RATS
Recently, my receiver’s HDMI board croaked and I had to replace it (sending it to my son at college - those kids need to listen to music on REAL SPEAKERS). As I was looking at the rats' nest of wires running back there, I started dreading the upcoming receiver swap. I ended up purchasing an Oppo Blu-Ray player (refurb/outlet - but these things are built like a tank!) that allowed me to get a few items out of the cabinet, I replaced the receiver, and I ordered some new HDMI cables from MonoPrice (great prices and quality) that were shorter and reduced the length of cables hanging back there and that eased my dread. I will talk about the choices I made there in another post.
WHAT’S THAT (HORRIBLE) NOISE?
You would think there is an alternative, and there is - consolidating your speakers into a soundbar. If you have replaced your TV with a flatscreen, you were probably shocked at how bad are their speakers. Yes, we thought the speakers on our old tube TVs were bad, but nothing prepared me for flat panels. It’s really just a matter of physics - if you can’t move the air, you can’t make the sounds. And with today’s panels that are skinnier than a fashion model with a tapeworm, there is barely room for connectors, much less decent speakers.
BARS AND BOXES
Hence the popularity of soundbars. They usually have 3 speakers and many have an amplifier, and they are made to complement your TV, especially if hung on the wall, but in their quest for fashion, most sound bars begin to limit themselves in the same way as skinny TVs - they get too thin. In my bedroom, I had an old set of Cambridge Soundworks PC speakers (satellites and a bass module that powers everything) that I had hooked up to the cable box and the DVD player via the headphone outputs, but they were getting a terrible humming noise that I couldn’t get rid of no matter where I hooked things up and placed the bass module. Plus, I missed the center channel speaker, which would allow me separate the dialogue from the effects - and my ears are not getting any younger.
So I started listing my options:
- Purchase a really nice set of amplified speakers, like something from Audio Engine
- Purchase a receiver and a 2.0, 2.1, 3.1 set of speakers (the .1 is the bassmodule/subwoofer)
- Purchase a receiver and an passive sound bar or an active soundbar with or without a bass module
OR...
- Purchase one of those new fangled ZVOX speaker thingies I’d been reading about in my audio magazine.
I didn’t want to go with the Audio Engine speakers because I wanted a center channel.
I didn’t want to go with the receiver and speakers because of the cost, the mess of wires, and the number of boxes.
I didn’t want to go with the Soundbar because that was getting me too close to the original problem - skinny speakers and I didn’t want to get a bass module for those lower octaves.
MY SOLUTION
That left me looking at the ZVOX speakers. What can I say, I like the underdog. ZVOX is a small New England company (and I respect the old New England speaker builders) that have if not invented, then at least popularized the all-in-one speaker pedestal. This is like a soundbar, except that it’s much deeper - deep enough for the unit to act as a TV stand, and deep enough to include a 6 inch speaker to act as a bass module. It is also clever enough to learn your volume commands from most remotes, so if you have a simple setup and are using your cable remote to control everything, you don’t have to add to the remote clutter in this setup.
I ended up purchasing their ZVOX 555 on a decent sale, and was able to send the audio from my BR player, TV and media box via optical and coax, and hook the video up to the TV for each box via HDMI. Yes, I have a few extra connection cables, but no speaker cables and no receiver!
So how does it sound? Well, it sounds pretty good. The sound is balanced - without the treble or bass being too prominent. I appreciate the center speaker and the Dialogue Enhancement feature that emphasizes the center (dialogue) channel, especially when the volume is low - perfect for the bedroom. I even use it to listen to streaming audio from Pandora, Music Choice (from my cable company) and my own music via UPNP/DLNA through the BR player. It sounds so good that when I was reviewing my setup in the living room (where I have a full 5.1 setup), I seriously considered chucking it all and replacing it with the top of the line ZVOX box.
