ZVOX and my tale of losing wires

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!)

What the hell is that!

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.

So Long Commander Armstrong

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.

Recession Tech: Dell XPS One

I have already discussed the installation of Ubuntu on my Dell Laptop E1505:
Intro to Ubuntu
Ubuntu Installation on Dell E1505
Living with Ubuntu - likes and dislikes

I also have a DELL XPS One - it is an all in one PC with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse that I picked up at the DELL Outlet for the living room. Like an iMac, it is a big screen with laptop parts stashed behind it. I know that I could have gotten a laptop and had the same or similar performance, but I wanted something that would look nice in the family room, not a big white box, and I wanted a nice screen. This fit the bill.

Son #1 had been complaining that the Dell ONE was slow to boot and application opened slowly. I had looked online a few months back about installing Ubuntu 9.04 on it. The dell has some touch sensitive controls on the screen that people were saying would not be useful, so I had put it off. However, I decided to test the live CD of Ubuntu 10.10 (newest release) on it.

This was a result of my observing Son #1 viewing videos on a sketchy looking site. The videos were not bad, but they were not available on Hulu or the network site. However, like many kids nowadays, he has no sense of security on the Web, and he has recently started online banking, so I wanted things to be secure.

Well what do you know, Ubuntu 10.10 picked up everything - the proximity sensitive buttons, the video card, the network card, the bluetooth keyboard and mouse, EVERYTHING! It also installed the latest updates for Firefox and it installed OpenOffice. I brought over his bookmarks, installed a little eyecandy for him and he is happy as a pig in slop.

He even neededt write a paper and could not find Microsoft Office, but he saw something that said "office" in it so he opened it up, it looked like a word processor and away he went.

The performance is snappy, it installed like a breeze and it is more secure. What more do I need?

Very pleased.

Recession Tech: Ubuntu 10.04 - what I like and don't like (I mostly like!)

Hey all,

Another in my series of recession tech blog postings. Previously we have looked at:
Deciding on Ubuntu
Installing it on my old Dell E1505 laptop

Now after using it for a week or so, I want to relate how it is working for me.

I like it. So far, everything has been picked up by Ubuntu. My wireless card, my video card. I even like that I have circular scrolling with the touch pad.

And seriously, I use webby tings for almost all my functions - I use gMail , and FireFox for email and browsing. And for the few times when I am word-processing a document, I can use OpenOffice, no problem. There is even a HULU client for Ubuntu as well as a Boxee client, for those times when I just want to veg around.

And a super bonus is that things are much snappier - things just pop open in seconds. Even the reboot is faster.

The only down side is that there is not a Netflix client for Ubuntu/Linux. I get around that because I have an old subscription to PlayOn.TV, and it streams the Netflix as a MPEG2 stream which I can pick up in the media player Totem.

I do cheat a little. I have a nice multimedi alaptop that I run some old Windows App that I paid for to create slide shows.

So here is the rundown of tasks and Ubuntu applications:
email - Gmail
regular browsing - Firefox
Adobe Flash - Firefox w/ flash installed
Hulu - native Hulu desktop client for Ubuntu
music - I still really like MediaMondey, and have not found a reasonable replacement. They have a player, but nothing with the full flexibility of MediaMonkey.
Videos - Totem
UPNP Client - Totem with Coherence UPNP plugin
Word processing and other office tasks - Open Office
Facebook (well, I don't really do Facebook, but it just takes a browser) - Firefox.

So seriously, for 99% of things done on the web, you just need the flexible and secure Linux.

I like this!

Recommended.

Lyman

Recession Tech: Ubuntu 10.04 install

Hey all!

Continuation of the Ubuntu investigation as part of my recession tech phase.

I wanted to install Ubuntu 10.04 on my Dell E1505 laptop. The last time I wanted to try Ubuntu on this laptop, I had problems with getting the Dell wireless minicard working (Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard). Using the Ubuntu Live CD for 10.04, it looked like this was going to work better.

So Ubuntu released 10.04 a couple of weeks ago. I have waited for a few weeks to let things shake out and reduce some of the traffic on the server.

I plugged my laptop into my network using a cable - I wanted to make sure that I if anything went wrong, I could download what I needed without having to worry about drivers for the wireless card. Then I went to the Ubuntu site.

I downloaded the 10.04 .iso file and burned it to a CD.

I popped it into my CD drive and made sure my BIOS was set to boot off the CDROM drive, and I hit reboot.

After a few seconds of churning on the CD drive, I was presented with a few options from which I selected the default and then let it rip.

After a few minutes, I got to a Ubuntu screen and miracle of miracles, it found the Dell wireless card and offered to install the Broadcom wireless drivers and I was online!

This version of Ubuntu is sweet. It comes with Open Office, Firefox and a number of other standard application installed. I popped my SD card into the slot on the side of my computer, and it found the card instantly.

I had it check for updated drivers and it even installed some drivers for the ATI video chipset on the machine.

I launched my iGoogle applications and I was instantly checking my Gmail, visiting my usual sites and even watching a few videos on the Hulu website.

Next post will tell what I like, what I don't like and what is missing.

Recession Tech: Ubuntu

I kind of have a gadget addiction. I like electronics and technology more the the average bear. But, I have to save for retirement and kids college, so I have challenged myself to come up with more uses for my existing tech.

Challenge #1: Older PCs.

Technology moves quickly, and things seem older faster. Many of us have a PC with an older OS that may seem more than a little long in the tooth. And maybe you feel less secure about it safety wise.

So what to do.

I decided to try Linux - specifically Ubuntu - on it. Ubuntu is cool because it has a Live CD version that you can burn to a CD and then boot off of it for a test drive and not make any changes to the original computer.

I had an oldish laptop still running around that looked like a good candidate. Its a Dell. The last time I gave it a shot, the linux versioncould not pick up the wirelss card, leaving me in the lurch. But I decided togive the Ubuntu 9.04 (?) version a shot. It looked like it was going to find the wireless card no problem, but the next version 10.04 was coming out in a week or so, so I decided to wait it out and install the latest one.

More to come.