What is a Home Theater (“HT”)? Does it need to be a dedicated room with theater seating and a front projector? How big a room and what shape? How about acoustic treatments? How important is light control? How much does an HT cost?

These are all questions on my mind as we are planning on building a new home in the near future, and a proper HT there is a given. We just have to make it fit in the floor plan for the new house and the budget.

The questions are also relevant in our current situation where the only available room for an HT is the open floor plan living room. This setup is non-ideal for a “serious” HT in terms of acoustics, wall and ceiling color, and light control.

Nevertheless, I still went with a front projector based-system, as for my money, no other image is as involving or large as one projected unto a front projection screen. I tried the smaller image behind glass approach for a while, but it just didn’t cut it.

Although our current setup is not in a dedicated room and one really has to wait until dark for the best viewing, I think it really is the right answer for me at this time. Perhaps the point is that a front projector in a non-ideal room might still be a better answer for many people in terms of both cost and enjoyment compared to a large plasma or LCD TV, or rear projector for that matter.

Clearly with a front projector one needs to do the best one can with light control, with the critical understanding that the most important light to control is light that strikes the screen directly. Light that you see that does not fall directly on the screen is less important, especially if you have somewhat darker colored walls. I pretty much alway have some light shining on the table near our viewing chairs when viewing TV or movies so we can find our beverage of choice, food, etc.

In our current home, we have installed Hunter Douglas Duette honeycomb blackout screens in all windows and doors in the living room and adjacent dining room. I also installed “dimmers”, or essentially butterfly valves in two Solatubes. Without the dimmers these solar tunnels bring and incredible amount of sunlight, or even moonlight into the room.

During the day, with the shades up and the solatubes dimmers open, one can hardly see the projected image on the screen. It is good enough to view the menu or guide and setup recordings, etc., but not for viewing. Lower the shades and close the dimmer on the solatubes, and the improvement is dramatic and good enough for viewing sports, news, home improvement programs or cartoons, etc. (When is the last time your kids complained about black levels or contrast ratios?) Movies with dark scenes or with spaceships flying across a back starry sky are best saved till after dark. Is this setup ideal for a front projector? No, but it is good enough, especially after the sun starts to go down.

The one other thing worth mentioning with regard to light control and its effect on the image, is the choice of projection screen. One could write a whole blog or two about choosing a projection screen, but briefly, if you don’t have complete light control you may well want to choose a screen with some gain, e.g. 1.3. A screen with a gain of 1.3 makes the image 30 percent brighter by preferentially reflecting light from the projector towards the viewing area while ambient light is not preferentially reflected.

There are different types of gain, reflective and retro-reflective, and one must chose a screen with gain carefully in terms of how the projector is mounted, i.e. ceiling or table, and the width of the desired viewing area. Nevertheless, the right screen, perhaps smaller and with some gain, and coupled with a brighter projector can do a lot in coping with ambient light. That said, less ambient light falling on the screen is always better.

In future blogs I’ll try and address some of the other questions I posed at the beginning of this one, but I’ll close with one comment about cost.

When talking with one contractor about our new home, he said, “This will be a very expensive home to build because of all the expensive requirements you have, such as the home theater”. I said, on the contrary, the HT will be one of the lower cost rooms in the home, e.g. compared to the kitchen. I have all the equipment. (O.K. I probably will buy some new stuff.) I’ll install all the wiring and acoustic treatments myself, just like in our previous home, and as long as we start with a room of the proper dimensions, this is not at all difficult or necessarily expensive.

You can spend lots of money and construct a theme-based HT with theater seating in a dedicated room that looks like an Egyptian tomb or the inside of a space ship, and pay someone to do it all for you, but that is certainly not necessary to get real enjoyment out of a front projector. Building your own HT is fun, does not need to be expensive, and does not necessary need to involve a dedicated room. My previous HT, which I loved, was done in a family room with multipurpose seating, etc., but with good light control and good acoustics. And of course, a front projector.

At the grocery store yesterday, I was amused to see the headlines on one of the tabloid magazines, something to the effect that the marriage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will be the “Wedding of the Century”.

Well, let’s see. What does that mean?

Maybe its effect on the world?

Will it cause a drop in the price of oil?

Will it stop the genocide in Darfur?

Will it produce a cure for cancer?

Well, what then?

Ah, it will be a gold mine for photographers and writers in grocery store tabloids.

