http://www.ecoustics.com/latest/articles Latest articles, updated every five minutes http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/145154 Wireless, multiroom home audio is here, sort of. But wireless HD video is still mostly a pipe dream. Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:20:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/21472/ Everyone with a digital music collection of any size has this problem: their music tags are far from perfect. Maybe it's because you ripped the songs from a CD before it was in cddb or one of the other directories, maybe there was no cddb back when you took your first steps into digital audio, maybe your ripper didn't do a good tagging job - remember MusicMatch Jukebox? Whatever the reason, however bad the tags, there is a pretty straightforward way to sort them out, and that's to let your computer fix them for you. I've tried a number of tools to do this, but the best I've found so far is BeaTunes . BeaTunes works on both Mac and Windows machines, all you need is a copy of iTunes with a library containing the (non-DRM'd) tracks you want to clean up. The way BeaTunes works is that it analyzes the audio of selected tracks and creates a fingerprint which it then compares to a database run by MusicIP.com. If it finds a matching fingerprint, BeaTunes can use the associated track data to update your track's tags. Yes, it's just that simple, and pretty fast too. Even if your current... Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:00:05 -0400 http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/419006.html Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:47:00 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/talk/220 I notice lots of little annoying things about the audio and video products that traipse through my work space in a constant procession. Over time I’ve noticed they’re the same little annoying things all the time—the same trifling mistakes. When a little thing recurs often enough, it becomes a big thing. Why do manufacturers routinely do things that alienate consumers? Partly to control costs, of course—a price tag that prevents you from whipping out your plastic is the ultimate annoyance. But they also suffer from ingrained habits, a refusal to think outside the box, and a form of blindness to those little things that add up over time to big things. Quite often fixing thes... Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:00:00 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/16643/ Got old audio tapes that you'd like to convert to digital (MP3 or CD)?  Got an ancient LP collection that you'd like to listen to on your iPod?  Community member Jeff Block shares his experience converting audio tapes and old vinyl records to digital. Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:59:15 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/18406/ From HD cables to HD discs to HD audio, discover how to get a deeper high-definition experience. When building (or adapting) a home theater for high-definition viewing, it’s best to start with the basics. In this case, the TV is the first thing that needs to be taken care of and, to be blunt, the bigger the screen the better... Tue, 22 May 2007 16:34:56 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/14694/ This has two very useful purposes: 1) It can possibly provide a cheaper way of getting audio into your room and 2) Testing a head unit to be sure it works, and possibly even taking pics to post on ebay (I've found my head units sell better when the consumer sees that it is Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:08:30 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/14278/ I recently tried to upgrade my audio on my satellite box by switching to an optical audio connection. However, I couldn't seem to get it to work. The cord that I used was rather long, so I wound it up with a twist tie so the cord wasn't all over my floor. In diagnosing the problem, I tried unwinding the cable and it worked fine! Why does winding up a cable cause it not to work right? Wed, 07 Jun 2006 16:52:40 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/12859/ The RCA jacks in the back of the TV work wonders. As I mentioned in the previous article, my headphone jack is broken and I get no sound in the speakers, as a result. I already bought the box which has three sets of RCA jack (red, white, yellow), so I can have my VCR and DVD hooked to my... Thu, 08 Dec 2005 17:36:45 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/12260/ At this year's CEDIA Expo, an industry trade show devoted to home audio, video, and distributed A/V products, I saw the same recurring theme at every TV manufacturer's booth... 1080p is a reality. TV makers will be releasing tons of new 1080p... Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:33:15 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10586/ I don't have enough time to keep up with all the online music services that keep popping up. I have used a few and have started to collect stories from others who are also... Mon, 07 Feb 2005 23:55:10 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10562/ Most turntables use standard RCA style connections to hook up to various devices, but the signal they output is often different than what your VCR uses. In order to get proper sound, ... Sat, 05 Feb 2005 16:10:55 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10529/ It didn't take too many memberships to CD clubs to realize that my CD collection would get pretty unwielding pretty fast. Early on, I knew that every time I wanted to listen to a CD, it wasn't going to work to... Tue, 01 Feb 2005 02:02:35 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10309/ It's no secret that it takes a lot of knowledge to truly understand the world of home audio, which is littered with confusing numbers and terms. Wattage, current, distortion, frequencies, and impedance are just a few of the specifications anyone looking for an amplifier of home theater receiver is going to come across. With the thousands of choices in each category, it takes a little bit of background to use these specifications to make a great choice. In steps the watt... Evaluating and stating the wattage of an amplifier has become the single most important number to the amplifier shopper. Unfortunately, wattage is a highly misunderstood specification, which dupes people into buying products with a level of performance much lower than what is anticipated. 