Islander

1080 is High Definition and so is 730. It indicates how many scanning lines on the screen are used to make up the image, as compared with the 525 lines (or is that 480?) of regular NTSC TV, the type used in North America. Also, you'll get taller (wider?) black bars on the top and bottom of your screen with certain movies that are extra-wide.

What about making them out of aluminum plate, like the mid-bass horn of the MAGICO Ultimate speakers? Stiffening ribs on the outside would control any resonance. Any audiophile welders out there?

I agree with OB. Crate motors, put together with compatible parts by experts, run much better with less aggravation. With those "mix-n-match" engines, it seems like the customer is the (often very unhappy) tester, when all he wants is something fast and reliable.

With speaker impedances (ohm rating), the minimum is more important than the maximum. 8 or even 16 ohm speakers (rare now) can be used with a 4 ohm connector on your amp, but the other way is not so good. 4 ohm speakers on an 8 ohm amp is not recommended, although it will only be a problem at high volume/high power output, in most cases at least. If the speaker impedance is very low, it can "pull" more power out of the amplifier than is healthy for it, while high impedances limit the amp's output, which doesn't usually cause a problem.

Clear acrylic? That must look pretty cool! So is the HGS-10 a 10-incher or 8-incher? If you call a 10-incher a tiny unit, you can see how an 8-inch sub might be inadequate for some listeners, although if your mom is like mine, pounding bass is not a high priority. In my system, I'm using a Paradigm PW-2100. It has a 10-inch driver and keeps up with the Jubscalas easily. It was under $500 used and goes for about $950 new here.

I've used lighters and a steam iron (without the steam, of course) and got lumpy results and burned fingers with both methods. Finally, I spotted a heat gun on sale and got it. Much better! A tidy and safe job, plus the gun is handy for other things, like warming a window-frame so draft-stop tape will adhere in cold weather, to name just one.

Used Heresies are a really good deal and not hard to find. I'm using Heresy IIs for my center and surround speakers and they do a great job. For a few weeks, I had the surround Heresies hooked up to a high end 500Wpc Yamaha power amp and they sounded even better, so if you get better amplification at some point down the road, the Heresies will let you hear the difference. To sweeten the deal even more, when your budget allows it, you could upgrade Heresy IIs to Heresy IIIs, which would give you improved sensitivity and bass response for not a lot of money. Size-wise, Heresy speakers are small as Heritage models go, but they're around the size of a medium microwave oven, if that helps you visualize them in your room. As for a sub, 10 inch or larger is usually recommended. The 8 inch ones are mostly real "starter" stuff, with all the limitations that implies. Is anyone else familiar with the Velodyne 8 inch model? With sound systems, like with so much else, it's more economical to get what you want at the start, instead of being dissatisfied and wanting to trade up to something more expensive after a few months.

Driving on the track is expected to really use up parts in a hurry. I was just doing my daily driving, so that's why I was grumbling about it needing constant attention and money. It very likely was a high-miler, and I was on a low budget at the time. If I'd been making more money and had found a fresher example of a 'Vette, my experience could have been much happier. To get back to the original post, welcome back, meagain! I hope you get your system sorted out soon. When I did my JubScala conversion a couple of months ago, I had connection and noise issues that were really frustrating me. After three weeks of unsuccessful attempts to get some music out of it, I called in a pro audio tech, who took two hours to try various things, but it sounded great once he found the right combination and it's sounded great ever since.

That guy's been at it for a few years. There's a video of one of his flights here: Some technical details in this video (in French - no translation) (he mentions that it's like a handle and God gets a grip on him and carries him through the air): This video's in Spanish or Italian, I'm not sure which, plus a bit of English (It seems he's a former Swissair pilot): It looks really, really, exciting!

Those look like they'd protect nicely against surges, but it's also good to have some filtration against electrical noise, plus some components, notably digital ones like CD and DVD players, send out their own noise and a whole house protector wouldn't catch that.

Isn't a big stereo always a sign of a, what should I say, err, music enthusiast? Yeah, music, that's it!

Massive? Have you ever seen a pair of Khorns or Jubilees? A number of people have them in fairly small rooms and seem very happy with them.

There may be some rough spots on a new stylus, but I suspect most of the break-in is due to the cantilever's suspension losing its initial stiffness, just like a new speaker's stiff surround.

I know what you mean. I'd read about all these audiophiles raving about how good vinyl sounded and didn't know what they were on about. After I got the M97xE, I could hear it for myself and CDs haven't sounded the same since. I'm still amazed at how quiet records can sound between cuts with this cartridge. Some visitors can't believe it's not a CD that they're listening to.

The chain didn't break, but it was quite stretched. The plastic overlay (to reduce noise?) on the cam gear's teeth broke apart, allowing the chain to skip a tooth or two, so the engine ran really badly. I was lucky to make it home and lucky I didn't bend any valves (maybe the base engine had really low-lift cams). The car probably had many more miles on it than showed on the odo, since I later had a Provincial Police (like State Troopers) Impala that I put 350k kilometres (about 220k miles) on that needed only a transmission and little else. A heavy-duty fun car. The best Chevy I had was the 1990 Caprice police cruiser. It had the 5.7 litre engine, electronically-controlled 4-speed auto, fuel injection, bucket seats, and near 50/50 weight distribution, so it slid predictably and always landed on all four wheels, unlike the Impala that was a bit nose-heavy. Adding Bridgestone Potenza 630s helped, too.

