wsu99999

Give me a break. If anyone would like to buy one of these, I can make you one for half price. Taking orders now! If you act now, buy one and I will give you another for free! Share it with your friends. I also have a weight that goes on hard disc drives to make them perform more "evenly".

I tried XBMC, and actually still run it on my original modded xbox - I really prefer the two that I listed - if you haven't you should check them out.

Wow - I thought I was long winded.

Not that anyone cares but I found 2 great programs for running a media server and both do everything and more that I need! One is MediaPortal. This program is extremely easy to setup and has 99% of the flexibility I need to get the job done. All of my DVD's, Xvid/Avi/etc all show up as their actual movie poster. Click on the box and it takes you to a screen with trivia for the movie, all the actors, a bio on the film, and essentially any other info found in the internet about the movie. All laid out in a clear, easy to read and understand format that makes viewing enjoyable. On top of that, it does the same thing with all of my cd's and mp3's. Basically a screen where you can scan CD covers and click on the disc you want to play and then learn more about the artist/lyrics/whatever you want. Really cool stuff! It also has an "Online Video's" plugin that pulls in popular vidoes from sites like Youtube/Yahoo Music Videos/Hulu/Youporn/whatever your into. Really cool and easy to operate. The other, and clearly the better of the two programs I tried is Meedio. This program is 100% flexible - you can make it do absolutely anything you want. It is extremely hard to setup and not for someone that doesn't understand how to create basic scripts and doesn't understand basic computer programming. I'm fluent with PC's and it took me a day to understand how the program works. Either will get the job done, but if you aren't a computer science graduate, get Mediaportal - way easier to work with but not as good.

Hey guys- I wanted to see if anyone here uses media centers in their home theater. I built a HTPC recently and planned on just running the Vista Media Center for my home made video and music server, but it didn't do everything I needed. I downloaded a program called "moovidia" and it has most of the features I want, but still lacks a few (ie, being able to find info on rare movies and cd's - it only has about 90% of the movies out there and doesn't have rare films such as "Trick or Treat" or "Night of the Creeps". What do you use? How do you like it? This may be the wrong area of the forum, but I figured I'd see what you guys use.

Man, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but those look WAY too big for your room. You've got balls my friend, I'd be kicked out to the garage, but I'd have one nice 2ch system to keep me warm at night!

Like I said, he said they were either 450 or 600 wats. I must have been off on the 165lbs. They looked custom - I've definately never seen any that big before on any website, auction, or floor room anywhere.

After looking at the pic closer, push both of those together, add 2 more of those box things and add bigger tubes. That would be the size.

WAY bigger! Of course, a picture is relative to scale, but those look much smaller than what I'm referring to - they would have to be some of the biggest tube amps made.

No - I asked him. To my suprise, they can be had for about 600 bucks. He had Acoustat model 4's with the medallion transformer upgrade. They sounded beautiful. I think it had a lot to do with the amplification (these were literally the largest tube amps I've ever seen in my life. Each tube was larger than an pear and it had to weigh about 165lbs each.

I decided on the Nakamichi. Hooked it up and wow - it sounds better than any other receiver I've ever hooked up to my LaScalas. Truly beautiful..... BUT - after hearing the guys' system I purchased the nak off of, I now can't help but hear all of the flaws with the LaScalas... I wish I wouldn't have had him demo his system!! First off, this guy had the biggest tube amps I've ever seen. He said he had either 450-600 watts going to each speaker, all tube power! He had the Utopias, and we auditioned them, and they sounded amazing. However, the speakers I was truly impressed with started with an A, were quite large, and almost looked like flat, large rectangles, almost a wall of speakers. Anyone know what these are? I was very impressed, they looked vintage, and I'm sure could be picked up for a relatively small price. This guy had amazing peices of gear laying ALL OVER his house. He had 4 stereo rooms, a home theater, and his garage, all with full systems in them and all with random peices of gear laying around. I was very impressed. I don't know what the guy does for a living, but he seriously had at least 500k in gear - no bs!

I can only stall about 30 more minutes on the nakamichi, any more guidance?

