NEVER Pay Shelf Price!

This post is going to cover the “find and define” your price approach. Surprisingly a lot of consumers simply pay the sticker price and don’t care to ask for a discount. Some people may feel embarrassed to ask or just assume the retailer won’t work with them. This isn’t true. You’re spending money that you worked for. You deserve the best deal. When you are able to get a discount it’s also rewarding. You feel like you got the right price for the item and it gives you a good reassuring feeling. The discount also helps if you decide to sell the item at a later date. Now you need to be realistic during the bargaining game. This blog is about Audio/Video gear so that is what I’m talking about throughout this post. You cannot expect a big discount when you are dealing with speakers in the 100-500 range or components in the 200-800 range. However, if you are in the price range of 1000-15,000 there is always room for negotiation. This is why brick and mortar shops still today are so beneficial. I do love online shopping and the simplicity it brings, but you lose the personal relationship building aspect. I’ve personally received discounts by simply buying items from the same salesmen over the course of a year or two.

So how does all this play out? I want to cover the different online markets first and then go into detail. This is where I think each online marketplace stands and what in provides:

Items Manufacture Site – This normally lists the MSRP (Manufactorer Suggested Retail Price). This is the highest price and the price you should not pay. Notice the word Suggested! That very much applies.
Amazon – This is normally the lowest price online you will find. Either Amazon will sell the item or it will ship from a reseller. This is a good way to get an idea of the price you should pay. It is not always the lowest though. Most brick and mortar stores are starting to price match amazon and online retailers.
Ebay – I personally only use this when I plan to sell an item I own and I only use it to get a price range. It is too much of hassle to worry about shipping/receiving. To me this is more for rare items and better suited for collectors seeking items no longer available in stores or not sold in stores.
Craigslist – This can be great… It depends on how comfortable you are with buying used gear. Take into consideration there isn’t a warranty. If there is, the warrant has already started when the seller originally purchased the item. Normally the seller will not have or be able to provide the original receipt which is sometimes required for warranty replacements. I use craigslist for selling from time to time, but when buying expensive gear I prefer to ensure I am able to obtain support and a good warranty in MY name.

So look at Amazon to get a price range for where to begin discussing. Now typically single item purchases aren’t going to net a high discount, but if you are purchasing a package of items you can literally save between 10-20%. With high end audio purchases it’s not uncommon to get that much off. You can normally check forums and get an idea of what other people are paying as well. You can approach this like buying a car. If you take a nice approach and don’t turn it into a “bid for your service” generally multiple locations will work with you. I’ve taken a quoted price from one store before and mentioned it to a second store and either they will try to go lower or politely say they can’t. There is no reason at all for you not to try and get the best deal. Don’t be afraid to play the game. I think most people would be surprised.

–Austin

Subwoofers – Yes You Need One

Subwoofers. They have a bad name but they are so important in being able to achieve a full experience. They have a bad name because typically teenagers who drive cars install them, but do not know how to use them correctly. I say that lightly because again the main point in audio is getting what you want out of it. In that regard though, car audio doesn’t help the subwoofer’s image. I agree with anyone who says they hate having the car next to them rattling their windows. That is a user error though and not the purpose of a sub. A sub plays a very vital role in the audio spectrum. A fine tuned sub that is mixed correctly truly changes the listening experience. Once you feel, not hear, a subwoofer used correctly it’s nearly impossible to go without one.

