It's the biggest union of Home Theater on the web since the Home Theater Alliance opened the balcony doors on its A-list of HT. Two Home Theater websites dedicated to consumer help have formed an uncommon bond that makes both bigger and better than ever.

The HomeTheaterShack is the new kid on the web. It's a dedicated home theater and hi-fi forum created by Sonnie Parker who claims to be a bona-fide hillbilly from south Alabama and John Mulcahy formerly of TAG McLaren, developer of the Room EQ Wizard software. Since opening its lobby doors in April the HomeTheaterShack already boasts over a thousand users and over four thousand posts. Sonnie, co-founder of the HomeTheaterShack, says they took a different approach to building a dedicated forum community:

"We immediately acquired several administrators and moderators. These staff members are heavily involved in forums and respected throughout the home theater communities."

SVS Speaker Contest

The 'Shack has a limited promotional contest compliments of SVS Speakers. Members who post 50 or more times with at least one product review are entered into a drawing for a complete 5.1 speaker system by SVS.

 "Our mission is to provide a friendly home theater forum where people can find genuine help in a respectful environment without all the lame or snobby responses you might get elsewhere. Home Theater Shack is a forum for the novice as well as the elite audiophile." Says Sonnie, lead Shackster and developer of the popular bass EQ guide called BFD Guide now hosted on HTS.

The 'Shack's mission statement couldn't have been a better fit with HomeTheaterFocus.com. HTF has gained momentum as one of the most popular home theater news blogs on the web. The HomeTheaterFocus forums have provided help for beginners with audio / video questions for years. But emphasis on helping first time A/V shoppers become familiar with the terms and technology isn't conducive to creating a bustling community of rabid home theater and hi-fi fans. Long stretches where the only sounds out of the forums were virtual crickets HTF's admins decided it was time to retire the forum to a home where beginners to the technology are sure to get the attention they need.

Enter the partnership of two sites that represents more than a link exchange. HomeTheaterFocus gets a home for its beginner community to live on and HomeTheaterShack gets yet another moderator with one of the hottest HomeTheater Blogs on the web.

Break out a slice of that humble pie, I'm ready to take a bite. Last Friday I reported on a story about Circuit City forums being hacked. In that news item I made an offhand quote:

"It's a good excuse to have better taste in forums."

Comments by members of the HomeTheaterShack suggested I was being an elitist snob. So, I created an account on that forum (GarbgeDog, named after my own dog who just loves the garbage) and put forth an argument.

My contention was that a forum hosted by a retail outlet cannot possibly give you what other forums can, namely an unbiased viewpoint. Part of me felt the shack forum had the opinion of kids wearing MTV T-Shirts with AT&T baseball caps who were going to go home and watch Bowflex infomercials recorded on their PVR.

When advertising becomes a substitute for communication it erodes community.

I've also been aware of a movement where corporations use the web as a tool for organic outreach. Companies are trying to put on a human face with measures like the CEO blogging. Noted author, blogger and PR guru Seth Godin says when companies choose to "walk the talk" they better be ready to "talk the talk" too.

Certain that Circuit City was choosing to merely "walk the talk" through a moderated community I created an account to test it. Using my GarbageDog alias I dispensed morsels of advice to a (potential) Circuit City customer named Wes. I included a few telltale barbs at Circuit City without being nasty or crossing the flame line.

When Dave Romero, Circuit City forums Admin challenged some of my anti-big box assertions I thought, okay, here we go. This is where I get banned and will write a blog post crooning about the Circuit City forum Gestapo ready to squelch the truth.

To my surprise the opposite was true. Dave and I exchanged a few PMs and he actually said he appreciates my opinions. While the CC forums don't exist to host pure anti-Circuit City posts from disgruntled customers (no forum wants flame baiting) he welcomed any opinion to the forum even if it's pro mom and pop shop and less big box. Dave's contention seemed to be that any criticism I cite toward the Circuit City customer experience lets them know how they can get better. It seems Dave sincerely wants to help people with questions (and surely CC sees it as win/win sales opportunity) about new Home Theater technologies.