100 watts seems to be the magic number for most, thinking that as long as you have 100 of them, and no less, they'll be fine. However, even passenger side www on your car states that things aren't always as they appear. To be fair, wattage is an important number that can give a clear understanding of an amplifiers performance. A Watt, named after the British scientist James Watt, is a unit of power. And ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:18 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10292/ Dolby Laboratories, founded in 1965, has been arguably the most influential company in the sound industry since its inception. Most people are familiar with the Dolby Logo, stemming back to when analog cassette tapes were the standard for music listening. Although few people knew how the Dolby Noise Reduction system worked, they did know that tapes played back with Dolby technology sounded better when it was used. Although Dolby got their start by working on noise reduction technology for analog recording, they have ended up as the dominant leader in movie sound industry. Their Dolby Stereo system, the first to provide high quality multi-channel playback in movie theaters, has no doubt revolutionized the way moviegoers has heard film sound since 1976's A Star is Born. As Dolby entered the home market, their Dolby Surround technology, as well as the Pro Logic format, changed the home movie sound market dramatically. Then in 1992, Batman Returns became the first film to use Dolby's AC-3 Digital Surround format (now known as Dolby Digital). Dolby Digital was the first encoding system to allow up to 6 fully discrete channels of high quality sound information, digitally compressed to take up very little space. ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:18 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10270/ You may have looked at the front of a home theater receiver or at the back of a DVD box and wondered what "DTS" stood for. DTS is the acronynm for Digital Theater Systems. This company develops standards for compressing multi-channel audio information for movies and music into a single digital signal. After a movie soundtrack is made, there are many different channels of sound that need to be put together into one digital signal. However, when digitizing several audio channels, they can take up a vast amount of space. In fact, all of the sound wouldn't even fit on the DVD without compression. DTS is an encode/decode system to compress audio information to a size that can fit into a certain amount of space, while maintianing pristine sound quality (similar to how MP3s are compressed from the original CD). That way when you play it back through a DTS decoder, it uncompresses all of the audio information into the original sound channels with near perfect audio quality. DTS first unveiled its 5.1 digital encoder in 1993, when it was used to encode the soundtrack for that summer's blockbuster hit Jurassic Park. Since then it has been used as ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:17 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10264/ One of the challenges when designing a home theater system is determining the location of the home theater components, such as a DVD player and stereo receiver. It is often incorrectly assumed that these components must be out in the open in a direct line of sight with the remote control in order to control them. Because of this, many people stack home theater components on top of a television, or place them in a stand or side cabinet in plain view. However, not only can this exposure take away from the decor of the room, it can also allow for easy access by small children who just love to push buttons and break things. Using an infrared (IR) repeater system enables you to keep home theater components out of plain view, while still allowing for the control of them with the original remote controls. The basic principal of how an IR repeater system works is to expose a tiny device (called an IR receiver) in the line of sight of the remote controls being used and then the receiver broadcasts the signal it receives to the appropriate component(s) via other small devices called IR emitters. Thus, only one small ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:17 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10228/ It's no doubt that many people own aftermarket universal remote controls purchased from grocery stores, gas stations, and hardware stores. In a pinch, these $10 wonders can perform many functions of hundreds of devices, but can also be a little deceiving at the same time. The term "universal", according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, means "including or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively without limit or exception." But when it comes to "universal" remotes, it's simply untrue. These remotes are not limitless in their ability, and do not cover every device as a whole. This would mean that anything labeled as a "universal" remote would command every function of every device in existence. Anyone with experience with these remote controls will tell you, they are filled with limits and exceptions. When it comes to a remote, "universal" is just a marketing term. It's unrealistic to believe that a $10 remote will control every function of the thousands of remote capable devices that have been produced since the remote control was invented. They can be useful, considering they normally control the basic functions of a compatible device, like power, channel up/down, play, stop, pause, etc. However, the more advanced, but ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:16 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10101/ Have you ever purchased a consumer electronic device, plugged it in and used it without ever adjusting any of the factory settings? Or do you even realize that