Most subwoofers do not need play frequencies above the 120hz range. Very, very few will go as low as the single digits, but a really good sub will play low in the 13-20hz range. So lets talk about that range for a minute. The average human hears between 20hz – 20,000hz. So when you get below the 20hz range you are not hearing. So why have a subwoofer below the 20hz range anyway? Because humans feel it. There is a great value in feeling what you hear. Most humans feel between 5hz – 18hz. So a subwoofers job as it exists in audio is for us to feel the music. This happens by moving air and lots of it. This is why a subwoofers size matters. A 15″ sub can move air a lot more efficiently that a 10″. However, the flip side to that is a 10″ sub will have a tighter overall sound than a 15″. Physically speaking a 10″ will vibrate quicker than a 15″ due to less surface space on the sub’s cone to move. This is why personally I prefer a 12″ in my car and a good solid 10″ in my home theater. I prefer my home theater to excel more in clarity and realism than overall loudness. A subwoofer isn’t as easy to place as other speakers. It’s not like a center channel that has two options; in the center and above or below the screen. A subwoofer in the corner of a room will produce a lot more bass, but will sound muddy and unclear. Sub placement and the room it is in plays a huge part in the sound. Again a sub goes off the air is moves and the vibrations in the room it can make. You want to find the best sounding location and one that is pleasing aesthetically. To find the best sound they say to put the sub in the position you sit. Then literally crawl around on the floor to you find a spot where the bass sounds good. Once you find the spot you place your sub there. I think some people would be surprised how moving a sub 1ft closer or 1ft further away from a wall will make a huge difference. Try it out.

I close this by saying my repeated theme across this entire blog. It comes down to you. I’ve read so many reviews for home theater gear and for every good review you are going to find a bad one. Everyone hears differently and what someone else thinks is bad someone else thinks is the best. This is why with a little extra effort on your part you can setup something magical. Read reviews to make sure parts are quality made and that a company isn’t selling you something that will break in 2 years. Outside of that don’t buy into reviews stating “X sounds better than Y, so glad I bought X”. Get up and go listen.

–Austin

Seeing Sound. Not just hearing it.

Since discovering this science it is easily one of my favorite topics to discuss. People who haven’t done a lot of research into how sound actually works concerning room vibrations, reflections, and absorptions are really missing out on an interesting science. In my opinion, it really changes the thought and perception of what sound truly is or can be. When I began reading into this subject is when home theater and audio turned into a passion instead of a hobby.