A rear-ported receiver? There's something you don't see every day. I wonder if the oval port helps the sub's performance? It probably does go all the way down to 150Hz like the specs say. Those specs do look pretty realistic, so if any prospective buyer can read the specs, he'll have a good idea of how (bad) the system will sound, so no dishonesty there.

Mine was a bit of a different story. It had only 64k miles showing when I bought it, so I was surprised when the cam sprocket failed the next year, while I was driving in a blizzard. It was able to limp home, and I replaced the sprocket and chain outside in a parking lot under a tarp in January in below-zero conditions. The tarp over the hood kept out the wind and snow of a Toronto winter. I should have replaced the water pump at the same time, as it failed less than six months later. I always carried coat hangers to make on-road exhaust system repairs, since there were problems there a few times, too. Buying the car from one of those used Corvette dealers was probably a bad idea. It likely had far more miles on it than were showing on the odometer. Driving a $75 Dodge Dart after having a gold Corvette coupe might have bothered the self-image of some car cultists, but not being one, I didn't care, partly because my motorcycle was my primary transport then.

Hmm, you might be having Corvette Reaction. The (not that old) machine eats all your money until you're sick of it. I had a 1971 coupe from 1977 until 1979 and after two years of putting money into it every month, the car was in worse shape than when I bought it. These weren't upgrades, either, just maintenance and repairs. It was all stock, with the base engine. I did some calculations and saw that this would be an ongoing trend, so I sold it for what I'd paid and bought a $75 Dodge Dart. That got me around cheaply for a couple of years, until I was in the mood to spend money to get a decent car again. It wasn't just me, either. I knew a couple of other guys who drove junkers for a while after owning Corvettes. Maybe 'Vettes are the kind of car that are best bought new, so you know it's properly looked after. The new ones are likely way better, but the old ones sure needed money and attention all the time.

Time will tell. Mine sounds good to me. It's the first decent cartridge I've had, so I've nothing to compare it to.

Not to be a pest, but the JubScala conversion adds 3dB to the standard LS bass bin's output (and more at the push of a button on the Dx38, if you feel the need for it), while correcting the existing hump in the upper bass.

The Multi Channel connectors are for using an external decoder and would not be used in this case. You'd use 5 RCA leads (one for each channel) from the receiver's pre outs to the power amp and 1 RCA lead from the receiver's sub out to the subwoofer (assuming it's a sub with a built-in amp, as most are). The speaker cables would then be attached to the power amp's output connectors.

That's very cool. It's a pity Mr Deutsch didn't have more time to spend with the group, since I'm sure you could keep him entertained for days. Congrats on the 10-year anniversary too!

With my M97xE at least, it took 20 or 30 album sides before it sounded right. The bass was kind of flat and unnatural at first, but that went away and once it was fully run-in, I was very happy with it. I've been listening to it for over 3 years now and it's still very pleasant and realistic-sounding.

You may be a newby, but that doesn't make you an idiot. We all started somewhere. Your AV receiver has several units inside it to do various things. There's a tuner to let you hear the radio, a pre-amp to boost incoming signals a bit, but mostly to let you choose which input you're listening to, like CDs, DVDs, the tuner, the TV, as well as whatever else you have connected to the inputs. There's also a volume control, something power amps and most CD players don't have. After the signal goes through the pre-amp, it's sent to the power amp (a 7-channel amp in your particular receiver) to boost the signal to a level that the speakers can use. However, the receiver has pre-amp out connections, which let you bypass its built-in power amp in order to use an external, or separate, power amp. When you add up all the components, including several decoders (for Dolby, DTS, and so on), that are in that receiver, all for a relatively low price, you can see how compromises in performance and quality might have to be made. That's where separates come in. You can get a good-quality pre-amp, connect it to a good-quality power amp, and so on, which will give you better sound. Connecting a better-quality power amp to the receiver's pre-out connectors will give you clearer sound and possibly more power, if you choose a high-power amp. A power amp usually has only an on-off switch, since the pre-amp controls the volume and lets you select which input you want to use. When I got the MX-D1 power amp, the improvement in sound quality was very noticeable. There are several forum members using Yamaha AV receivers as pre-amps, controlling 2-, 5-, or 7-channel power amps, since those receivers seem to have decent pre-amps in them. In my case, I used a stereo (2-channel) amp to drive my main speakers, while the receiver's power amp drives the center and surround speakers, since 2-channel music is important to me. The receiver has sufficient level adjustments to allow me to match the levels of all the speakers. Recently, I upgraded the system further, bi-amping the main speakers, using one power amp to drive the mains' woofers and a second one to drive the mains' tweeters, but that's more complicated and expensive.

If you buy separate power amps or pre-amps that are of higher performance than what you have, there will be a noticeable difference, but it will not be cheap. What is the 35's 5.1 package? There are RF-35s and RB-35s, which are a bit different from each other. Yamaha also makes high-quality electronics. I'm using an RX-V750 receiver as a pre-amp to control two Yamaha MX-D1 power amps and the sound is a big step up from the 750's power amp. Your sources are also important. Upgrading your CD player or turntable might be a less expensive route to better sound as a first step.