The Mancave is Alive!

As you may have already deduced, the mancave is now a full-blown theater. To see how the room evolved into its present form, check out this article. I've posted pictures below:

Here is a close view of the front speakers, Axiom M60, VP150 center and EP350v3 sub.

This is the focal point, a 92-inch Carada Criterion screen. The viewing area is 80"x45", 16:9 aspect ratio. Believe me, it's worth the extra $100 for the Criterion frame. It's super-stiff for a perfectly flat screen surface. It looks like a giant flat-panel TV!

Another view of the screen and front speakers. The center channel stand is by Axiom also. They will provide custom heights for no extra cost, really nice. All speakers and the stand are on spikes included by Axiom.

Here is the gear rack. It's a flexi built according to these instructions. It's amazingly solid. I put the acorn nuts on the bottom to act as feet. This makes the rack easy to pull out to reach the rear jack panels. The setup you see here is 100% digital. Only HDMI cables are used to connect the three source components. The Onkyo SR805 receiver is THX certified and decodes all lossless sound formats. It also features 8-point Audyssey room correction.

A closeup of the source components. On top is an Oppo 980 for SACD transport. This player outputs DSD over HDMI for a mere $169, amazing! The Panasonic BD-30 does a super job with Blu-ray and outputs all lossless sound formats as a bitstream. The only thing I don't like about it is that bright blue light on the front. Unfortunately, there's no way to turn it off. You can just see the Denon 2930CI peeking out below. This is still the best player out there for DVD upconversion. It's also built like a tank. I wish there were a Blu-ray player as good for under $1000. Is anyone out there listening?

Two views of the Axiom QS8 surround speaker. This a quad-pole design with midrange drivers on the top and bottom and tweeters on the vertical faces. These surrounds sound great in almost any placement position, they are very forgiving. The conduit below is cable raceway from Home Depot. It comes in white plastic with double-stick tape on the back. Stick to the wall, insert cable and paint for a finished look.

This is the shelf-mounted Panasonic AE2000U projector. This is a 3-LCD design using the latest Epson C2fine panels. Black levels are superb and the overall image is stunning. Adjustments are many and a near-perfect calibration can be achieved. Stay tuned for a full review and calibration report.

Sony KDS-60A3000 Calibration

History is replete with examples of products that were discontinued just when the manufacturer got them right. The latest victim of this injustice is Sony’s SXRD line of rear-projection TVs. These displays have always had benchmark status starting back with the Qualia series and its lower-priced successors, A2000, A2020 and A3000. Only the A3000 really got everything right. All the aspects of a quality TV are there; stable black levels, accurate color, good optics, 1080p/24 capability and correct gamma. Previous sets had most of these qualities but the A3000 finally had something I’d not seen since the last XBR960 I calibrated: accurate primary and secondary colors. This was the first Sony display, in my experience, with correct color out of the box.

My client was running his sources through an Anthem Statement D2 processor. This unit has Gennum VXP video processing so I ran my patterns through it to be sure of accurate results. As with most Sony TVs, all the controls needed are in the user menu. I started by setting the iris to a fixed aperture so it wouldn’t affect gamma and black level measurements. All enhancements were turned off. Black levels remained stable throughout the complete luminance range. Color space was left on standard. This set like many others supports an extended gamut (xvYCC) but no content is encoded with this colorspace. Engaging the wider gamut results in a cartoon-like picture with overblown color saturation. I did find use for the Live Color control. With the control set on medium, the CIE points were almost perfect and color separation seemed better. Since it had a positive effect, I left it on. Previous Sony products with this control do not benefit from its use.

Grayscale was easy to dial in with user menu controls as well. Tracking was within 100k of D65 after calibration, excellent performance. Gamma improved greatly from 1.7 to 2.1 after calibration. The gamma control did not have a positive effect so I left it off. Using it served only to raise the bottom of the curve. All adjustments were made with the Iris set on minimum. This ultimately hurt peak light output so I set in on Auto 2. Shadow detail was still excellent but peak luminance doubled to over 21 foot-lamberts. A 0 IRE field measured .008 fl for a contrast ratio of 2725:1. This was an ideal range for the room the TV was in. This TV is capable of prodigious light output but in a darkened room, anything over 20 fl will result in viewing fatigue. If ambient light had been an issue in this case, I would have opened up the iris to a larger, fixed aperture. I am a fan of automatic irises when you don’t see their operation. This is the case with the A3000. You don’t see the iris doing its thing when viewing content. Black level quality and shadow detail are excellent and you only notice the iris if you turn it off.

Once all adjustments to the Sony were complete, I dialed in the different sources using the Anthem’s adjustments. The Gennum VXP video processor has controls for everything except color management and grayscale. Small tweaks were made to brightness and some of the edge enhancement controls. DVD from the clients Oppo player was excellent and HDDVD played from an Xbox 360 looked stunning. Once you’ve experienced Blu-ray or HDDVD, you won’t want to watch any other format! For anyone considering a big TV like this, please hurry. Since Sony has ceased manufacturing this model, they won’t last long. I’ve seen them selling for under $2000. Imagine a 60-inch TV for under 2 grand! This has to be the video bargain of the century. As of today (March 9), Circuit City no longer has them in stock. If you already have one of these excellent displays, grab an extra bulb and consider a professional calibration. You should have no problem getting many years out of this TV.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Epson Home Cinema 1080UB Calibration

This projector is one of the heavy hitters in the hot sub-$3000 1080p projector market. I wrote about the Panasonic AE1000U recently and the AE2000U just found its way into my own theater, review to follow. This unit like the others in its class uses the latest C2Fine LCD panels from Epson. These panels offer superb black levels and a tack-sharp image as their top features. This unit did not disappoint in either area.

The menu system is quite large and covers every possible calibration control required. There are cuts and gains for grayscale, color management, 9-point gamma, lamp brightness, iris on/off, position and overscan and a very useful multi-level sharpness control.

I began with basic level adjustments. This projector really does render superb blacks. Pluge patterns were fully resolved with the setup level on 0 IRE. This allows passing below black and above white signals which are present in most DVD and Blu-ray content. I was able to fine-tune the color gamut using the excellent color management system which offers Hue, Saturation and Brightness for all six colors. Once I had made adjustments to cyan and magenta, the gamut and color decoding were right on the money.

Next I turned my attention to gamma and grayscale. As automatic irises play havoc with gamma measurements, I turned it off temporarily. My approach is to achieve a correct curve without the iris then turn it on viewing actual content to check black level detail. The 9-point gamma adjustment was really handy as I couldn’t achieve 2.2 even with the control set on 2.4! I lowered every point with the most adjustment in the low and mid areas. I finally settled on 2.12. Any higher and black would start to crush. The net effect was positive after I re-engaged the iris. Blacks were very inky with great shadow detail. The image really popped. This is one of the real justifications for a precise and thorough calibration. Without test equipment, it would be impossible to find the best balance between good black levels and a correct gamma curve.

Grayscale was a snap to adjust with a full set of cuts and gains available. Tracking was excellent, within 100k and under 0.5 DeltaC*. I checked the grayscale with both windows and full fields. This projector had excellent panel alignment and color uniformity. There was no perceptible variation across the screen.

With the proliferation of Blu-ray players outputting 24p and a compatible display such as this one, it pays to spend time with some motion patterns to ensure you’ve got everything set up correctly. This projector has excellent video processing so I wanted to take advantage of its inverse-telecine de-interlacing ability. This means setting the SD DVD player to output 1080i. The projector correctly discards the extra fields created by 3:2 pulldown and makes 24p from 60i. The end result is judder-free motion from standard DVD. Blu-ray output is obviously set to 1080p/24. Unless you have a really good SD DVD player or an outboard video processor, I recommend sending a compatible display 1080i whenever possible.

My customary post-calibration reality check was quite enjoyable. In fact, it stretched to about an hour of watching scenes from different movies! Switching back and forth between Blu-ray and DVD versions of The Fifth Element really showed off the projector’s excellent image and excellent video processing. The Blu-ray was obviously superior but the DVD looked great too. Even though Blu-ray has won the war, we’ll be watching DVDs for a few years to come. It pays to consider this when purchasing any display or player. This particular system had an Oppo 981 for DVD. I recommend this or the more expensive Denon 2930CI. None of the currently available Blu-ray players can upconvert DVD as well as the Oppo or Denon units. A projector like this deserves the best sources available. For anyone considering a new projector, you won’t be disappointed with the Epson 1080UB. With superior projectors costing at least 3 times as much, you’ll have plenty of cash left over for a calibration and some quality source components.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Hitachi 51F500 Calibration

Though requests for CRT calibrations are less frequent these days, I always enjoy the unique qualities these TVs possess. I also enjoy the before and after effect. A CRT can really be transformed into a superb and accurate display capable of very high image quality. This TV is very similar to the F510 model but with a more limited user menu. The service menu however has all the same controls available in its extensive ISF mode to achieve a spectacular image.