At an elementary level all sound is, is vibrations. Sound waves are projected that create vibrations at different frequencies of pitch which produce the sound we hear and create what our brains interpret. A another topic of discussion is how the mind itself can be tricked, or convinced, that to the brain what something should sound like. All the way to the point that it actually begins to sounds different than what it really is. That is another topic for later discussions though. What I wanted to touch on in this post is the ability to monitor the sound in a room and actually seeing the cause and effect of what is taking place. This process cannot be achieved alone and does require some software, time, and physical hardware. The best dedicated source of information I have found on this topic is the REW Forums. There is a wealth of knowledge to be had just reading what has already been discussed. The forum is very open to newcomers. At least newcomers that follow and read the base rules before making blind posts. This is not only a forum though. There are some great freeware programs to access. The REW Analyzer is what I want to focus on for discussion. It simply blows my mind that the program is freeware. I realize at a base level the program is simply performing mathematical calculations, but it really shows me that there are some very knowledgeable people out there that really do invent with the intention of just sharing. It’s not about money or recognition. It’s about sharing a passion. It’s a heartwarming feeling knowing those people still exist. Back on topic though. What the REW analyzer does is map the frequencies heard in a room and charts them in a display we can see and easily understand. This does require some physical components and setup in order to make sure what data you collect is accurate enough to work with. The REW analyzer is a Mac or Windows based program. You would need a decent microphone used for recording what is known as a frequency sweep. So REW will play the frequency sweep through your home speakers and your mic records the sweep and REW analyzes the data and graphs it. I won’t elaborate on the configuration or setup for REW as that can be found on the forums themselves with some research. I want to explain what is analyzed by REW and why. So the sound any speaker makes can vary greatly depending on the room it is in. Put a speaker in a metal room and notice a vastly different sound from an entirely carpeted wall to floor room. What causes this change are the absorption and reflection properties a room, wall, or object in a room has. Again, remember that sound is simply vibrations. Not only do the vibrational characteristics change in rooms but also their reflective properties cause sound to vary greatly. A carpeted room for example is highly absorbent and this causes reflections to be very minimal and will cause the sound to sound dead. There is no life to what is heard. However, the sound in an all metal room causes an effect known as reverberation, which is the echoing of sounds, and this causes the original produced sound to get lost in the echoes. The source no longer sounds clear. A perfect room, as known in a scientific aspect, is a room that causes no reflections. With no reflections being heard the sound produced is exactly as what the speaker is capable of producing. This isn’t practical in homes. Therefore this is not the sound we are accustomed to and expect when listening. Therefore, most tests are performed in typical home settings that are common to most. What REW does is analyze what I just described. So a sweep in sound occurs across the entire frequency range. What happens is each individual frequency in a room has a different length of time the frequency remains due to different rooms having different reflective properties, not only on the sound as a whole, but at each individual frequency level. Some rooms for example sound very bass heavy or boomy while some may sound very harsh or bright. The room may hold or linger frequencies longer which drown out the surrounding frequencies. A room that does this is not considered ideal. You typically want a room that is equal across the spectrum and therefore creates a very even and clear soundstage. So REW during the analyzing period of a sweep is determining the peaks of frequencies across the sound spectrum, but is also recording the length of time each frequency is ringing. This will then, based on calculations, draw a 3D map of the sound of a room. So what you see on the X axis, left to right, is the frequency being produced and the Y axis is the volume reading in DB’s. On the Z axis, we will call it, you see a time in milliseconds. The Z axis is simply a forward to back axis. So combining the three axis’s paints a picture of how long frequencies ring, or remain in a room. This really allows you to visually see the sound your room is producing. So now that you have this information what do you do with it? This is were absorption and reflection comes back in to play. You can reduce frequencies by absorbing them and increase frequencies by reflecting them. By doing that you reduce or increase the time frequencies remain in a room. Different materials have different absorbent priorities at different frequency responses as well holds true for reflective materials. This again comes back to the overall theme of what a home theater should be. You could do what is recommended, or “by the books”, but I would never recommend that. To anyone. Ever. Determine what YOU like to hear and go for it. I use to be a stickler on trying to mimic what I read and was told assuming then that someone else was right and that I should just adjust and learn to enjoy what is “right”. Boy was I wrong. Determine what YOU enjoy. In the end, it’s really about you. To paraphrase, the REW program is extremely powerful for the data it is presenting. It becomes even more powerful when you understand it and can work with it. You can really achieve the sound you want at a scientific level. If there is one rule to follow on this topic, it is that the best sound is equal. You want frequencies across the spectrum to ring in equal lengths. If frequencies are not equal in the time space you are left with an unclear and uneven sound. This causes what is known as a muddy sound. If a frequency remains for a long time it will mask any frequencies produced after it. With all frequencies equal in volume and time you have a very clean, clear, and accurate sound that allows all details and nuances to be heard. If you really take sounds to this scientific level, what can be achieved is truly rewarding. It’s a whole art in itself and due to the field being all based on opinion is what creates an interesting fascination to me. Anything can be achieved with knowledge and understanding. This is probably one of my favorite topics concerning sound. I could discuss for hours on end. I know I will be posting future topics that relate to this discussion in some way. It’s truly fascinating. I hope the above opened your mind just a little bit in creating a visual perception of sound. It’s amazing what we take for granted every single day. If you stop, listen, and visualize what you hear. It is pretty fascinating.

–Austin

Physical or Digital Media

This post will explain why I have decided that there does not need to be one or the other platform. Both have their use case. You have to determine what suits your needs. I’m going to discuss the reason why or why not for both platforms.

Digital Media. This form fits best into today’s society. Instant, portable, and transferable. If you don’t have an AppleTV, Chromecast, or HTPC (Home Theater PC) please close this blog down and spend the $35 or $100 and then leave a comment thanking me. I’m not going to discuss Netflix, Hulu, Redbox Instant, or Amazon Prime here because I’ve already posted about that in another discussion. I prefer to use iTunes. I started as an iPhone guy (I now use Android for personal and iPhone for work) so my digital library started with the iTunes store and hasn’t looked back. There is also Google Playstore, Amazon, etc, but in my personal opinion Apple cannot be beat. ITunes is very simplistic and as the fanboys say “It just works”, and yes it does. The content is available on the PC, via AppleTV, and on an iPhone or iPad. Anything you purchase from the Apple store is available for download to all end user devices. Quality is high and I’ve never had an issue with making or redeeming purchases…ever. Digital is great. Your movies or TV shows are now always available and searchable. There is no more getting up, looking for the movie on the shelf, loading the movie in the player, etc. With digital you turn on your media player, search for your content, and hit play. Sounds to good to be true right? Well it is. There are still shortcomings with digital content. Specifically with the audio. I do think digital will win in the end, but there have to be a lot of advances in many areas before physical no longer has a place in the home.

