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The Home Theatre Set-Up


achilles
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47 minutes ago, abhi90 said:
1 hour ago, Keyofx said:
Pretty critical word missing there emoji3.png

Inbuilt amp should be the best for the active speakers, right?

There are passive R41/51 as well. They cost less because obviously no inbuilt dac or amp.

Even though this series is advertised as bookshelf speakers, they are designed for home theatre experience and even Klipsch offers their combo in US. Very well reviewed.

You can get passive ones for now and then add in other components latter, which I will suggest if you want to eventually get a 5.1/7.1 system.

But 2.0 is all you want, get powered ones.

They sound great, all round.

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1 minute ago, kunjanp said:

There are passive R41/51 as well. They cost less because obviously no inbuilt dac or amp.

Even though this series is advertised as bookshelf speakers, they are designed for home theatre experience and even Klipsch offers their combo in US. Very well reviewed.

You can get passive ones for now and then add in other components latter, which I will suggest if you want to eventually get a 5.1/7.1 system.

But 2.0 is all you want, get powered ones.

They sound great, all round.

 

Yea, it's all about your specific use case. This is probably awesome if you're building a listening room for music. Or if you're flush enough to fund a full setup later on that matches the quality of the R41/51...

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1 hour ago, Jigsaw said:

@Keyofx @Assassins Creed

 

What are you guys doing for a soundbar in table top scenario with the C9/CX

 

The tv sits really low. I have an LG soundbar but it's definitely going to block the bottom part of the screen. 

 

Any newer low-profile sound bars? Mines the SJ5 (2018 model) 

 

Bar9.1 bola toh ghar mein aakar :chair:

 

Mera wall mounted hai TV :D Ample space down there, You have seen those PSN symbols kept on top of the sound bar..

 

Buy my Bar 9.1 :rofl: I am eyeing for Klipsch Cinema 1200 later this year :fear1:

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2 minutes ago, Assassins Creed said:

 

Mera wall mounted hai TV :D Ample space down there, You have seen those PSN symbols kept on top of the sound bar..

 

Buy my Bar 9.1 :rofl: I am eyeing for Klipsch Cinema 1200 later this year :fear1:

 

80k ka soundbar liya toh wife will insert 125rs ka belan up my glory hole. Nako. 

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  • 3 months later...

Apple TV 4K

 

The last Apple TV came out in 2017. When my set-up was done in mid-2019, there had been rumours of a new one coming out in a couple of months. About 2 years was the average gap between Apple TV refreshes, and I did not want to buy an "old" model when a new one was right around the corner. That obviously did not happen. 

And so, being sensible, I thought I'd borrow the Fire stick that Grandad was not using, and make do. He sometimes used to watch Pakistani dramas on YouTube and I thought since there was a pretty capable voice assistant in there, he'd be able to use it on his own. But the UI, and specially the navigation was sub-par and he drifted away from using it slowly. It became specially useless when the Youtube app and search stopped working on that thing. 

Once in a while he'd ask one of us to put it on for him, and he'd get a drink, and enjoy his evening like that. This is not relevant here, but just felt like sharing it. 

 

Since it was only about a month till WWDC '19, during which, I was convinced that the new Apple TV would be announced, I borrowed the stick. 

 

Problems with the Fire TV stick

Overall it is quite a sucky experience. The thing is slow, the remote is tacky, and the connection between the app and the stick is flaky. 

It is also not a device suited to a hi-fi system, in that the quality of signal output isn't great. 

The UI is quite pedestrian. Bluetooth headset connection for late night viewing would drop out randomly. 

There is no quick app switching. 

The buttons feel awful to press. 

There'd be no streaming memory, so any skip backs would introduce a buffering delay. 

The UX is a mess, where app behaviour is not consistent. 

Quickly referencing subtitles for that one line you missed would take, what felt like hours, and ruins immersion. 

It'd need power-cycling every now and then. 

I also always had the sneaky suspicion that it was spying on me. 

 

It still served its purpose, but I'd get a bit agitated every time I'd have to use it, and would really hope for Apple to announce a new device soon. 

 

Only if I knew it was going to come out in '21, LOL. Anyway. I ordered it the first day it became available here. 

 

The "new" Apple TV 4K

You'd think that in four years of no hardware refreshes, that there would be more than a marginal update. Pff. Anyway. 

It is a solid device, about the size of a fist but flattened. It'd fit in inconspicuously in almost all settings. 

 

The really good things: 

1. The A/V quality is noticeably better. I couldn't find many reviews really comparing this aspect with other streaming devices, but compared to the low priced Fire stick, the LFE (bass), mids, and highs are definitely better. I found the biggest difference in the bass, where it not only is more pronounced, it is more nuanced, with increased depth, and feel. LFEs just sound better, like a layer has been added. The mids and highs are crisper.

