Search results

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    AnandTech 20th Anniversary Giveaway!

    Super excited for giveaways! Normally I just come here for the awesome reviews. I've built 15 PCs using Anandtech's advice.
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    monoprice credit card breach?

    I ordered an HDMI cable on 3/1. On 3/8, my card was used to purchase 2 MS Technet Plus subscriptions to the tune of over $500. Visa FP called me and I had to shut it down (my main check-card no less). I was able to get the charges reversed by MS - took 2 weeks though. I contacted...
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    Looking for power protection for my devices

    If you think that, then I guess it's too bad they didn't have a RCOMP101 class for you. Most surge protector/UPS protection claims are BS. Upgrade your whole house grounding if you want to spend big bucks. Another thing that I highly recommend is to verify that your home/apt insurance...
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    Calibrating an HDTV...Why do I need to hire a professional?

    Customizing your settings will often improve things, but it does nothing to match colors and grayscale to the ISF standard. Anyone who says they have a "perfect" picture without having a professional come calibrate it is either uninformed or just plain wrong.
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    DLP--really that bad or just not that good

    Very few people realize that you don't watch TV from the side. I suspect they are not more popular because most viewers are not serious about their media, and do not work on creating a media space - rather they retrofit another living area for watching TV and movies - and so they end up...
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    Recording singing/talking

    You might try contacting sweetwater.com. They have excellent customer service and they could probably get you on the right track.
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    Convince me not to buy a used DLP

    At 50", you're ok with 720 and so the plasma option is pretty tempting IMO. Much more than that - a deal on a DLP is definitely the way to go. SIZE MATTERS. And from an IQ standpoint - stating that a cheap LCD or plasma has better IQ than DLP is utterly ridiculous. Anybody who says...
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    re-doing home theatre--plasma advice

    What about DLP? Mitsu still makes great ones, and you can get last year's set for 73" on that budget (with a couple hundred to spare). Bulb life issues have long been resolved - my Toshiba is well over 8,000 and still looks great - and they do fairly well in lit rooms - better than a...
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    Western Digital My DVR extender. Its awesome.

    I've had a Seagate 750GB 7200.10 on my DirecTV HR20 for almost 3 years now. I bought my own enclosure for about $25 and just stuffed the drive in. Rules. I recommended a similar setup to a friend at work - she has Charter though, so she has a Moxi and uses USB. We got her the same...
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    Considering a Best Buy Plasma TV calibration

    Just wanted to say that my TV still looks great. My friends all run in torch mode, and if you don't have all the lights on in the room, it really burns on the retinas. The whites are so far overblown - it's really quite stunning. Also, my DLP lamp is pushing 10k hrs. I am not sure how...
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    Vocals a tad bit too low through center channel with DD/DTS

    If by "LOUD" you mean calibrated to 85dB (to allow peaks of 105dB) - then yes.
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    Speaker and Subwoofer Purchase

    Dr. Geddes' use of multiple, small "inexpensive" speakers - I can assure you - is miles above the bottom-end components being discussed in this thread. Also, his EQ expertise is far above what most consumers have available to them. On a budget, I would recommend the energy option. I...
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    Coax signal determination

    One of these might do the job too. It has two pieces - one emits a signal over the cable line, and the other can detect it and beep at you when the signal is coming through. Connect the signal generator to your man cave, and then go plug in each line at your box until you find the other end...
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    HDMI cables

    The minimum requirement for games has been 720p. It was the ONLY console to REQUIRE that all games be in high def (except for a few exceptions) - so it's gonna be hard for the PS3 fanboys to win that fight. In order to play a 1080p game in 1080p, you need both the HDMI cord and a TV capable...
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    Why can't they make a decent BluRay dvd player?

    When the Oppo hits the $300 mark, I'm in.
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    Sonos ZonePlayer S5 all-in-one Wireless Speaker

    If I cared enough about music to want it distributed through my whole home, you can bet I wouldn't be blowing even one red cent on an anemic single-speaker POS for any room. If you have the iPhone you have other options, like a home music server fed to a real receiver and speaker setup...
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    Vocals a tad bit too low through center channel with DD/DTS

    After running Audyssey MultiEQ on my Denon, I still needed to run through the channel level calibration option and fix the channel levels. Both my surround channel levels were 3db too low, and my center needed to be punched up too. Generally I don't have problems hearing it though. Note...
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    Xbox360 won't play Ripped DVDs?

    MediaCoder is a killer free encoder if you need to re-encode them.
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    Harmony remote

    Man I gotta get me one of these.
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    Surge protectors for HT and PC

    Dude get the cheapest strip you can get because none of them "protect" you from anything. If the lightning gets to your equipment, it's toast. If you want it insured, get property insurance.
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    Audio retard looking for advice (did some homework)

    Wouldn't it be great if you couldn't hear a difference? Then you could just get the cheapest speakers you hear and save all kinds of cash!!
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    would you buy monster products if they cost only 25% more than the rest?