Physical media. The first thing that comes to mind here are collectors. Some people are X-MEN collectors for example. Having the physical copy with booklets and special edition boxes does matter. Sometimes having something physically in your hand is a comfort zone. You can touch it, it’s yours, you own it, and can display it. The ability to share physical media is something that the digital realm cannot provide at this time. You can get around it by sharing users and passwords, but the way digital libraries are content indexed and built per users makes this is a pain to do. With a physical product you simply give it to someone and they later return it. There are no cross platform compatibility issues either with physical media like there is with digital content.

Now lets look at price, access, availability, and quality for both platforms. Most people should have a bluray player and that is the price point I’m going to discuss here. Price is pretty close between the too platforms. Sometimes the $7.99 bluray bucket at best buy has some gems in it, but when you’re talking about a new release you are looking at around $24 and tax. Sometimes this also includes a DVD and digital copy. You’d think this would be the way to go because of the digital copy being included. When digital copy first came out it was. You got a code in the case, entered the code in iTunes, and viola. Unfortunately this process got disrupted when each movie studio tried to build their own redemption library and format. You had to sign up for 10 different websites due to each movie having a different redemption site. Each movie has a different redemption period for when you can access the digital content as well that expires. Meaning you can no longer download or access it. Some studios don’t allow you to physically download the media as well. You have to access their site, use their media player, and stream it from them. I no longer relay on digital copies included with physical media. It is way to inconsistent and more times a hassle than a luxury. Some people chose build their digital library from physical purchases by ripping the physical media. This also used to be consistent but is no longer. Handbreak used to be a great utility, but most physical media is protected with DRM (Digital Rights Management) now and is therefore encrypted and not allowing you to copy it to your PC. Not to mention this is still illegal by law. Even though you own the physical media you are not allowed to make copies, even personal copies. It’s terrible, because this would be the path to go in determining physical vs digital. Unfortunately the studios appear to want to push you one way or the other. You can’t have both. The price of a digital download is almost always equal or less than the price of the physical form. I would say 80% of the time a new release is about $5 cheaper to acquire digitally. Why? Well you are only paying for the content. There is no markup for boxing/packaging, shipping, etc. Price leans toward digital being the cheaper method. So this brings us to access. Clearly digital is the winner by a longshot. You don’t even have to leave the couch. There is no get up, drive to the store, hope it’s in stock, wait in line, etc. Instead, within minutes of the release day you can access the content. This is a clear winner and flows right into availability. As I’ve already said digital is always available and always there from almost any device. Physical just isn’t. As a traveler I get effected a lot with this. If everything I purchased was digital it would be great. So why don’t I always buy digital? It seems like a clear winner, right. Nope it’s not, and the reason is quality. I have a home theater and I care more about sound than I do video. ITunes movie files are around 2-6gb depending on the length of the film. A bluray disk holds 25gb on a single layer disk and up to 50gb on a dual layer disk. So what does this mean? It means the 1080p dobly 5.1 audio digital file is highly compressed VS a lossless video and audio bluray. In my honest opinion you are not going to notice a difference in the video quality. Even fast action scenes now are rendered beautifully on digital downloads. If you put them side by side and play a scene you will notice a slight difference, but I honestly feel this gap has been decreased so much that it is almost no longer a gap. Video quality is excellent for HD digital copies and works just fine. The main problem though is audio quality. You’re not going to find a digital copy higher than dolby 5.1. So 7.1 and up systems are out of luck. The audio bitrate for a dolby digital download is 640kbps. Bluray is lossless. The formats you almost always find are Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MasterAudio and either encoded in 5.1 discrete or 7.1 discrete for blurays. What are the bitrates for those formats? 🙂 I smile because they are only about 30x higher. TrueHD is 18.64 Mbit/s and DTSMA is 24.5 Mbit/s. 102kbps make up 1 Mbit. You will notice a HUGE difference when a theater audio system is used for playback. Just the numbers alone should speak for themselves. This is why digital is a good primary use for laptops and tablets, but nowhere close to being the primary in the home….for certain content.

