Q If I have my projection screen hanging from the ceiling 6 feet out from the wall, and I have to put my speakers near the wall, do I need to change the delay settings in the audio from what they were when I had a TV near the wall and in line with the speakers?

A No, because the light from the image will reach your eyes at virtually the same time as it did when the picture was farther away in your room.

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Q Do you have plans to review James Loudspeakers' shallow-depth in-wall speakers? Based on the wife-acceptance factor, I have been looking for an all in-wall solution for my budding HT. After a yearlong search, I concluded that there were no in-walls with a small size (about 1ftx1ft) that didn't sound weak -- until 2 days ago at CEDIA EXPO. I heard a demo in the James sound room and was blown away. I thought the sound was coming from large floor-standing speakers and a large sub, but was surprised to find out it was coming from five small-sized in-walls and a small-sized in-wall sub. On top of their great sound, the speakers had a built-in adjustable room-correction circuit. I was instantly sold, but I believe that other Secrets readers who are looking for in-walls could benefit from your review.

A We would love to review in-wall speakers, but it requires the reviewer to cut holes in his walls at home to test them. This is the major reason why in-wall speakers get such minimal coverage in hi-fi magazines.

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Q Please, please, I need to see your review on the Samsung DVD-HD931 DVD player that outputs in 1080i, 720p, and 480p/i through its DVI jack.

A We have had many requests for this and are working on it.

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Q I currently have:

Pioneer 605A Amplifier (4 speaker output)

2 X Jamo Cornet 75 speakers

2 X JBL speakers

I was wondering whether you could tell me what I could do to turn this into a surround system? Would I need to buy a new amplifier or is the another pre-amp or something that would do the job?

Could you also point to the product, if there is one?


A About the only parts of your present system you can salvage are the speakers. You will need a digital surround sound receiver. There are tons of them out there, and we will be reviewing some very affordable ones shortly.

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Q Will I get a picture if I hook up a DVD player like the Samsung DVD-HD931 to my LCD computer monitor which has a DVI input (but I don't think it has HDCP)?

A You probably will, but I would suggest taking your LCD monitor, along with a DVI cable, to a store that sells the HD-931 and try it out before you buy.

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Q Will there be a player benchmark test for the FLI2300 chip, specifically the Samsung 931?

A We plan to test this player as a whole, and will comment on the specific tests that involve the chip.

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Q I have a Pioneer DV-47A Elite DVD. My receiver is a Denon AVR 3200. The problem is the Denon is getting kind of weathered. I would like to upgrade to better power for my Paradigm speakers. My question is could I buy just a B&K or Adcom 7 channel amp and use the outs from the DVD player? If I can, what is the benefit of having a preamp, other then being able to route more then one source to the amp? All I do with my home theatre is watch movies and listen to music.

A Well, first of all, you need to be able to control the volume. DVD players with analog pre-outs for 5.1 don't include volume control in the menu. If your power amplifier has volume controls for each channel, it should work, but depending on the input impedance of the power amplifier, you may get some distortion because pre-outs tend to be op-amps, and the op-amps in a DVD player will not be supported by much of a power supply. If the input impedance of the power amplifier is 10 kOhms, it likely will have a problem. Choose a power amplifier with 47 kOhms input impedance or higher. Whatever you do though, don't just simply connect the pre-outs to the power amplifier without the ability to control the volume. You could overload your speakers.

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Q I just stumbled on your website and let me say that it is one of the most informative I have ever seen. I recently purchased a Denon DVD-2900 Universal Player and I am wondering about the "chroma upsampling bug."  From what I was told, this player is free from the bug and does not exhibit any motion artifacts, but I want to check with some real gurus such as yourselves for a definitive answer. I read on your site that Denon acknowledged the problem persists in their players, but that they fixed it on the DVD-3800 and flagship DVD-9000 units. As far as I know, the DVD-2900 and DVD-9000 have virtually identical video hardware. I also read a review on the DVD-2900 in another magazine, and they were drooling over it, but they do not provide very technical reviews. It looks like you guys really get down to the nitty gritty, and I'm hoping you could tell me more about the DVD-2900 from a video standpoint. I already know the audio performance is stellar, but the video is what I am most curious about.

A We ran the 2900 through the Benchmark tests, and the bug is mostly not present, but there are still a few chroma problems. You can check the results here. The Denon DVD-5900 is the next big one we want to see. It has DVI out, and we want to find out how this performs in our Benchmark.

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