your device has settings that can be adjusted? Configuring basic settings on your components is essential for getting the desired result and performance from your device. In many cases, the device may even be inoperable until the correct selections are made. In order to change these settings, it is necessary to understand how the devices' set up menu works. The Need For Menus Nearly all home theater components as well as electronic devices contain a setup menu. With the numerous features and options available on components, setup menus are essential for setting up a device to function the way you want. For example, DVD players have different settings for the kind of TV you connect to it and portable audio players have different settings for the way it outputs sound. Regardless of how easy a manufacturer claims their device is to use, setup menus are not always easy to navigate. In many cases, a menu can display options that are foreign to you, which can be very intimidating for a ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:14 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10086/ I have been struggling for many months to organize my large music library and make it accessible thoughout my house. Perhaps I should have bitten the bullet and went for a custom installed... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:14 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10064/ In the world of today's consumer electronics, you have a wide variety of connection choices. If you're somewhat with the times, you abandoned the screw-type RF connection years ago, and went to a line level "composite video connection." Composite video is the yellow jack, typically paired with accompanying red and white audio jacks. Though once a staple of performance for hooking up your gear, its fallen to the wayside as... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:14 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10047/ Why better cables?In 1979, a man named Noel Lee made a discovery. He determined that different cable materials impacted the sound when used to connect speakers to amplifiers. Noel used his discovery and crafted a special speaker wire using the name Monster Cable. This cable had a profound effect on the audio world. At the time, speakers were connected with the same wire used in household electrical appliances known as lamp cord. Today, Monster Cable has become a generic term for high quality cable, similar to the Kleenex brand of tissue. Since the inception of quality cable, hundreds of manufacturers have evolved to research and design quality interconnects for audio and video equipment. Without Lee and his efforts in the research and design of quality cables, the performance of your electronics would never be fully realized.Devices you buy for your home A/V system don't work if you just plug them into the wall. They need to be connected to the rest of your components in order to carry the output signals to where they need to go. Take a VCR for example: VCRs have an audio and video signal that goes out when you play a tape. These signals leave ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:14 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10043/ Limited, or Out of Inputs?All TVs have a limited number of inputs, but some are much more limiting than others, especially if your set only allows for one external device. Whatever the situation, limitations surface in every home theater setup. Maybe your TV has three composite inputs but only 1 S-Video input, and you have 4 S-Video devices you wish to use. There is no way you can connect 4 S-Video devices to a TV with only one S-Video input directly, but there are devices you can use to make a connection like this possible. If you have an older TV with a very limited amount of inputs, or have so many things hooked up that you've used them all, you can still add more devices to your TV in a variety of ways. Before you can begin, you'll need to determine what types of video connections you need to add. The most common video connections are composite (yellow RCA jack), S-Video (the one with the pins), and component video (the red, green, and blue RCA jacks). Adding extra inputs is accomplished by the use of "audio/video switching". Rather than physically switching components manually, like unplugging your DVD player to ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:14 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10041/ "HAVi" is the acronym for home audio/video interoperability. HAVi is an advanced layer of communication protocols for devices using the IEEE 1394 (a.k.a. FireWire or i.Link) standard. IEEE-1394 allows home theater components to be networked using a high-speed, two-way digital interconnect. IEEE-1394 and HAVi are not the same thing, but they go together. IEEE-1394 is the cable connection used to network the devices together, while HAVi is the software behind the system that provides advanced features and ease of use. If IEEE-1394 and HAVi are successful, traditional A/V interconnects would not be needed in the connection of a system with all compatible devices. Devices in a network differ from those just connected with a/v interconnects because devices in a network have the ability to communicate with each other. Although networking your devices can be useful, when HAVi is used to its full potential, it should make things easier to use by incorporating advanced connectivity and functionality between components. For example: When you connect a HAVi enabled VCR to a HAVi enabled digital television, the VCR tells the TV what it is, what it does, and how to control its functions. Once the communication is established, a one-wire connection will ... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:14 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10039/ If you are like many music listeners, you have ripped all of your CDs into digital music files, which are probably sitting on your computer and/or a portable MP3 player. Wouldn't it be convenient to play all of those files on your home stereo unit, effectively eliminating the need to use... Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:13:14 -0500