AVBestAdvice

Part of the joys of having a high-speed Internet connection is the ability to buy and download music from any number of legitimate music sites, or to share music among friends. Once you've mastered locating and navigating through those sites, you'll want to know how you can use your music. Here are some answers to some frequently asked questions about digital music.

Q: I’ve heard the terms ‘ripping’ and ‘burning’ before. What do these mean and is there any difference?
Though they may be similar in their destructive tone, the two terms mean very different things. ‘Ripping’ generally means copying music from a CD or DVD onto your hard drive in a format that allows you to easily play it back. ‘Burning’ refers to transferring music onto a recordable CD or DVD. In general, ripping gets music off a CD, while burning puts it back on. Read more

With so many advertisements out there for HDTV sets and services, you're probably wondering where to start. You may be asking, "What's all the hoopla about?" or "Is it worthwhile to trade up?" And, of course, you want to know how much it's going to cost. Here are a few answers to those questions to get you started on the road to high-definition television.

Understand that, in general terms, high-definition television, also known as HDTV, is more than twice as detailed as conventional analog television, also known as standard definition TV or SDTV. HDTV not only offers larger, richer images as compared with SDTV, it also includes multi-channel movie-quality surround sound as well. So, in layman's terms, viewers often report seeing sharper, brighter images. Read more

Generally, the ideal locations for home theater speakers will be: Left/Right front speakers located to either side of the TV screen, at least 1.5 to 2 feet away from the screen itself. It´s actually best to have the speakers a little forward of the screen and out away from the side and back walls. For the best audiophile performance it helps to be sure that the distances from the back and side walls to the speaker is different. The speakers should be placed with the tweeters as close as possible to ear height, when seated. You can try them 'toed in' towards the prime listening position or straight out into the room.

Center Channel Ideally located directly on top of or below the center of the TV screen. The center channel is arguably the single most important speaker in a home theater system, because up to 85% of the dialogue and 65% of the special effects come through it! Putting a speaker directly adjacent to the TV screen does, however, cause certain problems. Sounds that normally would radiate equally from the face of the speaker are immediately reflected from the screen. This causes undesirable sonic 'colorations' that make the center channel sound different than the left/right front speakers, even if they are precisely matched to begin with. Many Atlantic Technology center channel speakers include one or more controls to allow tailoring their sound to better match the L/R speakers. Additionally, these controls also allow you to match them to other brand L/R speakers should you be upgrading from a stereo system to a multi-channel set-up and want to add a center channel to your existing system. Additionally, most Atlantic center channel speakers come with an adjustable mounting base that allows precise aiming towards the prime listening position for better dialogue intelligibility. Read more

If the current trends continue, one of the hottest home improvement projects in the New Year will be to add a home theater. In fact, the Consumer Electronics Manufacturer’s Association is predicting that by the year 2010, 30 million American households will have a connected entertainment network in their homes.

Some people will go all out, spending thousands of dollars to transform their basement into a replica of their favorite theater, complete with a projector, pull-down screen and rocking seats. But the majority of home remodelers will take a more conservative approach. Read more

Digital Video Essentials is the ideal calibration disc for both the novice television viewer and the more sophisticated home theater enthusiast. The program provides a multitude of tools necessary to receive the best possible picture and sound from your home entertainment system.

Digital Video Essentials not only enables the optimization of audio/video systems, but also tests the room for proper acoustics. Really good equipment can look and sound poor in a bad room, just as inexpensive equipment can do much better in the proper room environment.

Many manufacturers pack hookup cables in the carton with consumer electronic audio video equipment. These inexpensive cables are commonly referred to as "courtesy cables." They are included by the manufacturer as a courtesy to the purchaser in the case that the unit was purchased from a retailer who did not place a high degree of importance on the interconnect cables. It can be compared to the spare tire included on many rental cars. They are "courtesy tires" meant to get you to a repair station not to go 50,000 miles. Read more

Courtesy cables can be detrimental to today's high-performance audio and video systems in many ways. The major problem they can introduce into the system is an intermittent signal path usually caused by a poor connection at the connector. The connectors on "courtesy cables" are molded-on plastic. The internal connection of the center conductor to the center pin of the connector is usually crimped. The crimping process is not always consistent which can leave the connector in a semi-connected state. Slight movements of the connector can cause the audio or video to cut in and out or worse cause a catastrophic failure of an amplifier or speaker system. The plastic used in molding provides no shielding of the signal at the connector. This leads to the second major problem with "courtesy cables", poor shielding.

Modeling, the Boundary Effect, Soundstage, etc

In the last installment we learned that room dimensions call out resonant modes that can influence the bass response of a room. We learned that is impossible to avoid them, but that they can be controlled. There are three things we should incorporate into the design in order to accomplish this goal: (1) room dimensions that distribute the modes evenly; (2) incorporate appropriate acoustic treatments; and (3) place speakers and listeners in areas that will not exasperate them. Understand that room dimensions will have an audible effect on frequencies around 300 Hz. and below (the lower half of a piano), but acoustic treatment and speaker/listener location can affect all frequencies. In order to better understand this, try a simple experiment: While talking out loud, gradually walk into the corner of a room and notice how resonant your voice becomes. This is frequency reinforcement of room modes and reflections. Try pronouncing “shshshshsh” into the flat palm side of your hand while slowly bringing it up to your nose. What you are observing is the tone changing because of the sound reflecting back and interfering with the original sound. These are constructive and destructive phase anomalies- the same principle experienced with the low frequency room modes, only at higher (shorter) wavelengths. Read more

(Why it Matters to the Bottom Line)

Did you know that the room dimensions of your home theater determine how accurate your bass response will be? The room actually has more influence on the signal at low frequencies than does any good speaker design. In the last segment we talked about theater size and how budget, number & type of seats, performance and noise control may influence the final size of the room and how those issues have to be personally prioritized. In this installment, we’ll talk about room dimensions in respect to performance. Read more

Room acoustics. Have you ever thought about it? Has your dealer discussed it with you? Would you believe me if I said that it is the most important component in your playback system? It is. Acoustics will have the loudest and last say. It has been proven time after time, that great equipment cannot sound great in a poor environment, but good equipment can sound great in a good environment. I look at some of the A/V magazines and can tell just from the picture that the sound is poor. Nice expensive gear and no acoustic considerations equal a bad investment. You don’t stand a chance in having the experience the artists worked so hard to create unless you consider set-up, calibration and room acoustics. Read more

I went to the gym the other night and there he was-Larry King's overcooked reddish-orange face glowing from one of the TV sets above the treadmills. On another set, there he was again, but this time he was kind of sickly green looking. On yet a third TV the poor guy had a purplish cast to him. No excuse for this, I thought. Something has to be done. Folks, lousy video is rampant in our society. It's time we put a stop to it! Bad enough we get it at the gym, but the sad fact is most of us settle for mediocre to poor video on the TVs and projectors in our very own homes. Now as blights on society go, bad video is admittedly not one of the biggies. But it's something we can do something about. For the vast majority of projectors and TVs in use today would look a LOT better with just a few tweaks of the picture control settings. Read more