When I arrived on site, this TV really need some work. Color was quite flat and the image was very soft. I began with a full manual convergence. I displayed the set’s internal grid and worked my way from the center spiraling outwards. This can be tricky because the guns are defocused during this operation. You really have to get up close and personal with the screen to see what you’re doing. It’s a painstaking process but quite necessary. After about 45 minutes, I was finished. The results were immediately apparent. Clarity was greatly improved and some color had returned to the image.

Moving on to the calibration portion; primaries measured very accurately as with most quality CRTs. The service menu allows turning off the individual guns so aligning the decoder was a breeze. Turning off several options in service eliminated the red and green push inherent in these TVs. Black levels were also very stable at all light levels. This TV has an excellent power supply. This is the most important component in any CRT or plasma display. An inferior power supply will allow black levels to change as light output or APL increases. Grayscale unfortunately was nowhere close, even on the Warm color temp setting. It was so blue, several IREs measured beyond the limit of my metering software (18,000K!). Fortunately, this was easy to fix in service. There are 3 color temp memories, high, medium and standard. I adjusted the standard one to D65.

Once the grayscale and decoder were dialed in a final tweak of brightness and contrast brought the image up to a very high standard. One small surprise: the Scan Velocity Modulation control actually made a positive improvement in image clarity. With Sharpness set to 0, the SVM did improve the picture without introducing any ringing. I usually leave these sorts of options turned off but in this case, Hitachi got it right.

We checked out the results with some hi-def satellite and Blu-ray from a Panasonic BD30. Both sources did a super job at rendering 1080i, the set’s native resolution. Blu-ray content was artifact-free and looked simply stunning. Color depth and dynamic range were every bit the equal of the best plasma panels out there. For those wondering, this TV had not been modified in any way. I have encountered some of these units where clients had lined the cabinet with light-absorbing Duvetyne and or removed the screen cover to cut glare. These mods can show an improvement but in the right viewing environment, they are not necessary. My client’s room had good light control so there were no issues with reflections on the screen or stray light entering the cabinet.

My client has owned this TV for 4 years and plans to hang on to it for a few more. With proper maintenance and adjustment, this is a totally reasonable goal. The image quality is top-notch and the TV is well-constructed. I would recommend adjusting convergence every 6 months and follow-up calibrations every 12-18 months to anyone looking to get a few more miles out of one of these TVs. The DVI (HDMI on the 510) connection is HDCP compliant so current HDMI sources will work. If you have one of these displays in good working order, consider an ISF calibration before you toss it out. You might be pleasantly surprised at the results!

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Choosing Components for Front-Projection

Now that my mancave has evolved into a theater, I have had to expand my research into front-projection systems. I use the word system because that’s exactly what it is. There is a projector and screen of course but there is a sometimes forgotten element - the room. Before you spend one dime, you have to know the exact conditions of the room; light control, mounting positions for projector and screen, wall and ceiling construction and of course, throw distance.

Ideally, a theater should have total light control. You should be able to make it totally dark. This includes light leaks around the entry door which can be considerable. Windows can be covered with blackout curtains but the best method is some sort of panel or shutter. In my case, I used acoustic panels to both cover the windows and act as sound treatment. To seal the door, I used some thin rubber strips in the door frame and a sweep for the door’s bottom edge. Not only is light sealed out but sound transmission through the door is nearly eliminated.

My next order of business was choosing a screen. I knew I wanted a fixed-frame screen for a few reasons. Since the room is a theater, I don’t need to retract the screen at any time. I also wanted a wide, light absorbing frame. Lastly, the highest image quality comes with a perfectly flat screen. I chose Carada based on excellent reviews, value and design. Their Criterion Series screens have a 3.25” wide by 1.5” deep extruded aluminum frame covered with a velvet-like material they call “Black Hole Trim.” They are not exaggerating about this. It really does absorb all light. I’ll be able to take the image right to the edge when I have the projector set up. This frame is extremely stiff. The screen can’t help but be perfectly flat. The mounting system allows the screen to hang on a bracket so if the wall isn’t flat (mine certainly isn’t) the screen still will be. The screen material is also important. Carada offers three: high-contrast gray, cinema white and brilliant white. The gray has a gain of .8 and will improve contrast at the expense of light output. Black levels will be very good with this material. Cinema white has a 1.0 gain which means it will be completely neutral. Brilliant white (my choice) has a gain of 1.4. I do like bright whites and 1.4 is not such a large increase in light output. Given that I measured .02fl on a 0 IRE field from an AE1000, a gain of 1.4 will give me .028fl, still quite black!

My choices in projectors started with price. I wanted to spend under $3000. Fortunately, there are many excellent models to choose from. The top models from Epson, Panasonic, Sanyo and Mitsubishi all have just the right attributes for a small theater like mine. Using the excellent throw distance calculator on ProjectorPeople.com, I determined the Panasonic AE2000U could project a 92” image within my possible throw of about 11 feet. I also thought very hard about mounting options. Certainly a ceiling mount would work but I have some obstacles. The walls in my house are old-world plaster making stud finding a real challenge. I certainly would need to attach a ceiling mount to the joist for safety’s sake. I also have an 8’6” ceiling in the theater. Putting the projector that high would be too far above the screen top for my taste. Even though the Panasonic has a large vertical lens shift range, I’d rather keep the projector closer to screen center for better uniformity. I decided to go with a shelf about 6 feet high. The shelf gives me another bonus: adjustability. To achieve the best image, you need to have the projector and screen perfectly on plane both vertically and horizontally. You can do this with a ceiling mount but you have to be sure to buy one that allows pitch, yaw and rotation adjustments.

There are of course other considerations with projector models, namely, black level quality, color accuracy, image clarity and light output. While the SMPTE standard for cinema is 16 foot-lamberts with no film in the projector, many professionals are recommending 20fl peak. The Panasonic AE2000U can achieve this. By using the formula: fl=(lumens/screen area in square feet)*gain, a peak reading of 402 lumens with a 92”, 16:9 (25 square feet), 1.4 gain screen yields 22.5fl, more than enough. The color accuracy is certainly there with the 2000 and black levels are superb. This projector uses the same D7 C2fine panels as the Epson Ultra-Black series. Black levels I measured from an AE1000U were the same as a good plasma panel.

My final consideration is the room’s construction. As I said, my walls are plaster and therefore more difficult to work with than drywall. I have the added challenge of mounting the screen over a window. The window is totally covered with black acoustic panels and I’ll be covering the rest of the wall behind the screen with black burlap. This will absorb any light that shines through the screen material. These reflections can alter the color if your walls are not perfectly color-neutral. Many installers use either flat black paint or black carpet to do solve this problem. To find studs to support the projector shelf and screen brackets, I’ll drill small holes. The location for the shelf is right over an electrical outlet. There is a stud on one side or the other which I’ll confirm by removing the wall plate. Once I confirm the stud’s location, I’ll use 3.5” lag bolts to secure everything.

All this information is out there in various places on the internet. Hopefully, this will tie together a few things for those of you interested in going to front-projection. Prices and quality have never been better and you don’t need a huge room to have a huge screen. I’ll never have to go to the movies again!

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Panasonic TH-42PH9UK Pro Plasma Calibration

The plasma market is dominated by just 2 manufacturers, Panasonic and Pioneer. I have already covered the Kuro 5010FD and the Panasonic PZ700U. The third TV vying for alpha status in this hot segment is the professional line of Panasonic plasmas. There are 720p and 1080p models ranging from 37 to 103 inches. Today’s subject is the 42-inch, 720p PH9UK.

The pro-Panasonic models are strictly monitors. There is no internal tuner or speakers. You can buy add-on speakers which bolt to the sides of the panel for about $600. You’ll also need to add a pedestal stand or a wall-mount bracket. Inputs are customizable with 3 slots for “blades” or terminal boards. You can have different combinations of HDMI and analog inputs to suit your particular system. The newest models, the PF10 series, come with a dual HDMI board that accepts 24p signals. This particular PH9 had a single HDMI input and a component input, both of which I calibrated.