I would really like to know the average IQ of people who give a s*** about the marriage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Today’s news reports that Mitsubishi (yes, they make a lot more stuff than just TV’s) displayed its new electric car at the 2008 New York Annual Auto Show:  

http://autoshow.autos.msn.com/autoshow/NewYork2008/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=6566464

I guess the USA is not the only country that is sick of paying so much money for gasoline.

Mitsubishi is already trying them out here in the US to see if consumers are interested.

Interested? Where do I sign up for one of these?

It has high tech lithium rechargeable batteries that will take the car 80 miles. I suspect that is a stretch. Let’s say it will go 40 miles with some stop and go, and some uphill. That is plenty for me, and I think, plenty for most of us who might commute 20 miles or less each way to work every day.

It recharges in 7 hours using 240 volts (every US home has this for use with electric ovens and electric dryers, and if you don’t have it hooked up, it is there waiting in the breaker box). A recharger under development will do it in 30 minutes.

So, what I would like to know is how much mileage gets trimmed off when using a nice big fat aftermarket in-car hi-fi? The motor draws a huge percentage of the current, so I would estimate that for a 20 mile trip to work, playing the hi-fi constantly, at 80 dB, maybe 2 miles worth? If that is the case, run an extension cord out your office window to recharge it while you work.

Maybe some sort of a propane heater like we use on camping trips.

Air conditioning can be had by developing a car version of what we used to call, in Texas, a “Swamp Cooler”. It worked by dripping cold water over a drum-shapped fan with slits in it. The fan could be outside the window, spinning from the air going past it when you are driving.

Now, if they will just sell it to us for under $20,000.

The news says that due to the economy, HDTV manufacturers believe consumers will scale back on their TV purchases and not get that 50″ plasma, but the smaller ones instead. So, they are going to increase production of 30″ and smaller flat panel HDTVs.

I don’t think so.

50″, 60″, 62″ . . . that is what has been marketed to us now for several years. They have been building us up to buy a BIG HDTV!

So, now they think that just because gas is headed to $4 a gallon, we are going to cut back on something we do at least 2 hours every evening? Cut back on the size of our new HDTV?

My first HDTV was a 30 incher, and it cost me $2,800. It was 720p.

Now that I can buy a 60″ for $2,295 . . .

Let’s put it this way. 30″ TVs are for the bathroom.

I opened my Netflix envelope yesterday and found it contained an HD DVD. I’d forgotten that I still listed HD DVD in my Netflix preferences, and was taken by surprise. Last weekend, my kids were watching the HD DVD of Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I know that a single format is supposed to be better for consumers, manufacturers, retailers and studios, but lately I’m feeling pangs of regret. Not over which format “won,” but that the interested parties weren’t able to figure out their differences and provide customers with both options (or alternatively, figure out a unified format before launch). I’m hopeful that when the history of the format battle is viewed through the lens of historical context, the lessons learned are more about avoiding the next battle rather than how to win the next one.

We’ve known for a while how poorly designed the HDMI socket/connector is.  You have to be very conscious of alignment, and once in place even minor force on the cable, other than strait in or out, can break the port.

Now, apparently, its starting to have an effect:  I notice some manufacturers are now putting warnings either in the owner’s manual or often right ON the product, usually to the effect of “be very careful when inserting and/or removing HDMI cables…otherwise you may break the port and if you do it is most definitely not covered under warranty…”

I guess they’ve seen one too many broken HDMI ports…

I had a chance to visit with Boston Acoustics and see some of their new products. We are late with this report, but here it is anyway.

You knew Boston Acoustics had something special in mind when they unveiled a new slick logo replacing their longstanding conservative emblem as a symbol of things to come. Introducing three significant new concepts in the audio world, BA has developed in the last year or so some new and hip concepts. So come play!!

 Responding to the current market of customizing and personalizing your gear, Boston Acoustics introduced their Personal Options Plan, or P.O.P. With this new “make it your own” concept, Boston Acoustics developed the first modestly priced and sized series called Horizon that allows the buyer to select from a number of off-the-shelf colors for grilles and for the speaker shells. An upscale series, called Vista (Horizon today, Vista tomorrow, get it?) is now available.

The Horizon series is a youthful looking package that is complete from small bookshelf units to full size floorstanding speakers and subwoofers. Very nicely engineered, the bookshelf units, HS 40, 50, and 60 priced at $99.00, $129.00 and $150.00 each respectively can be stand or wall mounted, or literally sit on your shelf - the same for the larger LCR HS 225 at $249.00 each. The HS units are 2-way designs, rear-ported with 4 ½”, 5 ¼”, and 6 ½” drivers respectively. The LCR units each have dual 5 ¼” drivers.