Thanks to the members of the forum, I've narrowed my search for a vintage receiver to two models (chosen due to close proximity to me and price). Members of the forum recommended that I go with an old Nakamichi receiver (Stasis model), HK 30 series, or an old Yamaha series. I've found two of the prior in my neck of the woods and wanted help finishing this off so I can go home with one of them today. Here is what I've found - please chime in with pros and cons and anything I should be looking out for..... Nakamichi SR-3a Stasis receiver - 100 bucks - I was told it is mint and the guy that has it is a huge audiophile with more high end speakers than anyone I've seen - he even has the Focal Utopia speakers which are about 100k. Either way, I'm interested in going to this guys house and hearing his stuff! I also found a Yamaha Natural Sound CR-620 - 40 bucks - If the Yamaha is going to produce the same sound quality as the Nakamichi, I would rather save the 60 bucks and go that route, but if the Nakamichi is hands down better, then I would rather spring for the extra cash. As with everyone, money is tight right now and I would like to keep the amount spent to a minimum. The receiver will be powering 2 LaScalas (AA Crossovers). I mainly listen at moderate levels, but I do like to crank it up sometimes, so either receiver I would like to be able to do both, but for sound quality, it's more important to me that it sounds good at mid to high levels than at ear-bleeding levels. I just sold my Marantz 7001 because I'm downgrading from a 5.1 Heritage home theater to a 2.1 setup. Right now, I'm running my LaScalas off of a Sherwood AD266R and I'm not happy with the sound quality. If neither of these receivers are better than the Sherwood, let me know that too - I may just have to wait. Thanks for your help - the sooner the better as I have to make a decision on the Nakamichi today. Regards, Arron

Wuzzer - Yeah, I suppose I didn't word that as I should have. It is "Physically" mint condition. Acoustically, not so mint!

I picked up a Sansui TR-707a for free in mint condition. I hooked it up and one of the channels is bad. There is sound coming out of it, but it's MUCH lower than the other channel. On top of that, the little sound that does come out is extremely distorted. Is there anyone out there that can walk me through fixing it? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have good soldering skills and can follow instructions well

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&frommaketrack=true&item=170351666548&viewitem=&sspagename=VIP%3Awatchlink%3Atop%3Aus&salenotsupported Something like this?

Hey Forum! I'm in need of a bit of help. I recently sold my rear surround speakers and realized they didn't do much for me anyway. I was running a 5 ch setup with LaScala's up front with a Heresy center and Forte IIs in the rear. With the Forte's gone, I really don't miss them (I think my room may be a bit too small for the setup). Anyway, seeing as I don't really need to buy new ones, I figured I may downsize further and just keep the LaScalas, sell my Marantz 7001, and get a decent, CHEAP, 2ch receiver. Seeing as I will only be running 2ch, I will have no need for HDMI or any Optical/digital inputs, so I figured I could go vintage. What's a good 2ch receiver that mates well with LaScalas and could support RCA's for a LD, VCR, DVD, CD, and PC? I'd ideally like 6 or 7 inputs so I don't have to crawl around back there all the time But I know vintage electronics don't really support that. Are there any good old marantz that I could find for around 100 bucks? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!!

Get one from Craigslist!!! If you can avoid being scammed (which isn't hard if you have common sense) then CL has amazing deals for TV's. Some aren't even used. I've purchased 2 TV's off there and never had any issues. I purchased a $2,900 Samsung from Best Buy and could have purchased 2 of the exact same set on CL for the price I paid. Just be sure that you are either buying from someone that has a store or someone that buys electronics each year. You will see plenty of good deals at that price point. Get a 1080p 52" or something, don't worry about all this 120hz crap or what not. Just get a good tv.

I ran Forte II's as my mains for a while but currently I have them as my surround channels and use LaScalas as my mains with a Heresy center. The forte's are great, but if you are going to have to buy additional speakers anyway you may as well shoot for the sky and get some Heritage. The Forte's blend extremely well with my LaScalas so you could probably mate them well with some cornwalls or Heresy's.

Saying that the middle class is supposed to be huge is like saying that the weather is supposed to be nice. Class distribution at any given time is what it is. I"ve never seen any sort of "mission statement" describing an ideal distribution of wealth, other than maybe in the Communist Manifesto, which made a lot more sense in theory than it ever did in practice. Governments don't dictate how many of the people fall into one income group or another; skill, effort, talent, upbringing and luck count for most of it, with some slight influence from the government in the form of certain taxes. As for any democratic government "steering" the economy or its people's social trends, a good analogy would be a rider trying to steer a horse using bungee cords for reins. He has some influence, but can't be said to have direct control. The principals our country are founded on the statement I made before. True, the government doesn't dictate how it is, it just is. The truth is our middle class is shrinking, but the majority still fall within it with few exceptions. If you read my post a bit more closely you will realize we essentially share the same view.