Each input has its own memory for all settings which is very nice. There are a complete set of controls in the user menu for grayscale and gamma. In addition you can adjust image size and position for each scan rate independently. Upon setting up my pattern generator, the first thing I noticed was the extremely stable black levels. There was no visible change in the pluge patterns as I moved through different APL patterns. The DC restoration was every bit the equal of a Pioneer Kuro. Color primaries were slightly oversaturated but the decoding was spot on at factory defaults. Rec 709 colorspace was used for all scan rates. Grayscale was fair at the warm color temp setting. Once the white balance controls were adjusted, tracking was within 100k of D65 from 20-100 IRE. There are only red and blue controls for high and low but they were sufficient to achieve a nearly perfect grayscale. The newer models have a full set of RGB cuts and gains. There is a gamma control which has 4 settings. Default is 2.2 but to actually achieve a 2.2 gamma, I had to set it on 2.4. The gamma curve was absolutely perfect at all scan rates on both component and HDMI. I was able to set contrast fairly high without any color shift. This gave me a bright, punchy image upon completion of my work.

The end result was a reference-quality image for both HD and SD. These panels are used professionally as mastering monitors for a good reason. The video processing on this panel is excellent. It did quite well with the motion tests on Avia Pro. Upconversion of SD material was very good. Since this panel is actually 1366x768, all material is scaled including 720p content. It will accept 1080i signals. I can’t help but recommend this and all pro-Panasonic panels as the value leader. A 50-inch PF10UK can be had for under $2500, accepts 1080p/24 and is a rugged, well-built TV. The 720p panels are even cheaper with the 50-inch coming in at under $1500. You can’t go wrong with any panel from either Panasonic or Pioneer. But you’re looking for the most display for the money and you don’t need speakers or a tuner, the pro-Panasonics can’t be beat.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Panasonic AE1000U LCD Projector Calibration

The 1080p projector market is white-hot these days with several superb units priced at under $3000. Even one year ago, this was almost unheard of. Epson, Sanyo, Mitsubishi and the subject of today's article, Panasonic, all make models. The model I calibrated is the AE1000U. It has been recently replaced by the AE2000U. This unit uses a new LCD panel set and is slightly brighter. In fact, the 2000 uses the same panels as the new Epson HC1080UB. But I digress: The AE1000U has every possible calibration control available in the user menu. You have complete control over color primaries and secondaries, grayscale, and a neat 3-point gamma control. There is also a waveform monitor that makes setting black and white levels very easy. You can have the waveform on the screen while you navigate through the various menus and make your adjustments.

The AE1000U has 2 HDMI inputs as well as component, s-video and composite inputs. There is also an RS-232 port for control systems. There is no IR hookup but the receiver on the front of the unit is very sensitive. I had no trouble bouncing the remote off the screen to control the projector. My client had the projector ceiling mounted with about a 12-foot throw to a 100-inch Da-Lite fixed-frame screen. I measured the screen's gain at 1.1

First up was geometry. It's important to have the image perfectly positioned without visible distortion. There are horizontal and vertical lens shift controls for this purpose. There is also a 2x zoom for lots of flexibility in sizing and placement. Vertical shift range is one-half screen height above or below the screen. Using the extremes of the vertical shift will limit the horizontal shift. This is not an issue if you place the projector's center-mounted lens within a few inches of screen center. Once image geometry was set, the calibration was pretty much the same as a direct-view display. Black and white levels were set with pluge patterns and checked with the waveform monitor. I measured gamma before grayscale calibration and came up with a disappointing 1.71. After turning off the dynamic iris, it improved to 2.0. I was able to get it to 2.2 with the 3-point gamma control, which has sliders for high, mid and low. I only needed to lower the low control to get a perfect curve. Given this result, I left the iris off permanently.

Grayscale was no problem with the complete set of RGB gains and cuts available. Color decoding allows several approaches. You can adjust the primaries with the color management system. This involves displaying a pattern, a 75% color window works for me; then setting a target to adjust. You can tweak the color, tint and brightness of the primaries (or any other color for that matter) this way. After some very small adjustments to the color profile, I had a perfectly aligned decoder and primaries and secondaries were spot-on. At this point, I should talk about the different picture modes. The 2 to be concerned with are Cinema 1 and Color 1. Cinema 1 is claimed to be "Hollywood style colors" in the manual. It places a filter in the light path that darkens the image. It also appeared to me to introduce a slight yellow shift. Color 1 does not use the filter and is pretty much right on Rec 709, HD standard. Obviously, I left it on Color 1. The other modes are progessively less accurate.

When I was finished, I was able to save the settings in the first of the AE1000U's 8 memories. There are also 3 memories for the color profile should you wish to have multiple color gamuts available. My client's sources were an HD cable box and a Toshiba A20 HD-DVD player. The image simply leapt off the screen! Planet Earth in HD-DVD looked simply stunning. I cued up a scene where a colorfully-clad base jumper jumps into a giant cave shaft in the middle of the South American jungle. The blackness of the hole was very impressive. Any stigma LCD projectors might have had about black quality was not apparent with this model. In fact, I measured the minimum black level on a 0IRE field at .02fl. This is in the same range as any plasma I've measured. Max light output was 14fl, plenty bright for a totally dark room and a 10-foot seating distance.

I can't imagine a better projector for a small theater than this Panasonic. Other reviews I've read seem to bear this out. This projector is also the quietest I've ever worked on. You have to put your ear right up to it to hear the cooling fan. The color is very accurate, the gamma is perfect and dynamic range is very wide. At this point, I plan to add an AE2000U to my personal theater. For the same or less money than a quality 50-inch plasma TV, you can go front projection. I guess for me 92 is the new 50! Stay tuned for an article I'm preparing on my selection process for a projector and screen. There are many factors to consider when choosing the right equipment for your theater. Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

The Importance of Seating in Home Theater Design

I recently got the recliners pictured below delivered for my mancave project. I ordered them from the Theater Seat Store. I can't say buying furniture without trying it out first is the smartest thing I've ever done but they looked just perfect in the photos on the vendor's website and sure enough, they are! All seating surfaces are leather and the padding has the ideal firmness. They recline quite far back as you can see and can still be set pretty close to the wall. The chairs are made by Vanguard HTS and are called Charlize.

One warning about Theater Seat Store. They are a good company and their prices are very reasonable. Their shipping method however was not clearly spelled out. They advertise free shipping and it was indeed free. The problem arose when Fedex Freight called to schedule the delivery. They informed me that it was curbside only. The driver would be alone and he would not bring the 2 immense boxes weighing about 150 pounds into my house. I had to arrange for a friend to come over and help me. They do offer a "white glove service" which costs 10% of the purchase price. For that fee, they will bring the furniture in and unpack it for you. If you buy from Theater Seat Store, just be sure to have some strong help available when your seats arrive.

Once the seats were in place, I spent some quality time sitting in them and envisioning the display area at the front of the room. I had planned to build a flexi-rack to accomodate all the electronics with the center channel speaker and plasma panel on top. I say "had" because after staring at the wall for awhile, I had a revelation: why not a projector? I had considered a projector a few months ago and dismissed the idea based on cost and thinking "do I really want to sit 10 feet from a 92-inch screen?" I found a white sheet and folded it so it would match the dimensions of a 92-inch, 16:9 screen (80" x 45"). I taped it up on the wall and had my wife join me for a look. After about 1 minute, she said "why can't we get a projector?" Honest, this really happened. This is a milestone in WAF (wife acceptance factor) history.

I do plan more detailed reports on the projection setup in the near future but for now, here is the updated gear list:

Panasonic AE2000U LCD projector
Carada 92" Brilliant White screen (1.4 gain)
Panasonic BD30 Blu-ray player (just arrived today in fact)
Oppo 980 DVD player
Lumagen Vision HDP video processor
Onkyo TX-SR805 surround receiver
Axiom Epic 60 surround speaker system

As you can see, the seating makes a real difference in how you perceive a viewing environment. Because of my experience, I recommend making chairs among the first purchases. I originally designed this room around a purpose: ultimate sound and light control to allow me to choose any display I wished. The seating really changed my vision from a viewing room into a screening room. Oh yes, the cost, I did mention that earlier. It seems that the sub-$3000 portion of the projector market is white-hot right now. Epson, Panasonic, Sanyo, Mitsubishi and Optoma all have superb units boasting full 1080p and excellent image quality. Thanks to the information at Projector Reviews.com, I chose the Panasonic. My choice of the Carada screen was based on quality for the money. The reviews on it were all exemplary and the value is the best in the business. You can read more about there products here.