Floorstanding speakers with the HS 450 and 460 priced at $300.00 and $400.00 each continue the variable color theme. Subwoofers available include the down-firing wireless 150w powered unit HPS 8Wi at $399.95 and three larger front-firing (non-wireless) subs, the 10” 150w HPS 10SE at $299.99, 250w HPS 10HO at $399.99 and the 300w 12” HPS 12HO at $499.99.

Along with Horizon, Boston Acoustics also jumped into the lifestyle products game by introducing the TVee™ Model Two – a small “bar” array stereo speaker meant to replace the often poor quality sound from the flat panel displays flying off the shelves. Not to be confused with the other surround bar packages out there, the TVee™ product is strictly 2-channel with an important twist – a wireless (don’t call it a subwoofer) woofer. At an affordable $399.00, the package sounded terrific and in keeping with the Play Smart™ concept, a variety of new trendy colors are available.

“Smartly” designed, the TVee™ series product learns the commands from your own remote for volume and mute. It features 4- 2 ½” mid-base drivers and 2-1/2” dome tweeters. The system delivers a healthy 100 watts total power.

Boston Acoustics also introduced in the Horizon line, the MCS (multi-channel series) with the 5.1-MCS 100 priced at $499.99 and 130 at $799.99. Consistent with their P.O.P. concept, this package is available in the same variety of colors, currently 8 for grilles and 2 shell colors. The LCR’s have 1” tweeters and multiple 3 ½” drivers with 5-way binding posts and the powered subwoofers are 8” (100w) and 10” (200w) for each series.

Lastly SoundWare – a cubic flexible speaker designed for indoor/outdoor use at $99.99 each continues the play fun attitude BA has adopted. The 2-way unit features a 4 ½” driver along with a ¾” tweeter. Although the face is flat, each of the other surfaces have chamfered edges to allow corner, or wall-to-ceiling installations staying very tight to the surface.

All in all, some very interesting product design and engineering from our friends at PEE-buddy, don’t-call-it Pea-body Massachusetts. Can’t wait to see Vista!

Over the Easter weekend, I saw that ABC was broadcasting its annual presentation of The Ten Commandments, the 1956 film with Yul Brynner and Charlton Heston. It’s a masterpiece.

A couple of years ago, it was listed as being televised in HD. Of course, I was very excited because I had not watched it in high resolution since I first saw it at the theater as a child.

Well, it was in widescreen, but it was not HD. It was simply scaled to 1080i from 480i NTSC. That is not high definition.

So when I turned it on this weekend, I was not surprised to see that was not even in widescreen and not in HD. Of course, Revenge of the Zombies, the 1940’s movie I blogged on last week, is in HD so I could always go back to that one to see what an old movie in HD looks like.

Hollywood seems to be paranoid about delivering their old classics in HD, either on TV or on DVD. I don’t understand the logic in this. They are not showing them in major theaters as re-releases, so there is no argument that the HD versions would keep us from going to the theater to watch them. And, for the millions of consumers who have purchased their new HDTVs and subscribe to HD satellite or cable, we tend to turn away from programming that is not in HD.

Eventually, all programming will have to be in HD. No one will watch anything that is still in old NTSC 480. And, that means all the old good stuff too. That means The Ten Commandments. Why put it off? I understand that Ben Hur (1959) will be released in Blu-ray next year (2009). Why has it taken so long for one of the finest motion pictures ever produced to get to us in high definition? If they can take the trouble to give us Revenge of the Zombies . . . .

In our last episode, subtitled Jason’s Happiness Hinges on Controlling Bass Booming Madness, I discussed the challenge of perfectly positioning loudspeakers when they rest on unstable ball-bearing supports. My last words of that blog - not my famous last words, despite what some may wish - were that I might have to go out and get some Cerapucs to put under my speakers.

Manufactured by Finite Elemente (http://www.finite-elemente.de/en/products/cerapuc), Cerapucs use direct coupling to achieve effective transfer of sound-interfering resonance. Inside the Cerapuc is an extreme hard, high-tech ceramic ball that helps achieve correct damping. Cerapucs claim to create no resonance build, no overdamping, and no loss of deflection. I finally gave in. Try and try as I might, I could not precisely position my speakers. Nor could I level them, given that the floor itself was not level, and the Ganymedes are not height-adjustable. Cerapucs are not only infinitely more stable than ball-bearing Ganymede supports, but they also accommodate adjustable spikes, which enables you to level speakers on uneven or sloped floors.

