Other Hobbies and Making Things Right.

I have quite a few hobbies that I enjoy other than computer work. Many of them include playing on my three guitars, reading, and watching music and movies on a ~$1000 home theater system. It consists of a Sony 35″ CRT TV, a Pioneer VSX-816K Receiver, a Panasonic VCR/DVD combo player, and a cable box from Comcast. Now here’s where things get interesting. The speakers are a box set, yes, but they were quite worth it. It is the Athena Micra 6 speaker system, which has 5 speakers and a subwoofer. I purchased it mainly after reading a review on Audioholics.com, which you can view here. For wires, I made no compromises and went with what are some of the best makers in the USA: Blue Jeans Cable. They’re inexpensive and have almost all of their cables, save their HDMI cables (About 50% of the product in them is from the USA anyway), made in the USA. I got all of my audio and video interconnects from them, as well as some 12 gauge speaker wire.

You’d be absolutely amazed at what kind of acoustic research has been done, and how so many people get suckered in to buying what they either don’t need, or can do with a less expensive, but equally as good product. A prime example of this is speaker wire. My gosh, if you think you know how insane speaker wire can get, well, read the following articles. Suffice to say, that there are people out there who will sell you quite a large batch of snake oil.

Top Ten Signs an Audio Cable Vendor is Selling You Snake Oil

Un-Sound Advice About Cables

Debunking the Myth of Speaker Cable Resonance

Audio Cables – Science or Religion?

Anyway, it’s not rocket science to build a good home theater system. You do need to do your research and make sure that the speakers, interconnects, receiver, wires, etc. are ones that you will enjoy. My personal advice on this is, settle on a receiver, interconnects, and wire first. Then, audition speakers IN YOUR OWN HOME. Its the only way to figure out for yourself what works, and what doesn’t.   Depending on room configuration, your ears, content, etc., not every speaker system will work for all situations.  Many stores and online speaker retailers, such as Axiom and Aperion Audio (Yes I know they’re both A’s), offer great return policies if you don’t like them. I’ll single out Aperion at this point, as they offer free shipping both ways! (With Axiom, you have to ship them yourself, but it’s not a huge loss.)  But I digress.

I bring this subject up for a rather distinct purpose.  Several months ago, despite my strongest objections, my dad purchased a home theater system from Best Buy.  The main reason he did it was for the no interest financing, which is understandable.  But when it came for the actual set up, he got them out to set it up as well.  Needless to say, when I came down recently to their house in Florida, I was appalled at the job that they did.  My dad had done some things right, with the Denon receiver and the Panasonic Blu Ray player, but the rest of it was, well, let me show you the list of things wrong that my father and I walked in with to Best Buy:

1. The iMac was not connected properly to the receiver for full surround sound via Digital Optical Audio out, only through stereo via a 1/8” to Stereo RCA cable.  A Digital Optical Audio cable needed to be purchase separately and the receiver and iMac reconfigured to output surround sound properly.
2. The TV was not properly configured or calibrated to handle the iMac video output, necessitating a reconfiguration of the TV.
3. The BD Player and TV were not networked connected and configured as per the end user’s request.
4. The BD player was not properly configured to output surround sound as it was set to output PCM instead of Bitstream.
5. The Receiver was not set up properly for the following:
   1. Speaker settings: Fronts and Center were configured as full range speakers, not small.
   2. Speaker distance: Fronts, Center and Subwoofer were set to 20ft, and rears were 10ft; distance is 12ft, 10ft, 9ft, and 5ft respectively.
   3. Speaker levels: not configured at all, Audyssey room correction needed to be redone.
   4. Input settings: names were not changed to reflect the connected devices: DVD=iMac.
   5. Miscellaneous details and configuration issues.
6. The Audyssey Room Correction set up microphone was not included even though it is mentioned in the documentation.  This prevents the reconfiguration of the receiver speaker settings, distance, levels, EQ, etc.
7. Wiring used was up to code (C[UL]) but sub par at 16 gauge wire (realistically needs a minimum of 12 gauge) and was not properly terminated at the receiver to banana plugs or spades.  End user had 12 gauge CL3 rated wire available for installation but installers refused to use and install the wire.
8. Harmony One Remote was not set up properly for all of the specific functions and set up needs to be redone for all functions, IE when set to view iMac, does not change receiver sound, up and down on receiver setup does not work, return button does not work as expected for BD Player, Receiver and TV.
9. The TV’s IR receiver is blocked by the Center Channel, but the installers were unable to provide a suitable solution to this problem.  An RF remote such as the Harmony 900 would have alleviated this problem, which necessitated a separate IR blaster purchase to make it work.
10. Equipment functionality was not fully explained or demonstrated to the end user (Panamax power conditioner and Receiver has dimmer functionality not explained to end user.)

I ended up having to redo the set up from the start and I still have the remote to work on. Its almost done now and it sounds somewhat better than when I first arrived.  My dad especially noticed the difference and told me today that he had no idea that it was set up wrong in the first place until I fixed it.  In fact, we had just seen a movie in a theater the day before and now the system sounds even better than that.  Improving beyond this point would necessitate ripping out the speaker wires and replacing the speakers so I made do with what I had.

This truly says a lot about me and what I can do.  I know when something is wrong and I will not hesitate to point it out or determine the responsibility.  However, I will not sit idly by and criticize; I will go in and make sure the problems are fixed, permanently.  I have amassed an incredible amount of knowledge and skill and I put it to good use whenever I can, for my parents or for my employers.  I just wish I got paid for the former and was able to do that presently for the latter.

By the way, if price is absolutely no object, get some RBH Signature Series Speakers from rbhsound.com.  They are consistently the best speakers that smart money can buy.

Edit: I’ve been having a problem with my VSX-816 as of late where it stopped outputting sound from the left front and right rear.  I think it may be cured now, but I don’t know if it’s a permanent fix.  Hopefully it is but if it isn’t, I’ll tear it apart and take a hair dryer to it, again.

Sadly, no modern receivers come with S-Video anymore, which is the highest quality input that my TV can accept.  Oh well…