I'd better end this article before I get too far off topic. My advice: choose your seating and get it in your theater before you commit to any display. You may find the chairs will tell you how the rest of the room should be done. Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Pioneer Plasma 5010FD Calibration

Much has been written in praise of the current line of Pioneer plasmas called Kuro. These TVs are reputed to have contrast ratios and black levels comparable to CRTs. I can say after spending some quality time with a 5010FD that this reputation is well-earned. The 5010 is part of a line that includes 42 and 50-inch 720p panels and 50 and 60-inch 1080p panels. Each variant is available as an Elite model as well. The 5010 is the 50-inch 1080p, non-Elite version. The glass and video processing is the same across all the 1080p sets. The Elite TVs add more adjustments and more precise setup at the factory. They also have a different screen coating to improve contrast and ambient light rejection. They also add $1000 to the retail price!

My subject today is the calibration of a 5010FD. Sources were a satellite tuner and a Denon DVD player, both connected via HDMI. The client had made no adjustments prior to my visit so I was starting with an out-of-the-box TV. There are the usual picture modes but only Movie and User allow access to all adjustments. These are in a sub-menu called Pro Adjust. I started in Movie mode. All enhancements were turned off. I immediately found a lot of interaction between Brightness, Contrast and the 3 Gamma settings. I also discovered differences in grayscale and gamma between Movie and User modes. Staying with User mode, I optimized Brightness and Contrast and achieved the best Gamma with setting 1. After adjusting Color and Tint with my CA6X analyzer, I found the grayscale to be within a whisker of D65 without having adjusted any Gains or Cuts. These controls are available in service but they just weren't necessary in this case. I really took my time to maximize the overall contrast ratio. In the end, I achieved a perfect gamma of 2.2, a grayscale within 150k of D65 and an ANSI contrast ratio of 448:1. Some of the black squares in the pattern read below .005 foot-lamberts, the lower limit of my meter! 100 IRE measured 21.97 fL with a full field and 49.5 fL with a window. This is the highest contrast I've ever measured. This was with a fully-resolved Pluge pattern and nearly perfect color accuracy.

Moving on to the DVD player, I noticed a change in gamma when I copied my new settings to its input. I tried changing to the Movie mode and things greatly improved. Gamma was back at 2.2 and the grayscale was again within 150k of D65. The player was a Denon 1940, an excellent player in the $350 range. A few tweaks to the other controls to dial in the player and my job was done.

All in all, this was a very pleasurable calibration. This TV is extremely well-made and color accuracy is obviously a priority for Pioneer. I still believe it benefits from professional calibration (of course!). There are interactions between most of the controls and without the benefit of instruments and experience, it's easy to become lost. This is truly a high-end video display. Why not set it up for maximum performance? One side note: this is one of the few displays on the market that supports 24p input, displaying the signal at 72 Hz. This makes it a perfect display for hi-def disc players that output 1080p/24. A new Blu-ray player is the perfect match for this excellent TV. Pioneer has really raised the bar with the Kuro line.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Samsung BD-UP5000 Mini-Review

I got this player in from Crutchfield sooner than expected. Rumors had it shipping in mid-January but it showed up on December 19 while I was away. I finally had time to hook it up last weekend. I'm calling this a mini-review because I didn't test the player completely. I had no HD or Blu-ray discs on hand. I decided to do a thorough test using Avia Pro patterns and some familiar DVD content.

Overview
This is a dual-format optical disc player. It supports HD-DVD, Blu-ray and DVD as well as CD audio. It features HQV video processing via the Silicon Optix Reon VX chip. It is advertised to support the Blu-ray Final Profile 1.1 as well as Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, DTS HD, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. It features output at every resolution from 480i (analog only) to 1080p and it will output 1080p/24 to a compatible display. It will scale DVDs to 1080p over HDMI only. The component output will play HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs up to 1080i if the Image Restraint Token is not present (no current titles have this). It has an Ethernet port for interactive content and firmware updates. The chassis is identical to the Blu-ray only BD-P1400 player. A shiny black finish (which shows fingerprints if you even think about touching it) covers the entire box, front, top and sides. Interestingly, my player had many fingerprints on it when I unpacked it. There were no other signs that it was used however. I guess the factory worker who boxed it didn't wear gloves that day! Rear-panel connections include HDMI, Component Video, Composite Video and S-Video. There are optical and coaxial digital audio outputs and stereo and 7.1 channel analog audio outs. The overall look is attractive and would certainly look good in any rack.

Testing
In this section I'll only report what I tested. There are some other issues which I'll highlight later that I didn't test but are well documented on the AVS Forum in this thread. I hooked up to my Samsung DLP via HDMI and connected a coax cable to my Denon 3806 for audio. I powered on the player after the TV to be sure of a correct HDMI handshake. I had read this player was fussy about the EDID of the display so I didn't want to cause any problems. The player correctly reported all my available resolutions. I set it for 720p and set the audio to Bitstream audiophile. This ensured a direct bitstream of Dolby Digital for decoding in the receiver. I began with Lost Season 3 on DVD. I chose this because my wife and I had just spent the last 2 weeks watching this (our favorite show) so it was familiar and fresh on the brain. I immediately noticed a difference from my reference player, the Denon 2930CI. Unfortunately it was for the worse. Blacks appeared somewhat crushed, color was a bit flat and the overall image seemed a tad soft. This surprised me as both this player and my Denon use the same HQV video processor! Sound quality was excellent. I detected no difference in audio from my Denon player.

After about 20 minutes of Lost, I reached for Avia Pro to view some test patterns. My suspicions about black crush were confirmed. The bottom end was mostly gone. I also noticed the grayscale was not a uniform color of gray. There were color errors at several IRE levels. A smooth ramp pattern showed this even more. At least 15% of the grayscale had a noticable color shift. Some parts were blue, some red and some green. I ran a luma pattern that shows black pluge bars on the left and a steadily increasing field on the right. By the 50% level, the pluge bars had disappeared. My TV does float black levels normally but this player seemed to intensify the effect! I was able to cure the black crush by raising Brightness 5 clicks. This did not affect the color shifts in the grayscale. To the player's credit, it aced all the HQV tests for motion processing and noise reduction. Silicon Optix really does make an excellent product. I just don't think it was implemented well in this player.

Another issue which I found inexcusable was the player's lack of an Auto-Squeeze aspect mode. Even cheap players have this. When playing a 4:3 DVD on a 16:9 TV, the player will automatically change the output aspect ratio so as not to stretch 4:3 content. This player will stretch whether you want it to or not! You can change the aspect on your display if you want but not all TVs support a 4:3 mode over HDMI. It's also very inconvenient when you're watching mixed content like DVD featurettes which change aspect ratios midstream.

After verifying the test patterns again with my Denon player (they were fine and dandy), I decided to return the player to Crutchfield. They are an excellent company to deal with. Their 30-day return policy includes return shipping on their dime so I wasn't out a cent.

Other Things I've Learned
There's a great FAQ on this player compiled by a poster on AVS. Click here to check it out. I'll give you a few of the more important points. DTS HD Master Audio is not yet supported. Dolby TrueHD is only output over 2 channels. Final Profile 1.1 is not supported in firmware. These issued are supposed to be addressed with the first firmware update coming in the next few weeks. There have been reports of various Blu-ray titles not working properly with this player. It is interesting to me (and others) that only Crutchfield, Circuit City and Best Buy seem to have this player for sale. Amazon is telling pre-order customers February 15. Could this be some sort of soft launch or public beta? Who can say?

