The Quest for the Perfect Sound and Sight

This is a guest post by the lovely and talented Joanne Aspinall:

We've had the attached cartoon on our refrigerator for a few years now. I thought it was fitting. In the past, whenever Keith has talked about electronics using technical jargon, it went over my head. Heck, I call the subwoofer the "boom box". It still is over my head to a certain extent, but I'm definitely not bored to sleep by it. How could I be with 5 speakers blasting good sound at me? :-)

The idea of getting a plasma tv was more of a redecorating move than an upgrade for me. It opened up room to make a domino effect of changes (move the desk out of the kitchen, which allowed us to move the small table out of the dining room, which allowed us to get a nice dining room table). However, the picture quality is just amazing. I remember when we first got the tv we would watch travel shows on PBS, and I would just be in awe at the pictures of the Alps, or whatever they might be showing [AJU: that was more a function of the show being on right after 24]. Nature and sports shows are, imo, the biggest benefactors of HD [AJU: Heroes looks pretty good too, i think].

Which leads into the HD DVD. You already get some upgrade to watching a regular DVD on an HD tv versus non-HD tv, so would the DVD player be worth it? I think so. The picture is better, and the price tag not all that high (except for the DVDs themselves, but that will probably just change our renting versus buying habits, which I think is a good thing [AJU: Netflix here we come!]. There's also some other features on the player that are cool, but I'll let Keith get into those if he wants to [AJU: Surprised LTJ mentioned this--the main "cool" feature I've used is the menu access while still watching the movie, but that's HD DVDs only, not the player]. When we were figuring out which free HD DVDs to get along with our player (that was the deal through Best Buy), my first instinct was to get a nature DVD. I'm glad I decided to keep with that. We got a Galapagos DVD, which, although I haven't seen it yet, should be cool in HD. [AJU: That's a minor misrepresentation. LTJ wanted scenery, not necessarily a nature doc. I found Galapagos as one of the free option and kept it, ignoring LTJ's statement "oh, you don't have to get that."]

Sound. We finally decided where to put our surround speakers, and once Keith figured out the correct settings, we were both blown away! It turns out there was a setting wrong somewhere for the last few years, so now ALL the speakers have better sound, not just the surrounds [AJU: two factors were at play here. The DVD player had some audio output settings. The dolby digital setting was right; the DTS wrong, but I always select DTS when its available. The second is we didn't have the full 5.1 hooked up, and I discovered last week that playing 5.1 without all the necessary speakers causes the AV receiver to downmix the audio stream into Pro Logic, limiting dynamic range and absolutely killing the subwoofer]. I also really enjoy the surround sound when just listening to music [AJU: Joanne is referring to DVD music discs and the 2 SACDs we have; ie multichannel audio, not matrixed stereo. If we off the old DVD player, we lose some of that capability (the SACD, of which we have two), but we're not that invested in it.]. It definitely adds a dimension to things that were missing. Keith also went ahead and spent some extra money to upgrade the mains and center speaker with some new "bamboo" speakers [AJU: Why quotes? They are bamboo!]. I don't think I'll be capable of noticing the upgrade in sound quality, but they do look nice. I'm not sure those were worth the extra money, but that leads me into my conclusion [AJU: As I've previously mentioned I think, my income from eBay/Half/Amazon is not that far off from the recent outflow. Creative accounting maybe, but still. I do concede some concerns of whether we'll hear the full difference, but I did get them at a discount].

Keith has always dreamed about having a quality theater. One of his friend's parents have a theater room complete with projector, all the speakers, recliners, etc. I know Keith was jealous [AJU: "envious" is more appropriate I think]. Although we don't have a separate room that we can make completely dark, I think we have a pretty darn good setup at this point (perhaps a comfier couch for guests would be the only thing we could add). Heck, we even have stadium style seating! Plus, I think the timing is good. I was thinking of taking a fancy vacation as one last splurge before LBA arrives. I think this is good (and longer lasting) substitute splurge. Besides, the look on Keith's face last night once everything was hooked up was well worth it all!