So how do I decide? Easy… If it’s a big action movie and I want to feel the explosions so I will always buy the physical copy. Most of the time I won’t be watching an intense action film on my iPad. Comedies, almost always digital. There isn’t a need to have the lossless audio track when digital serves it’s purpose just fine. I’m not going to nitpick a comedy for it’s quality like I would when watching an action film. It will be a long time before lossless audio will ever be streamed unfortunately. Not only for movies, but music as well. The file sizes are too large to meet the requirements for supplying the quick demand. It’s not feasible with current US networks. Most homes don’t pay for the fastest internet access speeds. I wish the US had the network for it, but till that day comes, I have to decide digital or physical and that is ok. I would say I’m about 70% digital when purchasing new films. So it really comes do to determining your needs and wants. Both are valid platforms and will be valid platforms for a long time to come. Do what makes you happy. Most importantly try to forget the numbers and just enjoy the content. I won’t, but maybe you can.

–Austin

Lossless & Lossy Encoded Audio With Compression

This post is going to mention many different topics that I plan to have individual posts on later. This discussion opens doors to other discussions that I feel deserve their own dedicated posts. In efforts to stay on topic for this post I plan to come back and link specific words to posts. I am doing this because I have to lightly discuss those topics to paint a clear picture of what I’m discussing. So lets start.

Lossless Audio and encoded audio. Why does this even matter? Well, maybe it doesn’t to you. Some people are perfectly fine double clicking an audio file and hearing a song. That’s great. Entertainment through simplicity is something I sometimes wish would satisfy me. Once you research and begin to understand how sound files really work it’s hard to accept simplicity. There are days I wish I didn’t know this information. Sometimes I want to erase what I know from my mind to avoid the distractions from the pleasure of just enjoying music. 20% of the time I can, but with the type of guy I am, if I know I can make something better. Why not do it or at least try. I found a great seminar one time on YouTube that discusses how the only way to listen to audio is by having someone else push play. As soon as the mind knows the source the end result is skewed. Think Wizard of Oz here. I say this because if you continue reading, realize you cannot go back. You will understand differences and your listening will be changed forever. Please hit back on your browser now.

Ok you have decided to move forward. You were warned. Before I jump to the topic I want to briefly discuss a few things. There are multiple moving parts when it comes to listening to audio. Here is an extremely simple flow:

File on iPhone –> play is pushed –> speakers make noise.

There is SO much more involved in what made the above possible. I’m talking multiple, multiple layers. There are some layers we can control ourselves and some layers beyond our control. It truly makes hearing audio an individually multi-layered unique experience each and every time. You can take this all the way to the point of creation. Here is a beginning flow that is at a microscopic level.

Human forms idea, 1 of a million guitars is chosen, 1 of a million brands of strings is strung, 1 of a million cables is chosen, 1 of a million amps is used, that has speakers from 1 of a million brands, that is then recorded by a microphone from 1 of a million different brands, that is then recorded and produced by 1 of a million different producers, that is then….I think you get the picture. At EVERY single step from creation to reproduction there are ways to make changes that effect the end result. So to move forward and summarize, a song is created and recorded. 🙂 Now lets look at the playback chain. You have to understand that the same is true for playback as is for recording. A file, a playback program, through a cable (or wireless), to a receiver or headunit, to be amplified, and is then reproduced by either crappy speakers or headphones, or high quality speakers or headphones. Every piece of equipment along this path effects the end result just like during creation. I mention all of the above before talking about lossless and lossy encoding because you could have an lossless file, but that does not guarantee you will hear a lossless sound. If you don’t have the equipment to make a sonic difference, lossless files will gain you nothing. Understand cause and effect from beginning to end. So note that, just because your equipment does not allow you to hear a difference in sound. It does not mean the difference is not there. If I can control a step in a 50 step process I’m going to make that one step the best I can. I always try to subtract weak links from any process. Thus, I will try and have lossless files when I can.