Spoiler

(Side note: we just rewatched the final episode of For All Mankind, and there is a sequence where the LFEs are breathtaking. You feel like you're on the moon base, and it is trembling under the alarm system). 

 

2. If you're a part of the Apple ecosystem, this device is just cherry. Your photos, music, library, iOS and Mac mirroring, airplay, and apps just work. Additionally, if you have HomeKit compatible home security cameras and video door bells, the ATV will display live feed right on the big screen. 

 

3. The speed. This is a fast device. Launching apps, switching etc. is properly fluid. Not only that, apps stay in memory. You can pause a video, put everything to sleep, and when you'd wake it up the next day, most apps would resume from where you left them. This is fantastic. 

 

4. There's mostly no waiting. I think it keeps the stream in memory so no matter how many skip-backs you do, they're near instant like YouTube on the computer. Even when they're not, it is really quick. 

 

5. UI and UX are more consistent across apps, and their behaviour w.r.t. controls is usually salient. There are rogue apps like Hotstar and Sony LIV and they're absolutely hopeless.

 

6. The set-up: bring your iPhone close and all your settings, information, passwords etc. will move in. Even if you need to enter a password for some things, the phone will be prompted and you can use FaceID and the secure field will be filled, without you having to tap anything. Smooth. 

 

7. And my absolute favourite: "What did they say?". When you miss that odd word or sentence and just wish to read it back, ask Siri what they said. The video will skip-back approx 10 seconds, and subtitles will be turned on, which will be turned off again after that sequence has passed. This is so great that I wish a dedicated button was provided just for this feature. 

Honestly, I'd buy the Apple TV for this alone. 

 

The remote

 

MJFN3_AV1?wid=1144&hei=1144&fmt=jpeg&qlt

 

The new thing about the "new" ATV 4K in its entirety. 

It's okay, and does its job, but its not great. I've never found a single apple remote to be great, right from the white plastic days. The good is that this is aluminium and rechargeable, and has a certain heft which makes it feel substantial in the hand despite its small size. The bad is everything else. 

 

1. The buttons aren't great. For a remote that costs more than most full streaming devices, the buttons should damn well feel incredible to press. like they do on the iPhone, specially the flat-edged ones. These don't. The movement tolerance for buttons is certainly higher. And they make a muted clicking sound which isn't inaudible. The click isn't as satisfying either.

The Apple TV buttons just don't feel as nice to press. 

 

2. Because of the homogeneity of the surface, you'd pick it upside down and/or back to front many times. Disturbs immersion. 

The placement of mute and play/pause buttons would be better inter-changed. The PP button is pressed far more frequently than the mute button, and the mute being the first from bottom, is much better placed to be found with feel. 

 

3. The Siri button is placed a bit awkwardly. Even awkward-er if you're left handed, or using it so when the right is, er, busy. Also the delay in activating Siri when pressing the button is longer than I'd like it to be.

 

4. The shape: it really doesn't feel great in your hand. It's a bit too narrow, and flat. The edges aren't suitably dulled either. Can feel prickly. 

 

5. The newest thing about the remote is the clickwheel-esque touchpad. It works like the iPod clickwheel. Which, kinda obvious. Except that it doesn't. It won't scroll through lists, and to activate the click wheel scrolling within videos, you have to pause the video first, then hold your finger/thumb on the click wheel without pressing for several seconds before a ring-like UI will pop-up over the scroll bar to let you know you can scroll. Ugh. Who thought this was good implementation? I hope this is improved in a software update soon. It should just work like an iPod clickwheel. All the time. Everywhere. 

 

6. The touch-pad: the entire round thing up top is a touch-pad. This works well in most cases but isn't precise. If I want to move just a couple of icons across or down, I'd need to use the buttons, as with the touchpad it just bounces around a bit. Not great. 

 

7. The software and UI: there is so much wasted space and weird behaviours plastered all over this tvOS. The navigation is unnecessarily complex and needs a few more clicks/user input when there is no need to. It's just irritating. 

Eg: while playing music when a song is selected, the entire screen is taken up by cover art, and I'd have to either swipe/scroll one-by-one or have to press back twice to go back to list view. If I have scrolled while in cover view to a song I want to play next, and for some reason I don't take any action, the UI will revert back to the song that was playing, and I'd need to scroll again to find that song. UGH. 

Eg 2: when using "what did they say", there'd be a pop onscreen button which enables PIP. The bad part? This pop is right in the center just above the scroll bar, where the subtitles also show up. Just grates my nerves. What the fvck is happening in that tvOS team? 

 

Miscellaneous

Siri on Apple TV isn't officially available in India. Which is terribly idiotic since it has been available on just about every other device that supports it for a few years now. The bad part is that the only thing the Siri button will do when you press it is to take you into a search field where you'd be able to dictate. No Siri. And no "what did they say". 

