AVRant #41: Bipolar Music Disorder

[admin]

Today, Tom and Clint tackle listener questions on room acoustics and what to do with bipolar music speakers. Tom psychoanalyzes a $6 million home theater system and they tackle the age old question: Spend more money on a receiver or get a dedicated amp instead...?


Discuss "AVRant #41: Bipolar Music Disorder" here. Listen to the Podcast.

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[Haoleb]

I have Time warner and our HD cable constantly is pixelated, sound drops out so much to the point i do just turn the tv off. The funniest thing was that I was just watching modern marvels on HDHistory channel and commercials came on fine then as soon as it went back to the program so did the sound and pic dropping out. I almost thought there may have been something wrong with our reciever or cable box at one point but i guess not.

It has been like this since I can remember and lately its gotten worse (they have also added a few new HD channels recently too) so I finally decided to call and I just got off the phone with the cable companys tech support and they said they will send someone out tomorrow. I dont know what the heck they expect their tech to do since its probably not something they can fix on our end but whatever.

I like how they will send someone out right away to fix a problem, But you have to wait like a month for them to hookup service. Either way your a paying customer

[Haoleb]

I was just thinking too, I dont get mythbusters and those programs on our discovery. Then I realized we have Discovery HD theater and not the regular discover channel

[Thaedium]

Bah... was a good podcast, but I got to raise the flag. Tom and Gene both made mention of the 6 Million Dollar home theatre, and just dismissed it as overkill and an excercise in poor room acoustics. I'm not saying they need to like it, but at least do some research into the subject before you go hacking into it like it was just some amature splurging ridiculous sums of money. Jeremy Kipnis slowly built that room into what it was, and later called it cine beta as he decided to use it to showcase his scheme for selling multimillion dollar home theatre setups. I agree that its overkill, but anyone slamming it without ever having been in the room to hear it and actually review its performance is speculating. Is it laughable that there is only a 3 seater couch at the focal point for all of this? yes, but then he made this theatre for himself originally in a process that took years.

I don't know, it just bugs me that people jump on the bandwagon for bashing this guy and this theatre when people don't even get the full story, and aren't willing to look into it. Worse, they make statements to the affect that what they are saying is fact, based on unsupported claims.

Other then that, I thought it was a great podcast though.

[Kolia]

It was a fun podcast.

Only problem, I now have an irrationnal urge to get a separate amp for my otherwise adequate 50W/ch receiver...

Damn you Tom! Lol!

Oh, as a side not. Podcasts should be released either early in the morning or late at night. NOT just when I get to work and can't get to it! Frustation!

[Tom Andry]

Tom and Gene both made mention of the 6 Million Dollar home theatre, and just dismissed it as overkill and an excercise in poor room acoustics. Jeremy Kipnis slowly built that room into what it was, and later called it cine beta as he decided to use it to showcase his scheme for selling multimillion dollar home theatre setups. I agree that its overkill, but anyone slamming it without ever having been in the room to hear it and actually review its performance is speculating.

First, Clint not Gene. Second, good points. I do still think that it is ridiculous and doubt the claim that it will in any way sell high dollar home theaters. If I was a multimillionaire, I'd expect something that looked better than the inside of the transportation device in The Fly. I'd love to take a listen if he'll invite me over though

[Haoleb]

Well the cable guy came up today and went into one of the service menus on our Scientific Atlanta 3250HD box to check db levels and indeed most of the ones that are pixelated and sound cuts in and out from time to time were lower then they should have been. Some as low as -19dbmv

He said that the problem is they are still using the old amplifiers and such from before the days when they started adding all these channels and the HD and they are not rated for the bandwidth required to pass them. He said they arent supposed to tell people thats what it is but since I mentioned thinking it was bandwidth he went into more detail about it. I guess the old amplifiers are only rated to 750mhz and they are already broadcasting at 770mhz. Its a management issue and he issued us two months credit and said that they have ordered new amplifiers and thats what would be needed to fix the problem but it didnt sound like it was something they were going to fix right away. Apparently the new amplifiers are rated to 1ghz so hopefully they will get them and change out all the old ones.

If you have a Scientific Atlanta box you can access these menus by turning the box on, Hold down the center diamond button until the led next to the little envelope icon lights up then press Info. The page it brings up shows all kinds of info but you will see a dbmv reading which is what you want to look at. When its orange its below whats ideal. It also displays the freq the channel is broadcasting on. You can scroll through the many menu's by volume up or down buttons. Exit to exit out. (this is all done on the box itself)

[Kolia]

I'll try this out ASAP!

[Thaedium]

First, Clint not Gene. Second, good points. I do still think that it is ridiculous and doubt the claim that it will in any way sell high dollar home theaters. If I was a multimillionaire, I'd expect something that looked better than the inside of the transportation device in The Fly. I'd love to take a listen if he'll invite me over though

Thanks Tom, my bad on including Gene in all of this :P I listened to the Podcast the other day and just noticed this thread now, so it had been itching for a little while.

And yes, your points are all good. It does look like a bomb went off in that room and millions of dollars of equipment are just lying around. Heck, at significantly less then a million dollars I'd expect it too look better. Either way, the point you made in the podcasts about the supertweeters I think was bang on in any case, who the hell needs to have 100khz frequencies ?

[Clint DeBoer]

My reading was: Tuner 1 (525 MHz): -4 dBmV
FDC: 0 dBmV
RDC: 52dBmV (687 uSec)

I guess that's pretty good.