Ok, now for what this post is really about you also have to understand compression. Compression at a base level is simply reduction. A reduction of what you ask? Well a compression algorithm is used to shrink a file while trying to maintain quality. This is done by trimming frequencies and adjusting playback levels dynamically. Why do this in the first place? Well, transmission started a lot of it for radio broadcasts. As music became portable and stored on computers/ipods it was already known that a smaller file size the better for storage. This smaller file size has a snowball effect and why it is the standard. So lets say a CD is our starting point. It is the source media in the highest possible format. There is some form of compression that has already occurred but to provide a starting point lets say, and most do, a CD is a raw file. You want to copy this to your computer. You load up iTunes and tell it to add to your library. This is where encoders come into play. iTunes has encoders that it will use to take the source and create a file on disk. You can change your encoder in iTunes like such:

The iTunes default encoder is ACC that has a bitrate of 256kbps. The CD’s source song bitrate is around 1411kbps. This typically results in a 26mb file being compressed and encoded down to a 6mb file. If you hit play on both files most people will not notice a difference. When the file was encoded there were multiple things done to the audio. Take this example; 30 seconds of uncompressed silence that is encoded with a lossless encoder will match the size of the source. While 30 seconds of uncompressed silence encoded with a lossy format will be almost nothing in size. A compression encoder knows that is no reason to replay silence so the data is excluded. Encoding relays heavily on psychoacoustics to determine what data can be dropped or shortened on top of compression and data deduplication. The human ear can only perceived certain frequencies so those frequencies out of range get dropped. If you think about two guitars playing the same chord at the same time they are fighting each other in the same frequency range. Instead of a lossless file playing back the full contents a lossy encoder will determine the loudest and longest while slightly reducing the other. These are high level examples of what is actually occurring. There is a lot of frequency trimming and data deduplication occurring during the encoding. When a source replays an encoded file the information is decoded, aka expanded and played back. A good encoder will do a good job of dropping silence, trimming frequencies, matching up data throughout a song and only storing one copy, then compressing the entire file. The 2nd part of the encoder is also being good a decoding. That would be the process of reversing the encode in real time during playback.

So what do we take away from this. Lossy encoding modifies the source in some way. Lossless, regardless of what your system can reproduce, is the best possible option for replaying audio to mimic the source. For me personally, knowing that is enough to use lossless encoders when and where I can. The best way to use a lossless encoder is during the initial copying of a CD. You cannot take a lossy file and convert it to lossless. Once the file is encoded the data is lost for good. You must use the source to create lossless file. It will be my dream the day iTunes allows match to sync with lossless files for download. I cannot wait for that day to come. I do plan to have another post dedicated for audio playback, but since we are on the topic of encoding, lossless, and lossy, why not understand bitrates. Here is a list of the major players and there playback bitrate levels. Remember CD quality is 1411kbps and anything lower has lost quality. If this is the first time you are seeing these numbers I think the results may surprise you. That favorite band you have that you downloaded from iTunes…go purchase a CD in store and have a listen. You may be surprised.:

CD: 1411kbps
Google Music: Up to 320kbps but will decrease depending on bandwidth
iTunes Downloads: 256kbps ACC+
iTunes Radio Streaming Mobile:80kbps
iTunes Radio Streaming Wifi/LTE: 128-160kbps
iTunes Radio Streaming PC: 256kbps
Spotify Streaming Free Mobile: 96kbps (high quality is 160 kbps)
Spotify Streaming Free Web: 160kbps
Spotify Streaming Premium: 320 web and 320 on mobile when set to extreme.
Pandora Streaming Free Web: 64kbps AAC+
Pandora Streaming Paid Web: 192kbps *devices can vary*
FM Radio: What they consider CD-quality (100 kbit/s), FM-quality (25-50 kbit/s), AM-quality (12 kbit/s), or Talk-quality (5 kbit/s) channels. Alternatively, they could broadcast one single channel at 300 kbit/s.
HD Radio: up to 300kbps, but most broadcast around 70kbps.
XM and Sirius Radio: 16-39kbps over satellite and 128kbps for subscription web.