So, I was wrong! Especially if I'm trolling the CC forums you're likely to get balanced opinions and there is no forum Gestapo ready to pounce on a post that doesn't use the correct corporate newspeak.

Learn to protect yourself from the latest wave of Russian hackers!

Mega-store Circuit City was unwittingly distributing a virus for the past two weeks before it was discovered and cleaned up yesterday. Circuit City's Home Theater message boards were hacked and had been distributing a virus. It's a good excuse to have better taste in forums. The forum’s URL is part of forum.circuitcity.com and is not part of the greater www.circuitcity.com website. So if you’ve visited the regular Circuit City site lately, don’t worry.

Visitors of the message boards using an unpatched Internet Explorer browser were liable to have the virus installed on their PCs. The virus routed victims to a website out of Russia that installs a harmful back door on your computer. This opening gave hackers control over the Circuit City Forum user's computer that could be used to steal secure financial information from the user.

Only visitors with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that hadn't been updated with last January's patch were susceptible. This is a good reason to keep up with those Windows Updates. The .biz website where the virus was sending victims is hosted by a Russian Internet service provider. This website happens to be on the same block of IP Addresses as a serious Internet fraud attack earlier this year that hit thousands of computers worldwide.

The Washington Post reported on this infamous attack in March. It has been identified as among the most sophisticated cases of Internet fraud yet. This keylogger hack also exploited Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Victims of this scam were duped into clicking a link to a Russian website that let perpetrators record user’s keystrokes. This opens the door to a world of your secure information including credit card numbers and other sensitive data.

The method behind the hack was a clever one and worth filing away for your personal rip-off detector. A victim name Graeme Frost in England received an email summarizing a digital camera purchase with his credit card. A link within the email was specifically for disputing the bill. Now is when the red flag should go up! Graeme clicked it and was taken to a web page that installed the password stealing program that transmitted personal and financial information that presumably he typed in himself trying to get to the bottom of the purchase. The keylogger logs his keystrokes and the hackers make off with the loot.

Dasvidanya!

Edit June 4th:  I understand that some who use CircuitCity forums and shop at the store might have taken offense to the remark that they have bad taste in forums. It's not my intention to offend anyone using a forum to learn more about electronics or to rave about an exciting product they bought at CC. There are lots of valid reasons for using a forum.

But I consider a forum to be a place for unbiased advice which a forum run by Circuit City would not be. CC forums are an infomercial for its products and services. Far better to use one of the many quality forums out there populated by real HT enthusiasts including forums at www.audioholics.com, www.avsforum.com , www.avforums.com and www.hometheatershack.com

Circuit City might be a great place to buy gear with a big selection and good products. People who frequent the CC Forums would seem to me to be the kind of people who like to watch Cher in a lab coat talking about skin care products. I could be wrong, as always it's just my opinion.

Toshiba is investigating reports of premature lamp burn out in many of its DLP HDTVs. Certain customers who have purchased Toshiba's new DLP HDTVs have been reporting lamps burning out after as little as 300 hours of use.

DLP display technology uses a lamp similar to an LCD rear projector. The lamp is a powerful light that illuminates the picture by reflecting off its micro-display chip into lenses presented on your screen as a high definition picture. The lifespan of the lamp is an important point for any potential consumer when thinking about a new HDTV. Since lamp replacement can be an added expense of up to $300 a shot, it's an important consideration when calculating the cost of HDTV. If you're paying to have someone replace the lamp for you the bill can get as high as $500.

The model numbers that have been reported with this problem include:

• Toshiba 44HM85
• Toshiba 52HM85
• Toshiba 62HM85
• Toshiba 46HMX85
• Toshiba 52HMX85
• Toshiba 62HMX85

Most manufacturer's including Toshiba estimate a life expectancy of the lamp to be somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 hours. Toshiba claims 8,000 hours of bulb life for its DLP sets when the brightness is set lower and about 6,000 for sets with the brightness driven higher. In real world application that lifespan is generally somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 hours because the manufacturer's estimate is calculated under optimal conditions. Turning a micro-projection set on and off will hasten the demise of the lamp which has to endure more heat up and cool down cycles. Apparently you'll get a longer life out of your bulb if you did all 8,000 hours of your television viewing in one sitting rather than trying to spread it across months or years.