One more thing then I'm done - the biggest discrepency between the statistics shown on this thread is the fact that the upper class is very quickly pulling away from the middle and lower class. I don't think the people claiming 250k + is upper class realize that. If you look at the top 2% (which begins around 200k and up) what you don't realize is that their is about 45% of ALL United States funds that are in that category, which in simple terms means that the MAJORITY of money in this country is held by a select few. The people on the low end of this spectrum (top 1%) are no more upper class than the people at the 80% mark (which is around 60k) are lower class. Middle class does NOT mean that 50% are in that demographic and 25% are lower class and 25% upper class, or any other distrubution of percentages. A MUCH BETTER definition of "Middle Class" is the class between the laborers and the rulers. PLEASE don't take this statement the wrong way. The middle class is supposed to be HUGE and the lower class very small and the upper class very small. In this scenerio, the lower class would probably earn under 30k or so and the upper class would be on the other extreme of 5m +. Unfortunately, ALL country's are ran by the upper .5 % or even more realistically the top .15%. If you think the upper class is the top 1%, you are seriously mistaken. That would be saying there are 3.5M people in this country that are wildly rich and this isn't the case. The upper class is never ment to exceed around the top half or quarter percent. That's just the way it is. 250k, 500k, or 1M does NOT get you there. I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers, just trying to explain a bit.

Percentages are percentages. Nothing more. The simple fact is that there are around 600 BILLIONAIRES in the United States alone as well as tens of 1000's of Millionaires. THESE ARE THE UPPER CLASS PERIOD!!! Someone earning 250 or 500k is better than the average bear, but they are NOT rich! They are not part of the elite upper class. Upper class back in the 50's was around the 500k range, not now. Maybe I have a different idea of upper class than most, but when I think of someone in the upper class, I think of someone that has a Yacht, several homes in multiple areas throughout the world, and maybe a small fleet of single engine planes (or a small jet). I'm not saying 500k is nothing. It's good money. The bottom line is upper class=rich and 250k or 500k just don't make you that. If anything I would call it upper middle class.

250k is definately middle class today! So is 500k really! The problem with our economic system can be boiled down to one thing - the lack of a "Gold Standard" on our dollar. If you look closely at financial statistics (and I can verify all of these) you will see that when Richard Nixon took our dollar off of the Gold Standard it had been on for our entire country's existance, our dollar started inflating immediately. Now, our Federal Reserve prints money for absolutely no reason other than to pay off all of the interest on all of the loans in our country. Back when Nixon did this, the US had only accumulated around 1 Trillion in TOTAL dollars. That means from the 1700's to the late 1900's, our country had only accumulated around 1 trillion in TOTAL money! Now, we accumulate a trillion every 4.6 months! Seriously sit down and think about that, then google it. Then open your eyes! If you look at post war Germany or Russia or Rome or wherever FIAT currency has been used - every single example has failed! Anytime a government devalues their currency (removes a real standard from it, ie gold or silver or whatever) that government will continually print money hand over fist - it's not a US problem, it's a world problem and in my opinion the biggest issue with America is the fact that our citizens are essentially blind to how money works and really how government works. I just wish everyone would read a book now and again!

I had the v861 which is a step up from your receiver and a year older - anyway, I replaced it with a marantz 8001 and ended up making money in the deal. The marantz is 10x better on sound quality and it does the exact same thing. (I don't know if 10x is accurate, but it's a lot better!). I'd take a look at some of the first 1.3 hdmi marantz line. They are a year old now and probably going for a great price.

Congrats on the new LS's! When you A to B them with your old ones, how do they compair? I'm still running the pair I got from you. I refinished them and made them to look similar to the LSII's with a grill up top and for the bottom I built two frames and extended speaker cloth over them so you can't see behind the doghouse (I couldn't get my hands back there to strip the paint, so this was the only other solution). They look really good. I used a dark cherry stain and put a few nice coats of poly on them and they shine. Best purchase I've ever made! Thanks again, and I'm glad your happy with your new ones!