–Austin

Pioneer Tower Tweeter Replacement – SP-FS51-LR

About seven months ago I blew a tweeter in one of my living room towers. The Pioneer Towers were purchased two Christmas’s ago as per a best buy deal. I believe it was buy one tower and get the other tower free. Total cost was about $150 and tax at the time. For my use case this was a great deal. Two floor towers in the living room for TV listening. Awesome. I had no intentions of using these for music listening and movie watching. My initial impressions of the towers was shock. I was really impressed with the clarity and midbass the towers provide. For the price point they are excellent speakers. They are however discontinued now and there is a newer model available. Pioneer had issues with the model I own and discontinued them. You may be able to guess why…the tweeters. Now the speakers are great for my usage and I don’t see a reason to replace them. So a week ago I decided to replace the blown tweeter in my right tower. Why did I wait so long? Well, the imaging on the towers is actually pretty good. Unless I walked up to the tower with the blown tweeter I would not notice a shift in sound. Bass and midbass was still there in both towers and the left towers tweeter was pulling the weight just fine by itself. From a distance, aka the couch, the blown tweeter was negligible. My real problem is that I knew about it.

So I sent an email to Pioneer and to my surprise received a really crap response. I’ve blown tweeters in my Polk Towers (Monitor 70’s) twice. I’ve called up Polk and have received next day replacements. I didn’t even need to send the defective tweeters back. I simply faxed my original receipt and they took care of me. The second time I called in they offered to replace the crossover in the tower to ensure that wasn’t a cause. I told them it most likely is not and that I just enjoy loud music. They still sent replacements. +1000 to Polk. However, this was Pioneers response:

Thank you for contacting Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.
I’m sorry but we do not have any parts available for these speakers. They are non-repairable.

Sincerely,
*Persons Name*
Parts Sales Representative

Now the point of this post isn’t to bash the sales rep or Pioneer. My towers are entry level speakers with a one year limited warranty. Honestly, I didn’t expect much help to begin with so I didn’t push the issue with support. I left it at that and went on my own. I did a little googling, but could not find direct parts for the Pioneers. I decided to order from the great website Parts Express. They are like the monoprice of components. If you don’t know what monoprice is bookmark this site now too. Quality cables with the best prices MonoPrice. I wired my entire theater’s audio and video with cables from monoprice. Here is the direct link for the tweeters I ordered GoldWood GT520. The tweeters are a 1″ Silk Dome Horn Tweeter in the 4 1/2 body size which work as a direct replacement for the stock Pioneer SP-FS51-LR Towers Tweeters. The screws didn’t exactly line up as you will see below. Wood is wood. They screwed in just fine.

In short, the tweeters arrived after a $20 order. I replaced the old and viola. Below are some photos I took of the process. Note that photo 5 is the old tweeter that was replaced. You will see the ring inside the tweeter where the grill gets inserted. The new tweeter does not have this and therefore the grill does not fit. This is not a big deal at all to me and the speakers look better with the open tweeter showing. If I wanted to get fancy I could bend the grill edges and insert into the cabinet frame. I really don’t see a need for this. However, if I had a two year old with curious fingers you can bet I would be fixing the grill. 🙂

–Austin

Cancel TV & Stream It – Our Trial Run

After talking with a family member about moving out this past week it reminded me of what it was like when I first moved out. SAVE EVERY PENNY. A big place to save monthly reoccurring costs is by not having cable TV. I’ve gone through this in the past when I was single and ditching cable was an easy decision for me. After my fiance moved in that changed. Real Housewives and Vanderpump Rules became necessities. Fast forward to this morning and I decided to look back at going to a streaming only household and cut out cable completely.