Reports of the lamp problems were first illuminated on www.digitalhomecanada.com's forums where Toshiba's customers were gathering their complaints prompting feedback from Toshiba. Reports are that Toshiba has been responsive to customer complaints that are coming out of both Canada and the USA.

Nintendo, you gotta love 'em still hanging on with ground breaking ideas - those stilly little freaks. You have to admire the finesse approach Nintendo has taken with Wii. We already heard about Wii's unique "positional" controller that will make some interesting gaming. But now the latest information from the Nintendo camp is the pricing of Wii. It'll be a low - low $250 bucks.

This is great news for casual gamers (and parents) everywhere.

"Yes, jr. we know that you want a PS3 for Christmas but mommy and daddy like having a house and clothes."

The price gives Nintendo an undeniable edge in the console war. And while we're on the war analogy one might say that in a war of market space cost advantage is the ultimate advantage. I believe it was Von Clausewitz who said that underselling the competition was a continuation of politics by other means.

Personally (and occasionally I'll allow myself to get personal on this blog) I like the Microsoft Xbox360. I think it strikes the perfect cost/technology balance for the relative lifespan of this current generation of console game machines. While I appreciate the brute force approach of Sony in giving its customers the ultimate technology of the day, I think they crossed a cost line that's resulting in delays. I'm certain Sony will delay again and/or raise the price when it actually arrives.

Rushing to ad Blu-ray, HDMI and an "on paper" implementation of 1080P are all unnecessary in real world application. For the next two to four years (the relative lifespan of this gen of consoles) there isn't likely to be any advantage in the higher capacity of Blu-ray disk. DVD's 9Gigs will work fine for next gen games, but we'll see.

1080P will almost certainly not be used in games. PS3's 1080P capability will be strutted out for a cut-scene or two but will otherwise languish. Memory and CPU (system resources) devoted to resolution greater than 720P isn't going to ad enough to games that can't be better used simply mapping textures and calling flashy APIs. All 1080P can really do better than 720P is a bit more anti-aliasing for moving images and I think most gamers and developers will find that 720P does a more than adequate job.

I have to hand it to Nintendo, they're not simply leveraging themselves as the "just happy to be here" third wheel in the console war. They're really taking it to the big two players using that marvelously heroic attribute; innovation. Although I am unlikely to buy Wii myself, underselling the big two by such a wide margin really warms my heart.

Nintendo is the TiVo of the console game war or like the Prussian's of the 18th century European stage. They may be small in stature but potent in the eyes of all competitors.

Yesterday I threw out some model numbers for an affordable and complete Home Theater system. Now let's get a closer look at the individual products that comprise this system.

Pioneer Elite VSX-52TX Receiver - $550 US Dollars

The receiver is the heart of your Home Theater. It decodes processes while amplifying your speakers and switches between devices via remote control. This receiver is THX Select certified making it a top shelf item for a budget system. It won't be a candidate for upgrade anytime soon. Unlike HTIB this component could conceivably stay in your system for decades rather than just years or months.

The VSX-52TX has 110 watts to seven discreet channels. This allows you to add more speakers than a 5.1 surround system if you choose. But for our purposes the extra channel will go unused because we're only adding a five speaker system. The back channels on the extended surround formats are highly overrated.

The receiver decodes Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic IIx and DTS including both the "extended" surround formats DTS-ES and Dolby Digital-EX. It also has two really nice high-end features: MCACC and Upscaling component video outputs.

MCACC is Pioneer's system that aids in calibrating each channel in your system. It takes the guesswork out of earing out volume and timing levels in your home theater, it's like having a Home Theater calibrator come over and set up your sound.

The value of component outputs in your home theater receiver can't be understated. All your progressive scan and HDTV sources can connect to your receiver. The VSX-52TX will even upscale S-Video or Composite inputs to Component in case you have any older video sources like a VCR with no component outputs. Upscaling is a convenience that prevents you having to use multiple inputs on the TV.

