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 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 ?

 

[Audioholics]

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

I guess that's pretty good.

 

[Tom Andry]

who the hell needs to have 100khz frequencies ?

Dogs? Banshees? Fish? Ya got me. I think he just ran out of things to spend money on.

One thing that freaks me out though... where are the wires? It just looks like all the gear is in the room but not hooked up to anything. What's the deal with that? With all that money you'd think he'd have wires as thick as a baby's arm up on elevators all over that place. Even the gear on the rack looks strangely devoid of wires.

 

[Thaedium]

Dogs? Banshees? Fish? Ya got me. I think he just ran out of things to spend money on.

One thing that freaks me out though... where are the wires? It just looks like all the gear is in the room but not hooked up to anything. What's the deal with that? With all that money you'd think he'd have wires as thick as a baby's arm up on elevators all over that place. Even the gear on the rack looks strangely devoid of wires.

The wires were all removed for the photo shoot.

Here's a photo of the early incarnation of his system,


Quite the mess, hah.

 

[Audioholics]

Is that the final room? Or did all that gear move somewhere else? Cause if that's the final room then all the acoustics in the world don't matter. He should have spent $2 milion on a new home, and the other $4m on the room.

IF that is the final room, sans room acoustics, then... words cannot express.

 

[Haoleb]

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

I guess that's pretty good.

The readings change with each channel you go to, It will change to orange at -9dbmv which Im guessing is the point when its below ideal. I found a couple of cable amplifiers that go to 1ghz laying around and stuck them on the two systems I have that use digital cable and HD and so far they have been fine, Although I havent watched much tv, only time will tell. But at least now none of my levels are too low. Some of them are too high I think so maybe i'll throw a splitter on there too to reduce them some. The amplifiers were +15db.

So perhaps a simple fix to this is to get an amplifier and boost the signal back up, Although if it is I dont know why the tech didnt just give me one of them. Maybe he is trying to push management to replace the bigger amplifiers in the system instead of just band-aid ones.

 

[Thaedium]

Is that the final room? Or did all that gear move somewhere else? Cause if that's the final room then all the acoustics in the world don't matter. He should have spent $2 milion on a new home, and the other $4m on the room.

IF that is the final room, sans room acoustics, then... words cannot express.

No, according to Jeremy this was an early picture of the room before he was finished with it. Even still the final product does not look too much different.



The room was specially designed, and I would guess it was done long before he went overboard with amps and whatnot. It's a vaulted room at 8 feet in the rear and 16 feet at the screen end. Measuring 26.5 feet wide and 33 feet long. To quote them,

2250 Sq/Ft. Custom Designed, Two-Story Concert Hall with Vaulted Ceiling & Balcony - 1" Solid Maple Flooring on 4" tall Pine studs - 12" spacing, sitting on a solid 16" reinforced concrete foundation, itself isolated on 4 - 156' solid steel girders all the way down to bedrock. Features non-parallel walls, ceiling, and floor, with dedicated installed noise isolation system, and acoustic treatments designed to supersede ANSI, SMPTE, AMPAS and AES/EBU noise specifications for professional movie theaters, mixing stages, and anechoic test chambers.

So I'm guessing that even despite how it looks, it performs well.