Getting There... (Early HT Room Setup)

Back from my overseas business trip late last week. It's going to be really busy since I'll be moving to the new house in 1 week. Massive amounts to pack up!Nonetheless, I didn't want the movers to be involved with the audio system so over the weekend I moved all the components and put together the stereo setup in the home theater room to just have a little "taste". Here she is... (Unfortunately the image is a bit grainy. Resorted to the old Nikon...

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GUEST REVIEW & MEASUREMENTS: The Quantum HDMI Squeezer + ULTRA Cable: A look at HDMI cables.

By Keaton I. Goulden-Eyre III, Esq.With Archimago overseas, he implored that I take a few moments to contribute to this most obscene of blogs (sorry dear readers, "objective" and audio do not mix in my worldview based on experience, wisdom, and my ears). Recall that many months ago, I brought you the review of Dr. Frank's "Best-Coaxial-Digital" SPDIF cable. I remain steadfast in my opinion of that fantastic interconnect!A reminder - the introductory...

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MEASUREMENTS: ONKYO TX-NR1009 as HDMI / SPDIF DAC... Are AV Receivers any good?

The rat's nest.Running separate components like multichannel processors/preamps to monoblock amplifiers are generally considered the ideal, "cost no object" approach to home theater. In the real world, cost and space are considerations and AV receivers become the "Jack-of-all trades" central device that most of us have in the home theater setup. But like the proverbial "Jack", it's useful to also consider the second part of that saying... Just how...

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MEASUREMENTS: Separate vs. AV Receivers (Emotiva XSP-1 vs. Denon AVR-3802 vs. Onkyo TX-NR1009) as Analogue Preamp.

Okay, so maybe I'm being a bit too dramatic using that epic battle between Godzilla and Rodan above :-).With the recent acquisition of the Emotiva XSP-1, I wanted to see just how well a separate pre-amp with audiophile design in mind stacks up against something more ubiquitous like the AV receivers out there. Remember that a preamp at its core has very basic functionality - it allows switching of the source and volume control by adjusting voltage...

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