MatrixDweller

They will work dandy on the sides. The RB61's will sound great as fronts and rears but the RF62's will sound a little bit better with 2-channel audio. Can you get a deal on the RW12d? It's a good step up for a small difference in price. Well worth it in my books. One thing you might want to consider is the quality of your receiver. If it's low end then matching speakers becomes a little more important because the AVR might not be able to tweak the setup as well as a more expensive one. My thoughts: RF-62 (125W, 97dB) (or RB61) fronts RC-52 center (125W, 96dB) RS-52 Surrounds (100W, 95dB) RB-61 Rears (100W, 95dB) RW-12d Subwoofer If you can't get the RS-52 and the RS-42 is a good deal then you can always try them out. They will still sound very very good.

That kinda sucks. I'm sure if he can get the RF52's he can get everything else. He might just have to special order them. Tell him you'll give him a deposit and maybe he'll order them for you. You'd probably like the RF62's + RC52, but the RC62 is a little better. I wouldn't go with 4 x RS42's either. The RS's go well on the sides but not as rear surrounds. The rear surrounds should be direct radiating for best performance. 4 x RB61's would be better than 4 x RS42's which is another option.

My Harmony 550 controls my RW-12d so the 880/890 should have the codes too. Two bad things though: 1) The backlight on the sub doesn't come on when using the remote 2) The IR sensor is in a really crappy spot on the back of the sub. That means you need to aim really well and hope to bounce the IR signal off the wall.

An AVR that has THX certification includes some THX specific processing modes. It's most robust for movies but there is a THX Music and Game mode.

What did you have before the Onkyo?

The memory in some of the fancier remotes is usually not suseptable damage/corruption by magnets. As for vibrations...unless they're rattling around on top and are made of glass then they're probably ok.

THX Select 2 is one thing. THX Ultra 2 is another. The latter being "The best". Of course it just means that the manufacturer paid THX to run the AVR through some tests. Having the THX logo on the case means it performed up to THX labs standards so it is a good thing. It doesn't mean that a receiver that doesn't have it is a poor one. McIntosh doesn't do THX, neither does NAD or Outlaw or Rotel or many others. Probably if Harman Kardon was to submit the 247 to THX labs it would pass, but then you'd be paying $50 more for it.

I think the design of the heatsinks in receivers are geared towards normal horizontal orientation. Placing the unit vertically will cause the heat normally dissapated upwards (as heat rises) to possible dissipate onto other components. There could also be side vents on the "new bottom" of the receiver that would become blocked. This could lead to premature component failure. A fan would be a good idea. I'd still not want to do it with an expensive receiver. My Denon 3805 user manual says to have a good 4 inches of space around the receiver or more. Also you would want to attach some sort of feet to the new bottom of the receiver to dissipate vibrations.

When I bought my RB81's the RF82's weren't that much more expensive. I bought the 81's because the 82's wouldn't fit properly on my entertainment unit. When I complete my dedicated theatre room I'll probably get some RF82's for the fronts. Then again maybe you have the right idea and I should just get a bigger sub. The RB81's sound phenomenal as it is.

I bet the dealer doesn't take returns because he's been burned in the past. When buyers return merchandise that has been used most stores end up selling them as opened box items at a small discount. You should suggest to the dealer that he should have a restocking fee to cover his losses. Your current center channel will not match the RB61's timbre. You could look on Ebay for a single RB61. I have seen them posted before. The other option would be to buy a pair and sell the other one (Ebay or where-ever). The RB61 goes a lot deeper than the RC10. Not that the RC10 is a bad speaker, I just think the RB61 would be better matched with a RC-52 or another RB-61. Another option would be to go for a 6.1 set up with 6 x RB-61's. 3 pairs, no hassle to resell a spare, or find a single RB61. Probably wouldn't pass the WAF though...right.

I have an RW12d and am quite happy with the way it sounds. I would have loved the RSW10d but it was a little out of my price range.

