AV Rant #307: Sick as a Dog
October 12th, 2012
Tom is deathly ill this week so Rob H does us all a favor and steps in on short notice. The podcast is a bit heavier on the hardware than in the past couple of weeks, with a listener question from Facebook about speaker spikes, the new Harmony Touch Remote and second-gen entry-level Pioneer Andrew Jones speakers that Rob can’t stop raving about. Here’s the interview Rob mentioned with Andrew Jones and the Home Theater Geeks. We’ve also got the low down on our favorite scammers and Liz still thinks that second screen might be a nifty new cool thing, except that Sony doesn’t seem to understand the concept of an open platform. 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!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Categories: Podcast
Thanks for addressing my question regarding speaker spikes!
No problem! Happy to geek out about that kind of stuff any time 😀
Great podcast! I’ve got to agree, the new Harmony Touch does not make me want to replace the One at all. When Rob pointed out the removal of the hard skip forward/ back buttons that put the nail in the coffin to my brief consideration of an “upgrade”. I know, I know, you can program any key (or the touch keys) to perform the function but my final point is why bother. Looking forward to this weeks podcast and I hope Tom feels better.
Hey thanks, Mike G. !
I was worried about this one. Sort of jumped into it with almost zero prep :p But we muddled our way through. As you can tell, I’ve no trouble yammering on for an hour. I felt bad for talking so much. Tom would’ve been shooting daggers at me from his eyes! Liz is TOO polite 🙂
Rob, Liz – loved the podcast, have a question for Rob: the spikes comment through me for a loop. My thinking on this has always been “if I can get the speaker to stay as put as possible, that is a good thing because it will force the air to move exactly in response to the driver and send an accurate, tight signal [hence why we buy blue tack for the stands, spikes, etc.]” Rob discusses a separate downside related to the floor vibrating sympathetically in response to the speaker coupling and generating a sound of its own – hat is not good, specially on a woo floor. Ok. So the spikes help the speaker by keeping it static but hurt it by coupling to the floor. Which effect is more beneficial? Based on your argument I should take the spikes off my Sunfire Truesubwoofer and just let it roam free through my listening room (that cube will move on its own like a Rumba vac if not anchored) and it would sound better?