correction”.
If you’d like a much more in depth explanation of what a program like Anthem ARC really does, and how its predicted results stack up to independent measurements, Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity did a really great review a while back. And please note, this review also has links within it that further describe the complete process.
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/audio-calibration/audio-calibration-reviews/anthem-room-correction-arc-system-part-1.html