My RB81's took a little while to break in. They didn't sound distored though. I thought they sounded really good out of the box actually. What did the dealer have hooked up to the speakers? They could have had a higher end CD player and Receiver (or seperates) which would blow your Yammie out of the water. What sort of speaker wire are you using? Main thing...is it thick enough. I noticed a difference in sound quality when going from some cheap walmart 16 gauge wire to 12 gauge OFC wire. (12 gauge is overkill BTW but 14 will do the trick). That shouldn't be the problem though. HOw do you have your CD player hooked upi to your receiver? Analog or bitstream? Try switching. What about room treatments? You could be hearing the effects of bad room acoustics? How about dirty power? Maybe you've got a lot of noise on the line your amp is hooked up to. Is it on the same circuit with any appliances? Anyone else for some suggestions?

I bet the 905 sounds pretty good. Unless you have super human hearing you might not be able to tell the difference or if there is a difference it might be negligible . Some people say that Onkyo can be brighter than Denon but I'm sure if you used the auto calibration they should be about the same aftrewards since they use the same chip. The Onkyo could well be the better receiver and by looking at the specs alone it does appear so. Onkyo may be pricing their system lower to steal market share and build a better reputation. They may also be banking on the fact that many people will buy their new receivers rather than their competitors resulting in a higher number of units sold (profit by volume sales). So the 905 may cost a little more or the same to manufacture as the 4308 but if they sell twice as many, Denon (or other competitors) looses and they still make out with a nice profit. Onkyo was (I think) first to market with a fully HDMI 1.3a receiver. They may have factored in that to their pricing scheme. It could be that the Denon is more expensive because you're paying for the Denon name. They have you second guessing Onkyo just because of the name right. There may have been some price reductions in components that Denon is not passing on to the consumer, whereas Onkyo is. Onkyo may have reduced costs associated with manufacturing, R&D, etc and streamlines their whole business. Who knows really. In the end all you can really do is either listen to both and decide, or go off the specs. Spec wise Onkyo clear is the winner. I haven't listened to either so all I can go off is the specs.

The 4806 is a superior AVR to the 905 by far in respect to audio fidelity. It only has HDMI 1.1 so it's only good for video switching. I think it would be a much better investment to save for a comparable AVR with HDMI 1.3 that has built in HD decoders. I find that the built in decoders in HD-DVD or even regular DVD are not up to snuff. I'm sure the ones in the higher end models are fine. On my HDA2 Dolby Digital or DTS sounds better than Dolby True HD (downsampled the DTS @ 1.5mbps). The player must be adding some noise or distortion to the decoded/re-encoded signal. I now need to move to an AVR with HDMI audio processing since the HDA2 doesn't have 5.1 outs. Looking back in the past I'd say it would have been the same as when DVD first came out and many receivers had only DD decoders. DTS was an option on higher end models. I bought a DD only receiver back then and regretted it until the day I sold it. I know if I bought a receiver now that didn't have built in HD decoders I'd regret it. I can justify paying $2000 for an AVR but not for a HD player (or both for that matter).

Are there any seperates in the $2000-$2500 range that have HDMI 1.3? Would HDMI 1.3a be very similar to Denon Link III in that a digital audio (and video) signal is being passed to "The Heart" of the receiver?

They have two sets of binding posts on the back. I have my fronts bi-wired and my surrounds with just a single cable. They sound fantastic either way.

For the money the $299 HDA2 is the best HD player all around. I would buy the cheapest player for now and wait for the third generation to come around. Compare it to the cheapest Sony Bluray player at $499. Feature<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Toshiba HDA2 Sony BDP-S300 Price $299 $499 Audio Decoders Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, DTS Master HD, DTS Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital Max Output Resolution 1080i 1080p

Laser disk came out in the early 80's after MCA's similar DiscoVision which was around in the 70's. It was sort of a third competitor in the VHS vs Beta battle but was not a very strong as you could not record to it. Laserdisc survived because of its popularity in Japan. You could liken HD-DVD and BLue ray in a way to Laserdisc. The HD formats might fail, or take a long time to catch on, because not enough people have HD TV sets (ie: the improved quality means nothing).

