kapsnb01

It comes down to the seamlessness of your front soundstage. Your center is the middle part of that stage. Without it, you can pretty well isolate which of your fronts is handling certain sounds. With a good center, the stage opens up and it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible in most instances, to isolate which speaker is playing what sound. I went phantom center for about 2 years and was generally happy with my experience watching movies, but I got pretty good at hearing which of my mains was handling certain sounds in a movie. When I added my center, it completely changed that. Everything opened up and the stage became seamless. Sounds that pan from one side to the other actually sound smooth and natural. From my experience, I'd highly recommend a matching center, and I'd never build a system without one. There are places to save money...center channel isn't one of them. Your experience may vary though...

I would anticipate that with your speakers, the 62 would probably be the one to come out on top. But, I think scrappy is right in that a true A/B test isn't as simple as you described. In order to do a true A/B, you need to run both speakers fully calibrated for the room and your other speakers. So, you'd need to run your room calibration on each speaker and then perform your test with those settings. Otherwise, what you get is a result of which speaker sounded best with a random setting...not necessarily which speaker sounds best in your room with your system. The results could be the same...or they could be significantly different.

Guess that settles it then...you'll have to move up this way!

Again...want versus need. You will not find agreement on the forum as to whether an amp is definitely something you "need." With a 3.1 like you're planning, a flagship receiver is all that you really "need." Now, would an amp make things sound a little better...maybe/maybe not, and that's where you're finding the disagreements above ^^^. But do you "need" the amp...no. A strong receiver will provide you all the power that you "need" for your planned setup. But, there's that nagging set of "what if" questions that only you can decide on. If those are going to bug you, then by all means, get the pre/pro with an amp. If not, then get a high quality receiver and just enjoy it without worrying about the rest. A good quality receiver will get you 90%+ of the way there (and some of us may argue that it's even more than that). The other 10% (or less) you may or may not hear...as evidenced by the disagreement here in the forum. To a certain extent, we all hear what we want to hear, especially when it comes to our gear in our room. Go with what will make you happy with your gear in your room. Best wishes on the decision.

Quite honestly it comes down to want vs need. Do you need the amp? Most likely not. Do you want it and will it bother you not to have it...that's for you to decide. I'm pushing 7 channels with the 4520 right now and I don't feel it's missing anything. But, that's me...

Got home from work and ended up turning it on for the start of the 7th inning...unbelievable. Announcers had it right though, every tough call was made correctly by the umps, without the replay (other than to later confirm). I saw only the last couple innings, but that was a pretty damn consistent and fair strike zone too. Bravo to the umps...they don't get much credit, but it was due in this case.

Best possible outcome...

v2 or v3 actually...there was no v4. That's a loaded question and you'll get some, like myself, that would say "nothing", they're just different. What makes them different than a v2 is shorter ports and a bit different tuning. Difference from v3 is different woofers, ports, and the tuning on the v3 is different to match their different woofer.

I suppose I'm a bad person for this but... Am I the only one that thinks it'd be hilarious for another Bartman-esque moment for the Cubs? I sort of like the old "curses" and am sad that the Bambino curse ran it's course...don't take my Billy Goat curse away! (Besides, misery loves company...since my pro teams rarely, if ever, win championships).

Saw the Eagles when the went through town a couple years ago. Would've went to the Stones if that show was halfway affordable. Would definitely see Black Sabbath, Def Leppard, Queen, Metallica, etc. Any/all of them are far better than the untalented, overhyped, autotuned junk that passes for music today. If you think the "younger" acts can sing...Google Kanye West singing Bohemian Rhapsody and get back to me...enough said...

This has been mentioned a couple times in this thread, but unless you actually have to have brand new, it's not an issue. The matching center, surrounds, and bookshelves all come up for sale very often on the used market.

Not just you, Derrick. Ultron was a good movie...thoroughly enjoyed it. Thought the integration of Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver was done pretty well. With as much source material as they have in the comics...not the easiest thing to balance all the characters. I thought they did a nice job overall. Movie was entertaining, story was good. I guess mine sounded good on the system, but I crank my movies a little more than most folks probably do the first time I run it through my setup.

That's a good price for that camera, especially with that few actuations on it. You shouldn't have much trouble getting $350-400 for your D7000 either...they seem to be selling for that or more.

Congrats! Supposed to be a significant upgrade over the D7000. Will be interested to hear your impressions after the big shoot with it this weekend.

About a year and a half late on the remote.

The late '95 almost has to be a version 3. They switched from version 2 to 3 in mid-95. The '94 date could go either way between a version 1 or 2...so, it's likely a mismatched pair that's either v1 & v3 or v2 & v3. I'd bet on v2 & v3 based on the dates.

Just keep doing what you're doing. Agile is dead on though...be firm with the other parents that they can take their pictures once yours are done. Otherwise, it'll be a huge mess...

BluRay vs DVD there is a noticeable difference.

Amen to that... Tonka trucks that were actually made out of metal...same with tractor toys and such. All of that stuff is now made from plastic - which will last about a week.

+1 on the Planter's Cheez Balls - my grandparents always had them at their house along with Dad's Root Beer. We loved going over there because it was a huge treat. Jello Pudding Pops Keebler Tato Skins

I forgot to mention that if the soft reset doesn't fix the problem, under general settings there is also the option to do a full reset...you'd lose everything that's not backed up, but that's better than an unuseable iPad.

Most likely, you found a virus/malicious site. I'd first try a soft reset by holding your power and home button until you see the Apple logo. After that, it should reboot and I'd then go into settings, go to Safari settings, and reset the history and website data. Had to do that once before on my wife's iPad and it worked just fine after that. If all of that doesn't work, you may need to give Apple support a try.

Yeah the ports look short. I'm guessing it's the light that's making both the woofers and horn look gray. I bet they're v2 or v3.

I'm running a Denon AVR 4520ci, though it's probably a stretch for your budget, but maybe you can find a good used one for close... It's a beast, and was Denon's flagship receiver a few years ago. Doesn't have Atmos/DTS X, but aside from that it has all the power/features you could want.