Podcast #738: Interview with Gary Yacoubian of SVS

On today’s show we have an interview with the President of SVS Gary Yacoubian. We talk about their forthcoming line of Prime Elevation Speakers. We also discuss their line of high quality accessories that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Finally we finish off with a discussion who the audiophile of today is.

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Podcast #737: Highlights from NAB 2016

Faithful listener and long time contributor to the show Ed Stouffer graciously agreed to be our “man on the street” - or “man on the convention show floor” if you prefer, at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas. The show just wrapped up, running from April 16-21. For those who aren’t familiar, NAB is the National Association of Broadcasters and the NAB Show is their annual gathering to see, learn about and talk about all the latest innovations in audio and video production, broadcasting and distribution.

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Podcast #736: DirecTV 4K Review

DirecTV has added 4K capabilities to some of it’s Genie HD DVR models and we are fortunate enough to have a listener who has upgraded to the new service. Ralph Smithers, good friend of the show, was kind enough to share his experience with the upgrade process and quality of the 4K content available.

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Podcast #735: THX tune-up to the Rescue

We had a friend recently who was complaining about their HDTV experience at home. They weren’t seeing the quality they were hoping to see after upgrading their TV, and were contemplating returning it. In talking through it with them, we were able to convince them that perhaps the TV settings just needed to be dialed in to look great in their viewing room. They didn’t want to spend money on a professional calibration, so we went to the trusty THX tune-up app to see what we could do.

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Podcast #734: Bragi Dash Review and HDR Explained

For more than a year now we have been talking about 4K TVs and how they are supposed to be the next big thing. But in actuality the increased resolution is only mildly better than equally spec’d 1080p HDTVs. We have pointed to case study after case study that says you need very large (100” or more) screen to see a difference between 1080p and 4K when sitting at normal viewing distances. This alone is not a good reason to upgrade.

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Podcast #733: Home Automation: OpenHAB and OpenRemote

There is this dream we have to be able to automate everything in our homes, but do it ourselves, without hiring an installer, and do it for cheap without breaking the bank. So far we have used a lot of Insteon devices, and tied them into other systems to expand the overall reach of what we could build. Luckily, we aren’t the only ones with this dream and a few open source projects have popped up to help us DIY-ers achieve our dreams.

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