Conclusions
Needless to say, I am disappointed in this player. I really wanted a one-box solution for all movie formats. I've spent the last 2 days re-thinking my new system and I've come to the realization that I'm going to have to live with 3 players going through a Lumagen video processor to achieve the imaging nirvana I'm seeking. The last straw was the discovery that the 5000 doesn't output 480i over HDMI. This is a must if I'm to use it as a transport for DVD. My new plan is to use an Oppo 970 and separate HD and Blu-ray players. I'm leaning toward the Panasonic BD-30 for Blu-ray and the Toshiba HD-A35 for HD. The cost of the Panny/Toshiba combo is about the same as the Samsung 5000 so no loss there. I have plenty of HDMI switching capability with my new Onkyo 805 receiver and the Lumagen HDP. For now, Samsung still has some work to do to make the BD-UP5000 ready for prime time.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Quick Mancave Update

I'm going to be on the road for the next 2 weeks so I wanted to post a quick update on my progress. I just got in the Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver. I did a test this morning with all speakers connected and audio over coax from my Denon 2930CI player. The test was a resounding success! I didn't do any setting of delays or levels. I spun a few CDs and tried both 2-channel and 5-channel listening modes. The DTS:Neo6 Music sounded pretty good. I may experiment more with the different DSP surround modes once everything is in place in the new room. Onkyo's menu and setup routine is much easier than Denon's. The manual is also better by a large factor. It only took me a few minutes to setup bi-amping and assign the digital input. Onkyo's remote is also far better than the weird unit that comes with the Denon 3806. Eventually though, I'll be running everything in the mancave with a Harmony 890.

I also pre-ordered the Samsung BD-UP5000 from Crutchfield. I heard just last night that one person received a ship notice from Crutchfield on this player so I expect mine soon. All information I have so far confirms that it will output 1080p/24 on both HDDVD and BluRay. It also bitstreams all the new lossless audio codecs for decoding by an appropriate receiver. In my case, the Onkyo fills that task. If you want, it will decode all lossless formats and output them over HDMI or analog if you have an older receiver or processor.

I've been following a thread on AVS about the new Panasonic commercial plasma, the 50" PF10UK. This set will accept 1080p/24 and display it at a 48hz refresh rate. What this means is judder-free images from HD and BluRay discs encoded at 1080p/24. When I add the Lumagen video processor, I'll be able to do this with standard DVDs as well. I'll input 1080i/60 and have the Lumagen do inverse-telecine deinterlacing for 1080p/24 output.

Things are coming along quite nicely and I expect to have some more pictures to post soon. Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Mancave Progress Report

I have reached my goal of completing the basics of the room by Thanksgiving. I had already finished the painting before my last post. The next step was to install the flooring. My plan is twofold: reduce bass resonance from the floor which is completely unsupported and keep sound out of the living room below. I accomplished this with 3 different material layers. First, a heavy plastic layer to create an air barrier and protect the nice hardwood floor from the next layer, rock board. I had originally thought I'd use sheetrock but when I saw the rockboard, I went for that. It's far heavier and denser than sheetrock. It's designed to be used as the walls in a bathroom. It comes in 3 x 5 sheets. You'll want a friend to help you get it home, each sheet weighs about 40 pounds! It's easily scored and broken to be fit into place. For the cuts around the radiator feet, I used a masonry wheel on my circular saw. On top of the rock board went a layer of OSB plywood. This is to keep furniture feet from crumbling the rockboard through the carpet. I finished off with carpet and pad. Below, you can see the layers. This edge is by the door into the room. I'll be trimming it with wood before the room's done.

My next task was the accoustical treatments. I did a fair amount of research on this subject. There are many companies that sell panels in every shape and size but they aren't cheap. I decided to build my own. I bought my material from ATS Accoustics. They sell all the raw materials you'll need. I got 2 cases of Roxul Rockboard 60 (6, 2 x 4 foot sheets per case). This material is rigid and reasonably lightweight yet very dense. It has a density of 6 pounds per cubic foot. It's comparable to Owens-Corning 705 but about half the cost. I also got 15 yards of burlap and some 3M spray adhesive. The panels were pretty easy to make. I cut 8, 2 x 2 foot pieces for the walls. The material cuts very easily with a sharp kitchen knife. The burlap just glues on and wraps around the back. I didn't use any frames. I hung them on the wall with a few screws to cradle them. You can't attach anything to the Roxul itself, it's too fragile. The screws are under the corners of each diamond shape.

As you can see in the photos, I also covered the windows. The panels fit in via friction. No hardware was required. I put a large enough panel on the bottom of each window that if I wish to install a window AC unit, I can just remove the panel. Once I had the window panels in place, the room really sounded great. It's quite something to just stand in the room and talk. I feel like I have a new piece of gear. I can't wait to have electronics in there!

My recliners are on the way from the Theater Seat Store. I went for the Charlize model. There will be 2 chairs with a common center armrest, black leather of course. I've also got the hardware I need to build a 36-inch flexi-rack. You can see a great article about that here. Thanks to Jeremy Brown for his great article, pics and most importantly, McMaster-Carr part numbers! I will have pics and articles about all the upcoming builds; the flexi-rack, plasma stand and surround speaker stands. Also, stay tuned for gear and lighting updates. Panasonic has just come out with a new commercial plasma that I have my eye on. I'm also still waiting for that Samsung Duo player. The latest rumors have shipping January 15th. My lighting will consist of some floor standing fixtures and an Ideal-Lume bias light behind the TV from Cinema Quest.

Lastly, I am now a Lumagen dealer so one of their fine products will be going in this room. A complete review will be coming soon. Please stay tuned for all updates. Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

I'm Building a Mancave!

Yes, the time has come to build a room of my very own. I have a very nice setup in the living room currently but my thirst for high performance has left me wanting more. Here is a picture of my present setup:

It's hard to see the gear in this photo so here's a list:

• Samsung DLP TV, HL-R5067W (50")
• Denon AVR-3806 Receiver
• Denon DVD-2930CI Universal Disc Player
• Scientific Atlanta 8300HD Cable DVR
• Axiom M60 towers and VP150 center (not pictured: EP350 sub and QS8 surrounds)

It's all installed on a bench I built with a friend. It's great for movies but not so great for music. The main reason being the speakers are too close together and too high. I put them up on the bench to help clear the furniture. You can see the upholstered chair on the right side of the picture. This chair blocks the woofers in the right channel. This rig is in a corner which is less than ideal. Plus, there is a large opening to my dining room on the left and an open doorway in the rear. Sound absorption isn't bad with the upholstered furniture and a large carpet. Also, because I live in a duplex, I can't really run the sound at reference levels. I finally then got the OK from my wife to turn our unused bedroom upstairs into a dedicated theater room.

Here is my blank canvas:

This room is approximately 12'x12' with an 8' 6" ceiling. Not quite a cube luckily! The color on the walls is graphite with just a little bit of shine. I just painted it. I wanted a matte finish but the dark paints from Lowe's all had this finish. It's OK though since I'll be putting up sound absorbing panels and completely covering the windows. There will be carpet too, of course. A ceiling fan will replace the current fixture and I will be building a radiator cover to hide that eyesore. My first order of business will be the floor. This room is directly above the living room and I want to keep sound from going through the floor. To that end, I'm installing a layer of rock board and a layer of OSB under the carpet. This should provide sufficient mass to keep my music and movies from traveling into the room below. This room is also opposite the shared wall in my duplex so high volume won't be a problem for the neighbors.

Here is the proposed gear list:

• Onkyo TX-SR805 Receiver
• Samsung BD-UP5000 HD/BluRay Player
• Axiom M60, VP150, QS8, EP350 surround speaker system
• Panasonic TH50-PZ700U 50" plasma TV

I'm also planning more home-built furniture to hold all these goodies. I'll be building a flexi-rack for the gear and stands for the surround speakers and the TV. I'll finish it all off with a pair of theater recliners in leather of course. I'll control it all with another Harmony 890 like I use downstairs. Despite my less than glowing review of this unit, the latest software and firmware seems to be working perfectly. I haven't had to press the Help button in several months. Another piece of gear I hope to add to all this is a Lumagen video processor. I'm currently in the application phase of becoming a dealer for their products. They represent the ideal solution for an ISF calibrator. ISF in a box if you will. A Lumagen offers complete control over color, grayscale, gamma, geometry and even signal timing. And they do this for far less than competing units from Pixel Magic or DVDO. I'm really excited to be able to offer these products. When I get a few in, I'll be sure to post a complete review.

Please come back soon over the next few weeks as the mancave evolves. I'll post pictures and a blow-by-blow as the room moves toward completion. Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Samsung LN-T4665F LCD Calibration

This 46" LCD is part of Samsung's latest line of excellent LCD panels. It is full 1080p of course with a plethora of features. The bezel is a thin piano black and a tabletop stand is included. This panel is well-suited for a 5-10 foot viewing distance and would fit right into a small to medium-sized viewing room.

