Our Listeners of the Week are Tyson and Laurence for their donations, along with our 36 Patreon Patrons, including Andy M. We also want to thank Tim and Mark for alerting us to a problem with our podcast feed last week, Rob Z. for talking us up to SVS and Accessories4Less, Ryan L. for letting Accessories4Less know he heard about them from us, and Larry W. for emailing SVS CEO Gary Yacoubian directly to let him know his dual SB12-NSD purchase was thanks to us.

Tom has some comments about the fit and finish and mounting procedure of the Focal Bird speakers. He still hasn’t heard their sound quality though. So hopefully a review next week.

In the news, SVS launched their new 4000 Series subwoofers, which replace the 13-Ultra Series while adopting the newest features from the 16-Ultra Series. And the final HDMI 2.1 specification was released, although Blue Jeans Cable details the present lack of new “Category 3” compliance testing.

Jeb B. weighed our comments about a 55-inch OLED vs. a 65-inch LCD, and settled on a 70-inch Vizio M Series. Joe K. got a door for under $100 after hearing our constant nagging. Marc N. had good customer service experiences from Elite Screens, Logitech Harmony, and SVS. Ian E. still wants three screen sizes (HDTV, CinemaScope, and IMAX). But Steve M. doesn’t care if HDTV is larger than CinemaScope, although he went to the trouble of installing a 2.35:1 setup for constant image height, so he mentions adjusting subtitle placement using an Oppo player, and comments that motorized lens memory does drift in its movement, but only by a small, easily fixed amount.

Lee V. gets our thoughts on Real or Fake 4K. Dan S. asks whether he should adjust the speaker impedance setting on his AV Receiver when using nominal 6 ohm rated speakers. And Bill W. got a recommendation to use Cotytech speaker ceiling mounts for Ascend HTM-200 SE speakers while Rob suggests PinPoint speaker flush mounts for wall mounting. Bill also gets precise Front speaker and overhead speaker placement suggestions, an explanation of why speakers wired in parallel are a more difficult load for an amplifier than speakers wired in series, recommendations for HSU, RBH, or KEF in-wall speakers along with a Power Sound Audio S3000i subwoofer to use as an end table, and a plea from Rob to run conduit rather than trying to predict what cables and wires might be needed in the future.

Kris P. got unexpectedly great results adding a third 10-inch subwoofer to his open concept space, and he wants an explanation of how it happened. He also suggests a cheap subwoofer damping solution, dolls out his findings as an Xbox One X tester on the media playback front, and asks us what we think about the Harman Kardon Invoke, a smart speaker that uses Cortana. Dan C. wants to make some DIY absorption panels, so we point him to Rob W.’s Movie Poster Panels, Tom’s DIY Absorbers, and DIY kits from GiK Acoustics and Acoustimac. And Josh S. asks about genuine Atmos soundtrack sources, using a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player with a 1080p plasma, and the value of Audyssey MultEQ XT32 with SubEQ HT over MultEQ XT.

Ryan L. gets an explanation of how many Watts is typically needed from an AV Receiver, why not all Atmos Receivers can be expanded to 5.1.4 or 7.1.4, why we think it’s fine to start with just a pair of bookshelf speakers, which speaker brands we think he should audition first, why trying to enclose a space and block sound with a curtain is difficult, and why a fully enclosed room, even if it’s small, might deliver a great experience. Scott gets Rob’s list of home theater-related podcasts, including: Home Theater Geeks, HDTV & Home Theater Podcast (HT Guys), Entertainment 2.0 & Home:On – both from The Digital Media Zone, AVForums, AVexcel, Smart Home Showl, CEDIA Tech Council, AV Week, CNET, and DigiGods (aka CineGods). And Robert E. gets our run down of why we recommend using multiple subwoofers, and our recommendation for an SVS SB12-NSD to match his Sunfire True Subwoofer Mk 4.

Infinite Gary gets an explanation of what causes motion blur on various types of displays. David F. managed to get the spider web out of his projector, but now he has dust blobs, so we tell him to inquire about lens replacement to find a shop that can help him. We also tell him to use a ceiling tile bridge to support in-ceiling speakers installed in a suspended ceiling. And Tyson W. has an open-concept space with a built-in entertainment cabinet. We make suggestions for a Power Sound Audio subwoofer and HSU speakers along with Focal Super Bird on-wall speakers, although a smaller, dedicated room would be much better, in our opinion.

We tell Heath B. to contact AV Science to buy the JVC projector that he wants. And we think the Power Sound Audio 15V is the loudest subwoofer for under $1,000 for Matt’s 6,500 cubic foot space.

• 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

Liked it? Take a second to support AV Rant on Patreon!