    Blah blah blah. What kind of wire is used inside your amp and speakers? Just because some people fall for cable voodoo doesn't mean the signal coming through is any different. If it was different, then we could measure it - like was being done in the HDMI cables to show that only long...
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    Can a 1080i / 1080p set be *forced* to show a 720p picture?

    Yeah the answer isn't a different resolution - it's a bigger screen. Go as big as you can in your budget. ALWAYS good advice.
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    How to run antenna cable from attic to different floors?

    Also, running cable on the outside of the home is going to be just as much if not a bigger hassle as fishing it. Especially for someone who is not used to doing either. As a former cable installer, I definitely drilled my share of holes in walls from inside to out. It was about speed and...
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    How to run antenna cable from attic to different floors?

    Depending on the kind of house you have, with the proper tools (primarily a fish tape) and some basic skills, it might not be that bad. I used to install cable and occasionally I would do fishes. Going from a first floor down to the basement was usually a piece of cake. Now, if the basement...
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    Netflix streaming - Watch instantly on PC

    I stream to my Xbox as well, and it looks very good on a 16MB connection. I always get the full four bars for everything. I have never had any major issues - a couple artifacts here and there during HD viewing, but they are rare and not repeatable. I would say the DVD quality material is...
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    Speakers: Comparison

    The subs won't be pre-installed though. You can match any sub with those systems. A much better sub for the money. Unless you aren't buying a sub - but choosing which one to use. Looking at the stats of these two subs, I'd give the edge to the Klipsch. It has a slightly bigger cabinet...
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    Panasonic 50 Class 1080p 600 Hz Plasma

    600hz? Wow. Those marketing folk sure do come up with fancy sounding ways of saying "handles 24p".
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    Bose, Monster, Johnny Walker...

    It seems like some of these companies share common qualities. One is being overpriced. Monster and Apple are great examples of this. They simply market to convince people that their stuff is better than everyone elses - Monster through specs, and Apple through "cool". I don't like them...
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    HDMI Cables

    All monoprice here too. No problems whatsoever - except figuring out what to do with the extra $400 I would have spent if I had bought Monster. Of course, that's not much of a problem.
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    Help me pick out a TV from Dell.

    Because if you're sitting back 12' from a 46" TV - you can't even see all the detail in 720 - so paying even one dollar more is throwing your money away. You might as well burn it. Human visual acuity has its limits.
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    Good HD TV For Sports

    Why not just buy it from Amazon and be done with it? In my experience, sports broadcasts have blocking because providers don't provide adequate bandwidth for them. Wide-angle views of any sport (basketball, football, baseball) and fast sweeping motions always show defects in visual quality...
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    Anyone using an external hard drive to expand their DVR capacity?

    I am using a Seagate 7200.11 750GB hard drive in an enclosure I bought from Newegg and the cheap-o eSATA cable that came with it on my DirecTV HR-20. Works brilliantly. I have hundreds of hours of programming - entire season of Dexter and the entire Firefly series - bunch of movies - most of...
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    Transmitted vibration Hsu VTF-2 mk. 3 vs. VTF-1 (same source and spl)?

    Not sure if it would help or not b/c I haven't used one myself, but if shared vibration is an issue, then you may consider a Sub Dude or Gramma to reduce translation of vibration from the sub to the floor. That said - any capable sub at the low end (which the STF-2 is) is going to push your...
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    Home theater placement for new house.

    Feng Shui! I wonder if there was ever an audiophile who believed in Feng Shui. How could you properly place your equipment for best performance if you had imaginary energies that dictated you place your speakers right up against the wall. Maybe you can argue the value of sound therapy...
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    Home theater placement for new house.

    First - I'm not trying to be mean. We all work with what we've got. That said: That's not a home theater, it's a tv in the corner. From an audio standpoint, it's a horrific setup. You're sacrificing imaging and soundstage in massive ways. What's the point of surround? Your front...
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    Computer to Receiver

    sswingle is right. Actually, the "D" in S/PDIF stands for "digital". Optical or coaxial are win. Analog (L/R RCA plugs) is where you would start to fail. Go with either the coaxial or the S/PDIF connector. Monoprice is a great place for unique cables like this. I got a 25ft Optical from...
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    Need help eliminating audio hum on htpc/receiver

    Most likely, you just need to unplug your cable/sat from the wall, and the hum will stop. By far the most frequent cause is improperly grounded cable/sat wiring. Lots of cable guys ground it somewhere other than where all your power is grounded, causing the 60hz ground loop hum.
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    Bass in Windows

    What you are "supposed" to do depends on your perspective. If you want it to sound the way it is intended to sound by the engineers, you should shoot for a flat response. Usually a sound studio expects users who care about sound to have adequate equipment to reproduce all frequencies at...