Calibration of this set was a pleasure as all the necessary adjustments can be made in the user menu. The first step is to engage the Movie Mode. This picture mode opens all the extra adjustments and gives you complete control over image enhancements. There are full controls for white balance and gamma which is quite rare in consumer TVs. Several of the picture enhancement features had interesting results when adjusted. I started with Pluge patterns to set brightness and contrast. I immediately noticed floating black levels. This was defeated by turning off Black Adjust. Once this was done, the TV had perfect DC restoration with no change in black level as the Average Picture Level (APL) increased. When viewing white Pluge patterns, I noticed as the Contrast control was adjusted, the color shifted quite noticeably. This was solved by turning off Dynamic Contrast. I also lowered the Backlight control and set the Color Tone to Warm2.

Color decoding was excellent using the Auto colorspace and turning off xvYCC. This is an extended colorspace that does not conform to any standards currently in use. It will make colors appear blown-out and unnaturally saturated. Measurements showed it to be somewhere between Rec. 709 and the Wide Gamut appearing on some newer TVs. White balance was adjusted to within 200k of D65 with a perfect 2.2 gamma. This LCD has the best gamma and black levels of any LCD I've calibrated to date. I achieved a minimum black level of .028 fL, excellent performance.

The final result was almost a plasma-like image. Color accuracy and saturation were excellent and dynamic range was greatly improved over what I started with. Since this TV is capable of excellent light output and has an anti-glare screen, I would recommend it for rooms without light control. It competes very well with daylight and other in-room light sources. Viewing angle is also above-average for an LCD. I have seen this TV for sale under $2500, a superb value. With the steep drop in flat panel prices over the last year or so, an LCD or plasma is now within reach of many more people. Given the vast adjustability and superb image quality of this display, I would not hesitate to put it in my top 5 recommendations.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Etymotic ER-4P In-Ear Monitors

I had long resisted buying an iPod. As a classical music aficionado, I value quality above all else and I just didn't feel the iPod would live up to my expectations of an audio component. I finally caved when I began a new exercise program that pretty much demanded some form of entertainment to get me through. I went for the 80gb video iPod (of course after a few months, there's a 160gb for the same price). After much research, I knew I would need some quality headphones, not the el cheapo earbuds Apple includes. I settled on the Etymotic ER-4P as the best price/performance in-ear monitors. I needed the isolation from the sounds of my Nordic Track and something that wouldn't slide around on my sweaty head like full-size cans. I did try a few workouts with some Sennheiser 280 Pros and I thought my ears would melt after only 30 minutes! By the way, there are also the ER-4S monitors. These are designed for connection to a headphone amplifier or in-home audio system. There are more difficult to drive and are therefore not suitable for use with portable devices. The P can be converted to the S with the addition of a $60 cable from Etymotic that changes their impedance. If you want to use the S with an iPod, it is recommended to use a headphone amp like the ones available from Headroom. I have read the sound quality with this setup is even better but it's not for the faint of wallet. A cheap headphone amp will run you about $200. Of course if you have the means...

I purchased the ER-4Ps from Amazon a few months ago for $175. This is far better than their $299 MSRP. They arrived promptly as everything from Amazon usually does. Included in a very nice plastic case were the monitors, extra filters with tool, and 2 kinds of earplugs, rubber and foam. The rubber ones are very easy to insert but the seal is a matter of luck depending on the shape and depth of your ear canal. This is very important. If you don't get a good seal with these monitors, the sound quality is poor at best. You also need to get them in as far as possible to enjoy their full frequency response. As a popular magazine says, "You don't wear them so much as implant them." I installed the foam tips. These have a small tube protruding from one end. This the end that goes in the ear. They are made of the same memory foam material as regular earplugs. You roll them between your fingers, insert, and wait for them to expand inside the ear canal. I used them this way for over 2 months and loved them. They are very comfortable and the sound quality is simply amazing. There is a level of detail in recordings that simply cannot be heard in a listening room setting. I can hear musicians breathing and shifting in their chairs. On one of my old Solti/Chicago Beethoven recordings, I can actually hear a telephone ring backstage! Podcasts take on a whole new feel as the voices really are in your head!

After awhile, I began to explore the prospect of custom earmolds. Etymotic recommends several labs that will make these for you. As I am near New York City, I contacted Scientific Plastics and arranged a time to have my ear impressions taken. This involves a technician filling your ear canal with a green substance that hardens in about 5 minutes and is then removed. The result is a perfect representation of you entire ear canal. I had no idea it was so deep! A week later, my molds arrived in the mail. They were bored out specifically for the ER-4Ps. It took me a few tries to really fit them properly and get used to them. After a few days I am completely accustomed to them. Let me tell you, the sound quality took quite a leap. The bass response is now stupendously good rather than merely excellent. I can actually feel the lower instruments in my head. The seal and sound isolation is also much improved. Only the loudest sounds can penetrate now. I can't wait to try these on a bus or plane trip. Another tip for top sound quality: save your music in Apple's lossless format. Compression will destroy the transparency, dynamic range and soundstage of any classical recording. My CD collection is smaller than average. I fit about 50 hours of music into 20gb using lossless. Now that a 160gb iPod is available, there really is no reason to compress your music. Pictured below are the monitors sporting their somewhat eerie looking ear molds. Thanks for reading and enjoy your listening!

Panasonic TH-37PX60U Plasma Calibration

Another Panasonic so soon! I guess calibrations go in phases. For awhile it was Sonys. This plasma panel is a bit older than the 700U I wrote about recently. My client has had it about a year and he was ready to unlock its full potential. This 37" TV is a nice size for those of you who have an entertainment center or AV cabinet. It fits comfortably in or on many different types of furniture. If you want a TV that doesn't draw attention to itself, this panel is an excellent choice.

Since this is a 720p (1024x768 native) display, I set my pattern generator for this resolution. I also set the cable box and upconverting DVD player in the client's system for these resolutions. It is always best to feed a display its native format whenever possible to minimize any video processing done by the set. Color primaries measured a bit oversaturated for green and red and near-perfect for blue, typical of Panasonic plasmas. Interestingly, this client had the color temp set to a warmer than D65 level. Most people are accustomed to a bluish tint on their TVs and set the color temp to normal or even cool. This is the first client I've had who actually had become accustomed to a too-warm white balance. I also noticed a fair amount of noise in the various test patterns I displayed. Unlike the 700U, the sharpness control did not help this condition.

After doing rough settings in the user menu, I entered service to adjust white balance, and black/white levels. This was tricky at first as going into service sets the TV to Vivid mode. I was fortunately able to toggle between user and service to force the TV into Cinema mode. Cinema is the only mode that allows different settings for each input. The other modes have global settings. Once I set the Cinema mode, white balance was easily adjusted to within 100k of D65. Setting black level in service also allowed me a much finer adjustment than the user menu. Exiting service, I immediately noticed a huge reduction in noise. The multi-burst patterns were now very clean and sharp. Obviously, color adjustments on this set have quite an effect on overall noise levels. As with the 700U, the noise reduction controls in user had no visible effect. The only other adjustment required was to reduce the color and tint controls a bit to compensate for the oversaturated green and red primaries. My trusty CA-6X analyzer came through once again to help me align the decoder more accurately than I could using filters. To my knowledge, no other colorimeter has this feature. It allows me to adjust the color and tint controls to align the decoder to the measured primaries rather than the reference. This is far more precise than filters which only work if the primaries are correct and you're calibrating a CRT.

As usual, my client and I checked out some content when I was finished. Discovery HD over a Cablevision feed looked stunning (I really love plasmas for HD!). The color resolution was so much better than before. My client commented that he could really see an increased color palette. There's nothing like lifting the veil of image inaccuracy and seeing what the content creator intended rather than what the television's manufacturer intended. Raiders of the Lost Ark from a Sony upconverting DVD player looked great too. This THX-certified transfer is an excellent reference for any player or display. The clarity of this DVD release is matched by few other titles. Now that we're on the eve of having all our movies in hi-def, it's still gratifying to see standard-def DVD done so well.

Just like the 700U I reported on recently, this TV is a top candidate for calibration. The client and I were very happy with the results. He considered it well worth the price and I considered it well worth my time. A properly calibrated plasma is probably the closest we can get to the venerable CRT in terms of dynamic range, contrast ratio and color saturation. I do suggest viewing plasmas in a light-controlled room. Reflections from lights and windows can be seen on the glass screen. The image is plenty bright enough however, to compete with indirect light sources. As my client had his panel in a cabinet, he solved the problem of light reflection quite nicely.