There is a workaround. Change your region to US. But that will sign you out of your Apple account, which is inconvenient. So there's a second workaround. Sign in via the App Store app on Apple TV, and through the App Store app only. Siri will work. Your account will work. Purchases/subs will work. 

 

Volume buttons work with my receiver, via IR. Power button works on the receiver too, via HDMI-CEC. 

 

Screen saver transition is abrupt. Needs to be a smooth gradient, or at the very least, fade-to-black before it begins. 

 

Siri Shortcuts do not work. I don't think it'd be too difficult to issue APIs for button presses on the Apple TV remote. This would enable the single most missed feature for my theatre set-up: play/pause lights and drapes control. There are some home-brew and/or Raspberry Pi solutions but I'd rather not :/

 

So far then, no one, including Apple, has figured out how to make a remote which is aesthetically pleasing, feels good to hold, and is functionally sound. Apparently it is an extremely hard problem to solve. I hope that changes soon. 

 

6/10. 

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  • 4 months later...

Hey all!

 

I recently purchased a 4k VU TV and not really enjoying the sound coming from it.

 

I saw lots of recommendations for Edifier R1855DB bookshelf speakers on the TechEnclave forums, amazon reviews, and the interwebz: https://www.amazon.in/Edifier-R1855DB-Multimedia-Bookshelf-Bluetooth/dp/B08GJCLKW3 and placed an order.

 

I guess these are 2.0 (no sub) but the reviews say that there isn't need for an external sub as these are quite good.

 

Anyone has experience with Edifier speakers in-general or the R1855DB in particular?

 

These are going to be my first expensive audio purchase so quite excited to have my ears blown away. Also would be happy to learn more about everyone's home theater setups (be it 6k or 6cr :P)

 

 

 

Edited by ox-
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  • 2 months later...
2 hours ago, The Panda said:

Stupid f**king subwoofer is tricking me into enjoying every goddamn movie. Disconnected it from my stereo setup and successfully hated 3 movies back to back.


:lol:

Enjoy it while it lasts. It gets old fast, and then the only time you’re at peak sub is when you’re entertaining friends. 

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5 hours ago, achilles said:


:lol:

Enjoy it while it lasts. It gets old fast, and then the only time you’re at peak sub is when you’re entertaining friends. 

I thankfully haven't gotten over the initial :wub: and still adore my sub :wub:  Ofcourse I sometimes think about upgrading to a bigger sub but an upgrade will ANNIHILATE my budget for the next year :cry: 

8 minutes ago, Ne0 said:

Hi guys, anyone knows if we've a shop/service in Bangalore where we can purchase HT components and they also set up the same including cabling, tuning etc in the house ?

Yes! I can link you to shops but beware, not every shop stocks what you might want. Are you sure on what you want to get? Based on that we can find dealers who will co-ordinate everything for you.

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36 minutes ago, Ne0 said:

Hi guys, anyone knows if we've a shop/service in Bangalore where we can purchase HT components and they also set up the same including cabling, tuning etc in the house ?

Speak to Lokesh from htstore.in

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  • 4 months later...

Bump.

 

Guys, need recommendations for a soundbar based HT setup. I dropped the idea of avr/speakers etc , just need a simple setup which can support Atmos.

 

Some stuff i checked already (no demos, only reviews) :

 

- Sonos beam gen 2

- Sony HT g700

- Samsung 800qt

 

any suggestions ? There's also Yamaha 209, but it doesn't have Atmos. 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Max Pain said:

Wow! Denon X550BT AVR sucks so much! Terrible sound quality! Even the bass with a subwoofer is incredibly weak!

 

I tried a Chinese AMP called Topping PA3s and now my new 2.1 setup sounds incredible!

Oh really?Dang!

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54 minutes ago, abhi90 said:

Oh really?Dang!

 

Yup! I really did not like the sound quality! Fiddled with the settings (speaker size, crossover, sound mode, formats whatnot) for a couple of days with and without the subwoofer but it made no difference whatsoever! I thought it was the speakers or just my subwoofer being entry-level and not capable enough to blend well with passive speakers or both! I sent the receiver back and ordered Topping PA3s as last hope. Before it arrived, I searched some online forums and found some users complaining about Denon sound quality and their receivers lacking in bass.

 

Anyway, the amp finally arrived and I immediately noticed the difference! Clean, smooth and pleasant sound! Not noisy like before! Even the bass is better! Only thing that did not change much is the soundstage which was already great even with the receiver! I then tried the speaker level input/output on my subwoofer for 2.1 setup and holy sh*t, it's great!

Edited by Max Pain
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5 minutes ago, Max Pain said:


I was planning to build a 5.1 setup but no more!

Well I'd suggest you do, it's worth it. But off-late the prices have increased a lot as well :(

However a semi-decent 5.1 is perfect bruh :wub:

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