As I always do, I started at the top and broke down the entire scenario (a spreadsheet was used) and determined my main focus points. Start-up costs, available content, what providers, and monthly cost. Below is my approach and why I determined that canceling TV and streaming monthly will work – FOR US. She definitely watches TV a lot more than I do so I did this simply to save money and make a smarter decision. We don’t have kids yet. This made the stream only approach an easier decision due not needing to consider the ease of use concerns with keeping the kids happy.

Start-up: This is minimal for us. We already have AppleTV, game systems, and blu-ray players that can stream content so we are set here. At most you are looking at a small device fee. I won’t go into details here on devices because I’m saving that for another blog entry. Just note that if you don’t have streaming devices this should be considered, besides, we are talking about saving money and not spending it.

Content: Since I still had AT&T U-Verse at the time of making this decision I turned the TV on and wrote down every network that we normally watch shows on. I was concerned that some of her reality TV shows were going to be difficult to accommodate for. I soon found out that the opposite is true. You really can stream anything you want except live sports. Sports is the most watched content on TV and is the most difficult content to stream. I’m not a huge sports guy, so I will except this loss. I still have friends and bars to go to if I want to catch a game. Again, realize I’m doing this to save money. I won’t be going to a bar every Sunday and spending $30 for food and drink to catch games. It’s not feasible and just ordering a water isn’t going to happen. There are options such as JustinTV or Ustream were people setup a broadcast and simply put their camera facing the tv with the game on. I don’t consider this direct content and guaranteed. So I will not list this as an option to rely on here. I say this because there are ways to make sports work, sort of. Present day, this is a big downside.

Providers: You have your major players – Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. These sites are used specifically for the purpose of streaming. You can go direct to ABC, HBO, or TV Networks, etc to get some free episodes, but to me that defeats the ease of use. I’d like to have consistent go-to’s. Not all shows are covered by the main three players. This is where we are going to rely on iTunes and Amazon Prime for purchasing season passes for shows. I will discuss this below.

Costs (Monthly):
Netflix – $8
Hulu – $8
Amazon Prime – $79 yearly so $7 monthly
ISP’s charge (Internet Service Provider). I’m a U-Verse customer and went with their highest tiered internet (24mbps down at a charge of $69 + taxes (roughly $82)).
Total monthly costs here is $105. I expect my ISP charge to be cheaper but I always use the extreme when I’m not certain. I will update when I know the exact cost. My U-Verse TV was already the lowest possible tier (U100). I believe most people would save more money than me because most people have a higher tiered package. To justify the savings I’m going to look at yearly values as well. With cable TV yearly I’m at $1,764. With streaming only I will be at $1,260. This is the base only cost. Remember not all shows are free. Since iTunes will be our main goto I looked at the season passes for shows that iTunes charges. They range between $15-$25 for a season depending on popularity. This means to break even I can only put $504 towards purchasing season passes for shows. Taking the high figure at $25 this allows us to purchase about 20 shows. When I compared the shows we want to watch that are not freely available it was only around four shows we will need to purchase. Thus we are saving $400 dollars initially.

I took into account all of the above and looked at it with the idea in mind “is this a smart and without sacrifice” approach for not just me, but my family. Here is my closing and true feelings. In the end we will probably save a little bit of money, but it is nothing to call home about. Sports is a major sacrifice. I will have to plan catching my favorite teams at family members homes or local bars. Sports is easily the biggest downside. There are bigger gains though because we now have instant access to any TV series and episode at any time we want at home or on the go. Not to mention movies are included from all of the providers. Movies are hit and miss because the new ones are slow to start streaming. We will continue red boxing and renting from Amazon or iTunes for movies. Not really a change there. With shows that we have to purchase season passes for the content becomes ours. We can watch those whenever, where ever, and the digital content we now own. Meaning they will never be remove from streaming because we own them.

We both decided we will try this method for a month or two. I will update this post as time goes by to really give my best opinion on this topic. I believe streaming is something that is great if you really want it to be. Unfortunately streaming is still not ready for mainstream, but is causing providers to re-think how they deliver content to homes. I do see this becoming the future route, but it’s not a present day decision unless you force it to be.

–Austin