Another happy customer, thanks for reading!

Axiom Epic 60 Loudspeaker Review

Overview
I'll answer the first question right off: yes, Axiom is one of those internet-only speaker companies. They're based in Canada. Like other Canadian speaker makers (PSB for example), Axiom has access to the National Research Institute. This well-equipped lab provides the best in test equipment to help manufacturers design the best possible products. I first learned of Axiom by reading reviews on the Audioholics website. I spent a lot of time over the past 6 months researching and listening to many brands of speakers. As a classical music lover, accuracy was of paramount importance to me. Axiom is one of the few companies that publishes detailed graphs of all their models online. I was also fortunate to find a local man who had the exact setup I was considering in his theater. After spending an afternoon spinning CDs and DVDs on his excellent setup, I made my decision. I placed my order online and 2 weeks later, the speakers showed up from DHL. All pieces were in perfect condition. Packaging was quite robust and secure. Axiom has a 30-day refund policy if you wish to return the speakers for any reason. They also cover any damage incurred in shipping. In fact, the man who demoed his speakers for me said they replaced a surround speaker he had damaged himself at no charge! All Axiom products carry a 5-year warranty. The system consists of 2 M60 tower speakers, 37" tall, driven by 2 6.5" aluminum woofers, a 5.25" aluminum midrange and a 1" aluminum dome tweeter. There are 2 ports on the back and one on the front. The 27" wide VP150 center channel uses 3 of the same 5.25" midranges and 2 of the same 1" tweeters. They are arranged in a TMMMT layout. This is unusual compared to other center channel speakers but there are definite benefits which I will talk about later. It is a sealed design. The QS8 surrounds are a sealed quad-pole design employing upward and downward firing 5.25" midranges and 2 1" tweeters arrayed at a 45-degree angle. The EP350 subwoofer employs a front-firing 12" aluminum driver and 200-watt amplifier. It is front ported.

Setup
My room is a bit unusual in that I have the couch and the TV in opposite corners. I placed the 37" tall M60 towers on a low TV bench I built myself. This placed the tweeters about 4" above ear level. For movie and TV sound, this is not a problem. For music, I would like to have the tweeters lower. I plan to solve this problem by building a seperate media room in an unused bedroom. More on my future mancave plans soon, stay tuned! Anyway, back to reality. I placed the center channel in a box I have suspended over my 50" TV. The sub was placed to the side firing at the seating area. The surrounds were wall-mounted. They are far from ideally placed but more on that later. All speakers were wired with 12-gauge cable and compression-style banana plugs from Bluejeans Cable. The mains were bi-amped. The sub was connected with a high-quality Belden cable also from Bluejeans. Crossovers were set at 60hz for the mains, 100hz for the center and 110hz for the surrounds. Channel levels were set with my trusty Radio Shack SPL meter. I did go +2db on the center and -2db on the sub after watching several movies.

Listening
Since the bulk of my listening is movies, I concentrated on that for the first few weeks. Let me tell you, if you haven't had a quality sound system for movie watching before, you don't know what you're missing! Even this system, which is far from expensive, blows away any movie theater I've ever been in. Mind you, most movie theaters are not calibrated properly at all. Often, subs or dialog channels are missing or set too low or too high. The last movie I saw in a theater, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was painful to sit through. The dialog was OK but the mains and subs were so loud they approached distortion. I was physically exhausted when I left the theater. With a quality home theater system such as the Axiom Epic 60, you can finally hear a movie soundtrack the way it was meant to be heard in all its detail and ambience. And as my room is far from ideal, I can only imagine how much better it will be in a properly sound-treated room. (Mancave, more to come!) The center channel's unusual design placing the tweeters on the ends, really came to the fore. The sound field for dialog was far wider than traditional centers that place the tweeter in the middle. Plus, the Axiom's tweeters are less affected by the output of the midranges since they are only bordered on one side by other drivers. The surrounds as I said before, are very forgiving of placement. THX spec calls for surrounds mounted on the sides of the seating area, above ear level. Mine are to the side and to the rear. They are also mounted at 90-degrees to one another. Even with this huge compromise, the surround envelope is superb. Panning effects really do make you jump and the sound field is truly 3-dimensional. My favorite track so far is the movie Pan's Labyrinth. The scenes during rainstorms and gunbattles are just incredible. If you watch this movie, be sure to engage the DTS track, it's a little beefier.

Conclusion
This system cost me just over $2500 delivered. Coupled with the excellent Denon AVR3806 receiver and DVD 2930CI disc player, my in-home theater experience has improved by a huge factor. These are truly long-term speakers. Receivers and disc players are in a constant state of flux but good loudspeakers can last a lifetime. Unless I have to fill a significantly bigger space with sound, I can't imagine a better matched system. Axiom does have a larger tower model and 2 more sub upgrades should I feel the need, but I don't! My next upgrade will be the Mancave. I plan to buy another identical system from Axiom and install it in a dedicated, acoustically treated room. Stay tuned for that as I plan to document the entire process of building this room. Thanks for reading and enjoy the view!

Denon AVR-3806 Review

A few months ago I was finally able to upgrade my audio system to something more worthy of my excellent Samsung DLP display. I had muddled through for about 2 years with *gasp* a Home Theater in a Box from Sony. This system wasn't total crap but since installing the new gear, it's now gracing a landfill. For years I read the advice on various websites saying you should spend at least as much or more on audio as you do on video. OK but that's really hard to do. Of course you want the rockin' display with the most pixels, the biggest screen, you know the drill. It's what guys do. Well after installing this receiver and a 5.1 speaker setup from Axiom Audio, I can see the importance of this advice. Speaking of Axiom, I'll review the speakers and sub (M60s, VP150, QS8 and EP350) next week.

I purchased the receiver as well as a Denon DVD 2930CI from Crutchfield. You can read my review of the DVD player here. I highly recommend Crutchfield as a dealer. Their customer service is outstanding. The electronics arrived in a few days double boxed with generous amounts of peanuts. There was absolutely no damage to the Denon cartons. Crutchfield has a generous return policy and excellent support.

Setting up the unit was fairly straightforward. I'll tell you right now, the manual is terrible. The important information is there but you have to look for it. My advice with any Denon product: read the manual thoroughly before you install. This receiver like most modern multi-channel AVRs has many many options and features. You owe it to yourself to explore everything beforehand so you can get maximum performance from your gear. My main tower speakers are bi-amp capable so I wired them up as such, making sure to remove the jumper between the 2 pairs of binding posts. It doesn't matter which amp powers which drivers. Enter the setup menu and set the surround back amps to power the mains. After setting delays for the various speaker distances, I pulled out my trusty Radio Shack SPL meter to set levels. Using the test tones, I set levels for all channels to a reference volume of 80dB. I set the bass management as follows: front speakers set to small, 60hz crossover, center set to small, 100hz crossover, surrounds set to small, 110hz crossover. This gave the flattest frequency response when measuring frequency sweeps from the Digital Video Essentials audio tests. The only change I made after the fact was dropping the sub 3db. The Radio Shack meter is less accurate at low frequencies so this was as expected. Convenience features are all there such as auto-detect of audio track types, renaming of inputs and assignment of digital inputs. You might notice I've said nothing about the Audyssey auto calibration feature of this receiver. I actually bought this particular unit because of that function. I have every intention of at least trying the room correction in the future. I've just been so amazed and pleased with the sound the way it is, I haven't actually tried it out yet! My room is a bit challenging as well. I live on a fairly busy road. It would be nearly impossible to run the auto setup without a car driving by during the process. Perhaps if I did it late at night... If at some point I engage the Audyssey function, I will post an article about it.

