tmassey

I think the best thing you can do from here is HT seating with cup holders

CD Players was just an example, it could be used for anything that has a digital out. The UMC-1 is essentially what I just described, except for blu-rays, but with added functionality like volume, room correction, etc. I am not sure if anyone has ever developed just a DAC in a box like the XDA-1 but can do 7 channels. Usually, they are incorporated into the blu-ray player itself, as well as the prepro, and you just have which ever has the best DACs do the decoding. Not sure how much of a market there would be for such a thing because of the law of diminishing returns as well as just adding another link to the chain.

Scrappy just confirmed, the 63s are now a collectors item. (At least to him)

A DAC is just for hooking up a source, like a CD player, that has digital outs. It would most likely be better at converting that digital signal to an analog signal, giving better sound quality. I believe the difference you will be able to hear is going to be dependent on your speakers. You will probably hear a lot more difference between the two if you are running P-39f's than you would if you were using an HTIB. As far as understanding balanced vs unbalanced, I found a pretty good and easy to understand writeup HERE. The difference between the XDA-1 and the UMC-1 is the XDA-1 is only going to convert a digital signal into the left and right analog channels, while your UMC-1 will be able to do everything a processor can do like add room corrections, apply crossovers, decode, etc.. Usually, the XDA-1 would sit between a digital source, like a CD player, and the UMC-1. So you would hook up your CD player to a digital input on the XDA-1 and than hook the Analog Out on the XDA-1 to an Analog In on the UMC-1 and theoretically, you would get better sound if you just hooked the CD player right to the UMC-1.

The 63s have a relatively high sensitivity so it is enough receiver. However, they apparently have pretty low impedence dips so if down the road you have the money and are looking for an upgrade, an external amplifier would go a very long way with these and really open them up.

Welcome to the forum! I think that the RF-63's would be the better bet. They are an extremely good speaker. Scrappydue is a member here and I think he likes his a lot. For that price, I believe they would be well worth it. It will probably really depend on what the rest of your system looks like too. Which center speaker do you have and which series are your RB-51s?

No 3D on the UMC-1.

If the outside is reaching 120, I am thinking the inside is darn near close to the 60 celsius (140 faranheit). It doesn't seem like it is operating efficiently. If it melts, I guess it's no biggy, but I would hate to see it burn down your house?

I had a bit of extra time and was curious how people find the best spot to put their subwoofers and I came across a trick. Instead of dragging the subwoofer around the room (I have a feeling this could be extremely hard on the back, especially for some of the bigger 100+ lb subs out there), it said you could move your seat and place your subwoofer in the main listening position and then you just walk/crawl around the room looking for the place with the best response, then place your subwoofer there. It seems like a backward but very convenient approach to finding the best placement for a sub, but something is telling me that it just won't work out in the end.

If you are talking to me, that was quite far out of my price range, else I would have hopped on it right away. I feel like we have derailed this thread, so to try and get it back on topic to the OP, I will let you know what I think of the RT-12d because I believe there is a very nice RT-10d in the garage sale thread for a very good price, and the two subs are fairly similar from what I can tell.

For what it is, I think it does a fantastic job at what it does, and for the price they can be had, but keeping up with the 83's, I can usually hear it struggle, and tends to drop a lot of the lows. If I had known as much when I bought it as I do now though, I would not have paid full retail for it. A sub is actually in my VERY near future. I found an RT-12d from a fellow forum member in the garage sale thread. I was looking at getting an Epik Empire or even saving my pennies for a while and getting a PB13 ultra, but for the price that was offered, there was just something in me telling me not to pass it up. So if things go according to plan, I will have it paid for tomorrow once I get my paycheck, and with any luck, will also be shipped out tomorrow. I am really looking forward to getting this thing hooked up. There is a scene in The Dark Knight when the Joker is walking out of the hospital in his nurse's outfit and blows up the hospital. I am hoping to get a lot more of the low rumbling bass out of that scene. I know the RT-12d isn't the greatest sub in the world, but hopefully compared to the RW-10d, it will blow me away. And who knows, maybe a PB13 or two is still on the horizon, maybe right around tax-return season next year.