I ended up sticking with the status quo 5.1 system because on weekends and some evenings (if no one else is home and the windows are closed), I’ve been known to cue up some Mahler, Gershwin, or my favorite - Hilary Hahn (Hilary Hahn's website, Hilary Hahn on YouTube) and crank it up to Symphony Hall levels - and that takes a decent amp and some big, efficient speakers. I’ve also been known to crank some Stones or the Who on occasion.
I’d be curious to know what kind of setup other people have done in their main viewing/listening space, or in their bedroom - especially if it is creative or new.
Comments are open below.
(while writing this I was listening to “Abby Road - the mono masters” in FLAC. The Beatles ROCK!)
So, its a lovely day on a 3 day weekend and I decide to give the dog an extra walk around the block.
We're cruising around and I see the neighborhood high school kids shooting hoop in the street and I see what looks like a couple of rolls from a pizza joint in the street. You know the rolls I mean... pizza dough rolled into a ball about the size of a billiard ball and baked in the brick oven - oh YUM!
Anyway, I ask them if those are crab apples, and the youngest one says no, and he's not sure what they are.
Me, being Mr. Smarty-pants, figures I can tell what they are, so I cruise on over. He grabs a stick and pokes one of them and picks it up for a closer look and then sticks it in my face.
I look at it.
I look more closely.
My minds starts racing, but nothing comes out.
It still looks like a roll, except it has cracks in it and the inside is kind of an amber clear stuff. I'm thinking its some sort of fungus, but there does not seem to be a place where it was touching the ground, or anything else. Plus, there is that clear, jell-o like stuff inside.
Then it hits me...
I call them over and say, "Its some sort of alien pod or seed and you're that person who goes over and pokes it with a stick." And we know what happens to him. He taken over by the aliens and is either possessed or dead before the first commercial (if it is TV), or before the beginning credits are over. He's doomed.
I back away and tell them, "Just kidding. My best guess is that its a fungus. Probably a good idea to not touch it or breath to deeply around it." But I know its an alien and he's a goner.
Maybe tomorrow I'll go over and take some photos of it and post it to see if anyone recognizes it.
Always something new under the sun!
Postscript: I went there the next day with my camera and it was gone.
Definitely an alien pod.
Neil Armstrong died last week. He was a true American hero.
Hero.
That gets tossed around a lot nowadays. I got an email from a vendor the other day passing along tips from their “customer support heroes.” Seriously? I emailed them that they need to put a leash on their marketers.
But I digress.
I was 7 years old when they landed on the moon. Kids nowadays have no idea how big the space program was back then. We watched them take off - even if we didn’t expect them to blow up on the pad. We watched them land. We watched their ticker-tape parades.
I built models of the Apollo craft. I was young, so I painted mine a pretty shade of green. The gas stations passed out cardboard punch models of the lunar landing and I made a bunch of them as well. Heck, I even had my own NASA astronaut jumpsuit that I played and slept in until the sad day that I outgrew it.
You get the idea.
Anyway, these guys were heroes. They risked their lives to advance science and (let’s admit it) to stick it to “the Rooskies.” They didn’t get paid much. They were risking their lives, and some of them even died on ships (Apollo 1). Remember, they didn’t even know what to expect on the surface of the moon. Was it so dusty that it would affect their suits or the lunar lander? Did they really calculate the fuel and the descent speeds correctly? Were they going to get home? Who really knew? These guys couldn’t be sure, but they went anyway, because that was what we asked expected them to do.
And now the most famous of them has died. A little part of my childhood went with him. But I popped his photo back up on my wallpaper, and for the next week or so I’ll remember back when a few brave astronauts, inspired by a fallen president, backed by the brightest minds at NASA, and the hopes of an entire country left the gravity of the small rock we call home to set foot on our closest neighbor.
This famous poem may be the best description of what he must have experienced.
"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
- John Gillespie Magee
So long, Commander Armstrong. I hope that they’ll name something great after you. Until then, you’ll just have to settle for the fond memories of a little boy back in the 60’s.