Once all options were set, I checked my Denon Link connection from the DVD2930CI and fired up Casino Royale. Unfortunately, I heard nothing. OK, check connections, check setup, check DVD player (which I had already been using with my old audio setup). There was no light for Denon link evident on the player's front panel, hmm. I pulled out a generic CAT5 cable I had in my office and replaced the Denon cable that had shipped with my DVD player. Guess what? It worked just fine. Swell, Denon's supplied cable (which costs $45 by the way) was a dud and my free CAT5 cable that a friend made up for me worked perfectly. I had wondered if Denon Link was standard CAT5 and now I had my answer. If you want to install your player more than 6 feet from your receiver, you can with regular CAT5 for a few cents a foot. You do want the Denon Link by the way because it will support Direct Stream Digital transmission from SACDs. There is no other player in this price range that will do this. I believe the Oppo players will output PCM over HDMI from SACDs but not DSD. (was that a geeky sentence or what?) All other SACD players require you to use the multi-channel analog outputs. I also recommend using the IR in/out jacks if you have either IR blasters or some type of RF receiver for your remote. It beats sticking those pesky IR emitters to the front of your gear. In fact, I discovered the IR jack on my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD cable DVR actually works! I now have an IR emitter only on my TV. This is a much cleaner-looking and reliable way to control your components.

Sound quality? Let's just say... holy $@#&! The opening scene in Casino Royale starts with a guy riding up an elevator. The LFE effects are simply amazing. Then as he is confronted by James Bond, the scene flashes back to a fight in a bathroom. The bodies slamming through toilet stalls and other high-impact effects are simply breathtaking. Later during the now-famous chase scene, Bond drives a front-loader through a fence and a pile of iron pipe. The slam of this effect simply knocked my socks off! This is only the first day mind you. I have had this system in place for almost 3 months now and I can say I've never enjoyed movies and TV more. Even broadcast content is hugely improved. By default, this receiver will use Dolby Pro Logic II or DTS Neo6 to pipe all soundtracks into 5.1. This is done very well as you don't really notice the extra channels unless you switch back to straight 2 channel listening. My advice, let the DSPs do their thing, they work really well.

Music listening is equally amazing. For this, I engage the Denon's PureDirect mode. Even though the manual says this is only for analog sources, it still works with anything coming over the Denon Link connection. There was a small but noticeable improvement in the sound stage and the overall transparency of the music. (if you play Redbook CDs, they will play 2-channel whether you use PureDirect or not) I am strictly a classical buff so it's really easy to hear even the subtlest changes when you're trying new gear. I used SACDs of the San Francisco Symphony playing Mahler's 5th Symphony and the Kirov Orchestra playing Shostakovich's 5th and 9th Symphonies. I love multi-channel music and this setup really shone in this capacity. I'll expand on that more in next week's Axiom speaker review.

I believe this model is now being replaced by the AVR3808CI. From my research, it seems to the be the same receiver with the addition of HDMI 1.3a and decoding of Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. If these formats are not a factor, the 3806 is $300 cheaper so grab one while you can. I can tell you I am extremely happy with this unit and plan to use it for the forseeable future.

Panasonic TH50-PZ700U Calibration

I had an opportunity this past week to calibrate this latest Panasonic plasma. The PZ700U is 1080p with 2 HDMI inputs and a slot for an SD memory card to display photos. This display is not only one of the best plasma panels available today, it is also by far the best value. The only brand at this level is the Pioneer Elite line and you'll pay more than double the price for the same screen size.

There are 4 picture modes available, Standard, Vivid, Cinema and Custom. Only the Custom setting allows different settings per input. Selecting the Warm color temp got me within striking distance of D65. One interesting thing I learned concerned video noise reduction. There are 3 controls that address noise reduction and none of them seemed to affect the image at all. I was viewing 1080i multi-burst patterns and even though the 1-pixel pattern was rendered perfectly, I could see just a bit of noise around it. I finally removed the noise by turning up the Sharpness a few clicks from off. In fact, the Sharpness control at full blast didn't introduce any ringing in the image. My conclusion is that Sharpness on this TV affects noise and not edge enhancement. Another factor is the HDSize control. There are 2 options. Number 2 combined with Normal Aspect will give a 1:1 pixel map. The first option introduces about 3% overscan which is in spec but it breaks up the 1 pixel multi-burst. Bottom line, the sharpest and cleanest image comes in the 1:1 pixel mode.

Grayscale tracking showed a Delta C* error of 5-13 before calibration and under 1 after adjustments were made in service. I was also able to improve gamma and black levels by working the sub-brightness adjustment. I noticed when adjusting Brightness in the user menu that there would be a certain point where the gamma curve would change visibly on one side or the other of a particular number. Just below this point was the sweet spot for the final Brightness setting. After exiting service, I loaded a few Blu-Ray titles into the client's PS3 for some real content analysis. The first thing we noticed is there was still some downward room to be had in black levels. I settled on another 3 clicks lower on both the PS3 and the SA8300HD cable box sources. Like the majority of consumer displays, the black levels float somewhat depending on the average light level of the image. The adjustments made in service greatly reduced this tendency. For example; before calibration the darkest Pluge pattern would actually change after a few seconds. The lighter bar would at first be visible then disappear. After calibration, the pattern remained stable. The change in different light output levels also had less of an effect on black level. Even though this set is decent before calibration, this improvement alone is worth doing a full calibration.

The color-related aspects of the picture were excellent all around. Primaries are dead on for blue and slightly over-saturated for red and green. This is not visible in content. A slight lowering of the Color control aligned the decoder fairly well. Using my Progressive Labs CA6X allowed me to adjust the Tint to correct secondary color errors with respect to the measured primaries. This is much more accurate than using filters. Filters are only useful if they match the displays actual primaries and this is quite rare.

In conclusion, I would rate this as one of the finest HDTVs I have calibrated to date. It's the closest in dynamic range and clarity to the legendary Sony XBR960 CRT, my benchmark. Given the amazing price point of this TV (around $2500), there is no better value to be had, period. There is certainly no 50-inch LCD of any decent quality that sells for as little. And I have yet to encounter an LCD that can reproduce the blacks this TV can. I was so impressed with this display that I'll be adding one to my own theater in the coming months.

Logitech Harmony 890 Remote Control Review

I purchased the Harmony 890 a few months ago after programming one for a client. I was impressed with its ease of setup. I was especially interested in its Smart State feature that remembers the input and power states of your components. This is very helpful when a ccomponent doesn't support discreet commands for power and input. Many products lack discreet code support, most notably cable and satellite boxes.

The reason I haven't written about this product until now is I wanted to give myself time to thoroughly learn all its secrets before forming an opinion. The truth is, it's easy to do a basic setup but troubleshooting is less than intuitive. You begin by installing the included CD to your computer. You can use the front end software provided or log in via the Logitech website. Either way, you have to install the CD. The web front end is much faster however. Use the CD to create your account, then log in from the Harmony website. The software runs through a setup wizard to configure the remote. Logitech's IR code database is the largest in the business, over 170,000 components. In the unlikely event you have something that's not there, you can learn the codes from the factory remote. The wizard walks you through Activity setup where you program how things are to be turned on and set for different functions like Watch TV, Watch DVD, Listen to CDs, etcetera. You can also create custom buttons for each activity with labels shown in the LCD screen. There are 8 buttons available and multiple screens if you have more than 8 custom buttons. You can also set any hard button on the remote for any function from any component in the activity. Once you've programmed everything, it's time to update the remote via USB. Here's where I have a major complaint. The 890 includes a Remote Extender which supports RF control and sends the IR codes to the components via stick-on emitters. Every time you update the remote, you also have to update the extender. You can't have it plugged in the wall when you do this. This is a colossal pain especially when first programming since you'll want to tweak your setup at least a few times.

Once I had things working the way I wanted, the Harmony worked well for a few weeks. Then I started having trouble with Activity startup. Components would not always turn on or switch to the right input. This seemed to be random. It's like each component would take its turn not coming on. One positive here is the remote's Help key. If something unexpected happens, press help and answer the questions on the remote's screen. Usually, it will fix itself and you'll be back in business. To address this, I adjusted the various delays for each component. You can adjust the power on delay, input delay, inter-key delay and inter-device delay. Tweaking the inter-device delay seemed to fix the problem although it still happens occasionally.

Another major issue I have with this product is the ever-changing software. Logitech frequently updates both the front-end software and the remote firmware. Usually this results in some problems being fixed, new problems being created, some features added and some features removed. For several weeks, the Favorite Channel feature was disabled for no apparent reason. I can't imagine why Logitech can't stabilize this package and stop messing with it.

The bottom line with this product: for the price, it can't be beat. No other universal remote offers this level of functionality for less than $300. I like the physical design. I like the software interface. I don't like the random and unexpected glitches. I don't like the frequent software updates. I don't like having to unplug the extender every time I want to update. I want to love this remote. If Logitech would stop messing with it, I think I could. I do plan to keep using it. I can't justify dropping 3 or 4 times the money on something better.