Sorry to hear about the wife, but nice find on the speakers! Klipsch is usually pretty cheap when it comes to parts like grilles, but you do have to call them and talk to their parts department. And I think especially for that system, if you splurge on one thing, it should be the sub. How much were you looking to spend? We can help keep an eye out for you. We just love spending other people's money around here =)

Well it seems you either love it or hate it. I really like the look and was thrilled when I found the option in the UMC-1 to turn off the front display. It's very sexy, but I find a lot of times, it can be pretty distracting when watching a movie. Those signature round blue lights are very bright, especially in a dark room. It's also the reason why I always prefer Samsung TV's. The fronts are usually very discrete with no lights or flashy emblems. My friend recently got a Vizio, and the picure quality was pretty good, but I couldn't stand looking at it because on the front, "Vizio" is written on the bottom and it is backlit. Why anyone would want to see that right under the screen is beyond me.

For sure I will, but it's hard to find anyone that has one, let alone that would allow me to demo it. If you are around the Michigan area, I would love to hear one for myself. As far as the UMC-1 being worth it, it's a very hard question. I think it's worth it just for the upgrade card which will save me 600$ off the cost of their upcoming (hopefully) XMC-1. However, if you are like a lot of others and don't have as much faith in Emotiva (their UMC-1 was extremely buggy on release, and still is a little quirky), I would probably just stick with the Pioneer Elite. You could always wait to see how well the XMC-1 performs and buy an upgrade card then. If Emotiva doesn't hold back the XMC-1, there will likely be a ton of UMC-1s on the market for dirt cheap pretty soon here, so might want to hold out for that as well. The one thing I would read about is the bass management on the UMC-1. A lot of people don't think that it handing the bass correctly, and being the big fan of the Earthquake subs, I would hate for you to buy the UMC-1 and have it not run your sub as well as it deserves.

A planted mole would say that he was not a planted mole . In all seriousness though, it's nice to hear from someone who really loves a certain brand of speaker/sub. Often times, they have lead others to buy something from a company they previously would not have considered. My only problem with Earthquake is there is extremely little in the way of used, and for obvious reasons, myself and most others have an extremely hard time shelling out that kind of money to buy something we haven't been able to listen to first from a company who is fairly unknown or unproven. I am just thankful everyone around here seems to be extremely open-minded, but passionate about home theater gear, which is exceedingly rare, especially when it comes to the internet. It's nice to have a place where we can chat without me being told in one way or another that I have wasted all my money on Klipsch speakers when I could/should have bought a Bose system instead. Or even worse... a heated debate about HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray.

You figured it out? I am seeing info in your signature now.

Please let us know what you think when it comes in! I will be expecting an extensive 10 page report in APA format.

Very interesting read and welcome to the forum! Also, thanks for the Bose information at intellexual.net. Was also a very interesting read and will give me something to point a friend to when he gets on his "Bose are the best speakers you can buy" speech.

Processors are usually pretty expensive, however in a lot of cases, they are built in a way where they are more easily upgradable via firmware updates, and usually offer better components, keeping you current for much longer. So up front, they will likely cost as much as or more than an AVR, but they will last you longer. As far as impact on sound quality, processors or avrs are usually last on the list as far as bang for buck goes. The difference in sound quality is so slight, that people claim it has no effect whatsoever. As long as it supports the lossless audio formats, has preouts, and good automatic room correction, there are other areas where there would be much more potential for upgrade.

That is a beautiful looking counter top!

I am not the most photogenic guy in the world.

That's impressive. Do you have any kind of acoustical room treatments in place as well? I wanna see a pic of this beast of a sub.

The KLFs having 0 WAF could also have something to do with it as well.

Tell him to let you come over so you can listen, and let us know what you think.

You won't have to do anything to your sub. It has an onboard amp so it does not need to be hooked to your external amp. It will stay hooked up to your onkyo as is. The only thing you will have to do because your Onkyo doesn't have a trigger is turn your amp will not turn on/off when you hit the power on the onkyo.