Of course, you can also level speakers simply by using spikes. But given that vibration readily carries through my house, which seems to act as a bass resonator of sorts, spikes do not provide sufficient isolation from vibration. Hence the need for a more sophisticated (and stable!) decoupling system.

Eventually, I called Cerapucs distributor Allen Perkins at Immedia in Berkeley. Allen looked around, and discovered that he had eight of these expensive babies available for loan. An hour or so later, I was driving to Berkeley to pick them up.Later that afternoon, with the help of a neighbor and some leveling devices, I had for the first time properly positioned and leveled the Eggleston Works the Nines. To say that I was excited to hear what difference my efforts might make is an understatement. I was of course hoping for sonic improvements, which I could then discuss in my forthcoming review of the speakers.

Thank goodness, I was blown away by what I heard. Not only did I hear more control and clarity than ever before, but I also heard a richer sound than my system had been yielding of late. It was as though an extra layer of natural color had been added to the presentation. I was delighted.

The next day, three folks from Reference Recordings came by to scope out my system and discuss set-up for the first-ever public demonstration of RR’s HRx high-resolution CD-Rs. Although it would have been nice to have had speakers with deeper bass than a single 8″ woofer can provide, the RR folks concluded that my set-up will work just fine for the demo. After all was said and done, the system passed. — Earlier in the week, I attended San Francisco Opera’s first San Francisco in-theater showing of its new digital cinema opera presentations (http://www.thebiggerpicture.us/opera/). The venue was the Castro Theater, one of the few remaining movie palaces from the 1920s still in operation. It is also the only movie theater in town that San Francisco Opera was able to secure for these movie showings. Which is somewhat of a paradox, since 120 other sites across the country had signed on before SFO was able to secure a single venue in its hometown.

The opera was Puccini’s La Rondine. Starring soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Mischa Didyk, it played to deservedly sold out houses in San Francisco last fall, and inspired this glowing review by yours truly. (http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=music&article=416). The movie was shown in highest quality digital format, having been filmed and edited in the state-of-the-art Koret-Taube Media Suite, the first permanent high-definition, broadcast-standard media production facility installed in any American opera house.

The picture quality was stunning. Captured at close range, so vivid were the singers that it was possible to understand just how hard some of them were working to produce their sound. You could see the shaping of every vowel, the preparation for every phrase - the ease of some, and the intense concentration of others. Gheorghiu was literally trembling with excitement, unable to remain still through the entire first act. And Didyk was all ardor and passion, with huge amounts of force behind his sound. The experience was a revelation. You could even see the tremendous amount of effort that SFO devoted to the production. Every detail was complete - faux marble pillars, fixtures, you name it - everything had a ring of authenticity about it.

The sound system also had a ring, and not an authentic one. There was an unacceptable level of distortion that added an objectionable edge to the sound. Gheorghiu, whose voice is mostly smooth rather than pointed, fared best, while Didyk and the orchestra really suffered. By the final act, my ears had reached saturation levels. I survived by gentle placing my fingers in my ear canals - just enough to soften the sound without obscuring too much detail.

I am hoping that the problem lies in the Castro Theater sound system, and not with the technology. The picture quality is so stunning that it demands state-of-the-art sound. For the first time, I’m tempted to do what the majority of Secrets readers have done - buy myself an HDTV and Blu-ray player, and watch a mini-version of what I saw on the big screen in the privacy of my own home. But, given my income, there won’t be anything left over for speakers, let alone the Cerapucs that my main sound system needs. So, for the time being, I continue to watch operas at the Castro, and save my shekels for other things. 

Some speaker manufacturers state that their tweeter’s response extends to 30 kHz, or more. Amplifier specifications often state a flat response to 100 kHz. Is such a response useful?

Well, yes, it is. The reason for this is that as the response rolls off, phase shift occurs, so the farther away from the limits of our hearing, the farther away the phase shift will occur. Phase shift can make instruments sound less “real” because their harmonics are not exactly lined up with the fundamentals.

In our youth, the upper limit of hearing is about 20 kHz. The irony is that, when we reach middle age and can afford the really high-end equipment, our ability to hear high frequencies diminishes significantly, such that the upper limit is now about 12-14 kHz. Women suffer less high frequency hearing loss than men, so we guys should certainly take our wives with us when we shop for hi-fi equipment.

But, does the fact that middle-aged adults can’t hear above 14 kHz mean we don’t need to worry about the quality of the components when we are older? Certainly not, because the quality makes a difference in the entire audible spectrum, not just the high frequencies.

So, there is your reason to continue buying the good stuff all your life.