• Paradigm Premium Cinema 110 CT 5.1 - $640 US
• Pioneer Elite VSX-52TX - $550 US
• Pioneer DV-588A-S - $129 US

Paradigm Premium Cinema 110 CT 5.1 Speaker System - $640 US Dollars

Paradigm is the legendary Canadian speaker company with a reputation for making its own parts and not outsourcing critical speaker components like so many manufacturers do. It's refreshing to know electronics are still made in North America. Paradigm's various speaker lines will take you from low end budget 5.1 systems to high end audiophile equipment that will literally cost you vital organs, surgically removed from your body at the companies Toronto organ factory.

 - just kidding about that last part.

The Cinema series represents paradigm's budget models. At the bottom of the Cinema line is the Cinema 70. These are good little speakers for the price but for the cost I find it advantageous to move up the line to the Cinema 110. The 110s will give you slightly larger woofers and di-pole surround speakers.

$650 for a complete 5.1 system that consists of 3 driver speakers is an insane deal. The Cinema 110s front (L and R) speakers cover midbass with two 4.5 inch drivers each. I'd trust these to move air in a mid sized room and give you serious impact in any smaller room. The surround speakers in this system are di-pole which means there are drivers on the front and back that fire in opposite direction 90 degrees out of phase. This helps with dispersion and makes the speakers more difficult to localize when the effects are coming from the rear channels. They'll make your tiny apartment or dorm room sound like an amphitheater.

DVD Player

I've picked out a real treat for playback. We could have simply gone with a budget DVD player that gets the job done but if you have a real speaker system and a receiver to match you should treat yourself to multi-channel music.

Pioneer DV-588A-S $129.00

This is the successor to Pioneer's highly rated DV-563A that put the hi-fi community on its ear a few years back. When it arrived on the market it was the first ever budget "universal" DVD player, this means it can playback the underused DVD-Audio and SACD formats for high definition, multi-channel audio. Nobody expected much from a budget universal DVD player but as the positive reviews came in some even said the DV-563A was outperforming universal DVD players that cost many times its price. Yes, the old "outperforms ____ many times its price" is a tired old cliché in hi-fi. But this is a rare time it's not simply a hollow platitude. Many reviews actually preferred the 563A to a universal DVD player from Pioneer's own Elite line.

This DVD player will provide a formidable DVD movie and music experience. With that Paradigm speaker system in place you'll surely want to pick up a DVD-Audio disk to sample multi-channel music. Since DVD-Audio is recorded at a very high sampling rate it's considered high resolution sound. Honestly, the Cinema 110s are nice but you're not likely to hear any gains per channel over a good quality CD recording. The high resolution sound is probably only noticed on a very expensive system far outside the price category of the Cinema series.

If you liked the Cinema speaker kit and move into a larger HT room, you might want to consider Paradigm's Reference line. These are bigger speakers and will provide the kind of dynamics that will let you hear full high res sound of DVD Audio and SACD.

That's it for this installment of PMP4$1K. Special thanks to the good folks at Natural Sound in Kitchener for letting me listen to the complete setup described, this is one of their recommended systems for a shoppers on a budget and will save you from the mistake of HTIB. 

A new portable XM radio / receiver was released a few weeks ago by Pioneer called the Inno. It's the most advanced portable satellite radio player yet and can receive XM broadcasts while on the go. It's the smallest satellite radio receiver made to date and sure to be boon for XM fans. But the legal strong arm of the recording industry doesn't think Inno is so cool.

The RIAA is now suing XM over the device that was sold with the slogan "Hear it, click it, save it". The Pioneer Inno XM Radio lets users store up to 50 hours of music. Inno can save songs from XM or from your MP3 collection.

The RIAA just filed its lawsuit claiming the Inno, which lets users save and label songs violates federal copyright laws. The recording industry looks to cash in $150,000 for each song copied using the device. That's going to add for XM because they play more than 160,000 songs every month.

XM says the Inno legally records music for personal use, just like a VCR or a tape deck. Songs stored on the device can't be copied out and are only played back as long as the customer maintains a subscription.