The spray foam stuff, usually polyiscocyanurate, will seal cracks nicely but will not absorb sound very well. It's a closed cell foam and is pretty light weight. You want high mass to absorb low frequencies and lots of little pockets for the sound to bounce around in. Closed cell foam is not an option.

MPCM would be the Toshiba passing linear PCM over HDMI to your receiver (same effect as 5.1 analog in). The receiver isn't doing any decoding the HD-DVD player is. You would have to change the settings on your Toshiba to pass bitstream in order to pass dolby digital or DTS over coax or toslink. I have a HDA2 and it doesn't automatically switch between PCM and bitstream. I'm not sure about the XA2 but the HDA2's DD & DTS decoders are not as good as my Denon's (or at least it sounds so). The XA2 has HDMI 1.3 so it could pass the raw stream over HDMI but your receiver is only 1.2a so it won't be able to decode it. Your other option is to upgrade to a HDMI 1.3 receiver that has built in DolbyTrue and DTS-HD decoders.

Wouldn't coating the woofer add quite a bit of mass to it? Wouldn't that in turn lower it's sensitivity rating because it would take more force to move the woofer? Wouldn't that in turn un-balance the woofer's output compared to the tweeter? You would probably have to tweak the cross-over to deaden the tweeter slightly or bi-amp and adjust the output levels on each channel. I wouldn't do it to an existing speaker, but if you're building one it would be a fun project. I don't know if it would have a favourable outcome. If you try it you'll have to repost your results.

Polyethylene Glycol is what's in brake fluid. It has a nasty habit of stripping paint, staining and making wood look greasy, and corroding metal. It can be used to preserve wood and other materials though.

Hollywood cinematographers will add a lot of post processing to their film to make it look the way they want it on film. After that the digital source may have extra processing on it to make it more appealing on the small screen. On an HD picture there may not be any more detail but there won't be any upscaling induced artifacts such as aliasing (jaggies). Color shifting in gradients can also come into play because the upscaler is interpolating the colour. The cheaper upscalers on the market will typically not do as good of a job as opposed to the high end players or stand-alone scalers. The difference in picture may also not be noticable below a certain screen size. If you display an upscaling of a standard DVD vs an HD image on a 100" screen you'll probably see the difference. If you view the same on a 30" panel you might not. What I have noticed so far on HD-DVD is that some movies look better than others. My theory is that some of the movies are just re-mastered to HD (upscaled in a studio). Some of which are just rushed out so little diligence is taken by the team working on the transfer. I can see the lack of dilligence in the fact that some use a standard menu format that I've seen on more than a dozen movies so far. DVD was like that at the beginning, but now they are usually a little more artistic and unique. Give a few years and we'll see much better quality and innovation on HD format discs.

Basement walls may appear dry and you won't see spots of water or effervescence but they do breath. They can also condense small amounts of moisture vapour on the wall. You won't see it, but it's there. It normally evaporates into the basement air in both cases. If an absorptive material is touching the wall it will absorb the moisture and start to grow mold/mildew and eventually rot. Some basements are dryer than others but unless you live in a super dry area (like Nevada or Arizona) or you have a newer home that included vapour barrier and insulation on the outside surface of the concrete (not many homes do), you will have water vapour penetrating your walls and floor.

Depending on how dry/damp the basement is, anything touching the concrete wall will be subject to moisture. Curtains on the wall will look great but might start to smell after a damp spring or rainy period. Concrete actually breaths a bit, that's why any wood that will be touching it must have vapour barrier or seal gasket between it and the wall/floor. I guess you could take down the curtains every now and again and give them a wash if you went that route.