Q What would you suggest might be the best five-channel amp at 200 watts per channel at an inexpensive price? I'll be hooking up Paradigm studio 20's for the fronts and the Paradigm mini monitors for the rears. The Paradigm Studio CC will be used for the center channel. Do you suggest that I also stay with Paradigm for my subwoofer, or should I move on to another product such as Velodyne?

A Outlaw amplifiers are very good for the price, because they don't have a dealer markup. Paradigm subwoofers are fine, and so are Velodynes. Get whatever pleases your senses. Subwoofers don't have the tonality issues for matching that the other speakers do.

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Q I have a Denon 5800 receiver and the Studio Experience Cinema 13HD projector. I am in the market for a progressive scan DVD player with picture quality and no CUE being a high priority. Which DVD player would you recommend that would be a good match for my system? Although hard to find, I have considered Panasonic models RP-82, XP-30, and RP-91, and the Denon 1600. In addition, the new Denon 2900 seems very attractive, but would it be overkill for my setup? Audio features are secondary, but certainly nice to have.

A The Denon 1600 appears to be the choice at this point. Of the universal players, the Denon 2900 and the Yamaha S2300 both seem to have some problems.

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Q I would like to set up a subwoofer to have a high frequency limit at around the same value as the low frequency limit of my other speakers. Can you please recommend a set-up CD/DVD that provides continuous sounds in, e.g., 5 Hz increments for doing this? If no such media exits, can you please recommend a cheap combination frequency indicator?

A Here are some WAV files that you can download and burn to a CD for testing your speakers. They range from 20 Hz to 100 Hz in 5 Hz increments, and are 16/44 sampling, 10 seconds in length each, at - 10 dB. There are also some signals on the AVIA disc.

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Q I just finished hooking up my Paradigm sub in the new theater room and was rewarded with a ground hum. The hum disappears if I ground the chassis of the sub to the third prong safety ground on the wall outlet. There is no way to plug the sub and amp into the same circuit.  Is it OK to just run a ground wire from the plug and clip it to the subs chassis? Why doesn't the sub use a 3-prong plug to avoid this?

A All hi-fi components are subject to ground loops, but subwoofers suffer the most because they are built to deliver that 60 Hz sound. Some subs come with grounded plugs and others don't. Just as often, someone might have to disconnect the ground prong to get rid of hum, as someone might have to connect the ground to get rid of it. Grounding your subwoofer chassis should be fine, but be sure to keep that ground wire from coming into contact with hot terminals anywhere in the system.

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Q Is it necessary to have a subwoofer in a HT setup? What if I go for fronts like Paradigm Studio 20s which cover down to 54 Hz?

A "Necessary" is a broad word. It is not really necessary to have a home theater at all. But what we "Want" is a different matter. We can hear, in general, down to 20 Hz. A good subwoofer is the only way to get those sounds, because speakers don't really handle sounds that low very well. I love deep bass, so a subwoofer, to me, is absolutely necessary. I have three of them, all 18", in my home theater lab, one for the left front, one for the right front, and one for the LFE channel.

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Q In looking at the Sony KE-42TS2 television, the specification for resolution states 1024 x 1024. In reading Secrets "A Guide to Shopping for a New TV" it states a resolution of 1280 x 768 is needed for 720p and a resolution of 1920 x 1080 is need for 1080i. Other sets offer a native resolution of 1280 x 850 and I can see how that can handle 720p directly. How does the Sony modify the data so a 720p or 1080i signal can be shown since it has a lower number of horizontal or vertical pixels?

A This all has to do with different ways of specifying resolution for TVs vs. computers. When they say 1024 x 1024 they are referring to a square portion of the TV screen, even though TVs are either 4:3 or 16:9 and are certainly not square. If you divide out the actual pixels for the whole screen, such as 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080, you get the 16:9 ratio of 1.78. If the screen has some other array of pixels such as 1280 x 768, or 1366 x 768, the TV has to "scale" the image so that it fits into that array of pixels.

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Q I have been using a DVD player (Bravo-D1) with DVI output to a DLP projector (PG-M20X). The DVI signal from the DVD players can be 480p,720p, or 1080i, but only 480p is accepted by the projector. It says:720*480 . What does 720 by 480 mean?

A 720 x 480 is the resolution stored on a DVD, and means 720 picture elements x 480 lines. However, there are going to be some initial problems with DVI signals not being correct. I have seen this issue arise when editing digital videos. I recently had a 30" LCD flat panel 16:9 TV screen that was 1280 x 720 pixels, but would not accept 720p through the DVI connection. It would only take 480p. It will probably take at least a year to get everything working with this digital connection for home theater use.

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Q I would imagine you don't have the manpower to continuously test every new DVD player as it appears at Best Buy. And they almost never hook them up to video monitors. So how would you suggest figuring out whether a new player has the CUE? The only way I can think of is narrowing the search to 3-4 I like then buying them and laboriously renting your DVD examples like Toy Story etc., then observing playback on each, then returning the ones that appear to have it., and repeating till I find one that is free of CUE.

A The only disc you really need to test for CUE is "Toy Story", using chapter 4. Take it with you to the store and ask them to connect the player to a TV for you. It seems too much trouble to buy several and have to return some of them.

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