XM has thus far avoided paying any distribution licenses that are normally required of Internet downloading services like Yahoo Music or iTunes. Sirius, a competing satellite radio provider pays the licensing fees because it has receivers that store music but these work differently than Inno. Sirius has a deal with an online music service to download songs played by satellite provider. But, RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol thinks XM should pay up anyway.

XM responds:

"These are legal devices that allow consumers to listen to and record radio just as the law has allowed for decades. The music labels are trying to stifle innovation, limit consumer choice and roll back consumers' rights to record content for their personal use. This is a negotiating tactic on the part of the labels to gain an advantage in our private business discussions. XM Radio is the largest single payer of digital music broadcast royalties and royalties paid by XM go to the music industry and benefit artists directly. XM will vigorously defend this lawsuit on behalf of consumers."

The Recording Industry Association of America is going after its own ally in their crusade against piracy. It's a testament to the state of the recording industry now that it eat its own young just to stay alive.

It's a cliché that's worth repeating.

The Center speaker is the most important speaker in your system for Home Theater.

Look around the local retailers and web dealers for speaker systems. You'll find most 5.1 speaker systems build a center speaker that matches the other speakers in the system, about the same size drivers etc. Some speaker systems will give you the option of larger front speakers. For home theater this isn't necessary, although larger speakers with larger woofers can produce deeper bass the speaker should be set to "small" in the receiver. The small setting means that sounds below the crossover frequency will be diverted to the subwoofer. A typical crossover is 80Hz. So, the front speaker won't produce any of the lower bass instead those sounds will be diverted to the subwoofer. If you have a competent sub in your system the effect of setting your speakers to the "small" setting will produce more bass. We won't delve too much into bass management, that's another topic. Suffice it to say that for Home Theater it's a good idea to set all your speakers to "small" even if you like to switch it back for dedicated two channel (music) sources.

The center speaker arrived back in the days of Dolby Pro-Logic. Dolby Pro-Logic was the improvement on Dolby Surround that had a problem with hard to hear voices. By giving the midrange its own dedicated speaker dialogue in film could now compete with splashy sound effects and musical scores that dominated the front and rear speakers in a surround system.

The center speaker is responsible for reproducing sounds in the range from about 500 to 5000 Hz. This isn't a hard limitation of the center channel just an estimate of the midrange. In a 5.1 system the center channel can receive sounds from any frequency. 

There is a lot going on in that center channel. Not just voices but a lot of sound effects too. Virtually anything that goes on front and center to the camera's perspective can be heard through the center channel. A frail center speaker will rob explosions, gunfire and all those other splashy effects of the bang they should have, despite the big sub and giant front left and right speakers.

One of the most common complaints when you have a center speaker that isn't up to the task is muted voices. Dialogue gets drowned out when the action or musical score gets loud. Chances are the center speaker isn't able to produce enough midrange or the midrange has some dispersion problems which can be associated with the speaker's build.

Sound Speaker Build Quality

One of the classic "cheap" center speaker builds is the MTM (midrange, tweeter, midrange) build. This is a two way design. One tweeter sits between two woofers. Since this design has no midrange it's already off to a bad start. To make an effective center channel speaker of this design is a challenge to the speaker's builder. The design opens you up to acoustic dispersion problems called the lobing effect.

Lobing is a bend in a circle. The circle of sound from your speakers should converge on the audience. But if your center speaker is exhibiting lobing it's difficult to accurately judge the sweet spot. The net effect is the midrange suffers.

Look for a center channel speaker that has a midrange and tweeter stacked on top of each other with woofers on either side. This is a three way design and isn't usually found in the most budget speakers. Most manufacturers only build their top end center channel speaker in the desired three way design.

Not to pick on Paradigm, a fantastic Canadian speaker manufacturer. But you must go well up Pardigm's product line to get into a three way center. If you can afford it you'll be glad you did. The mainstream line is the Monitor series, they're an excellent buy. But the CC-370 (pictured at the top) is an MTM design. I have not auditioned them or put them through the test. To really determine if they exhibit lobing problems you'd have to try it for yourself in your own livingroom. But I would automatically avoid that speaker when looking to spend a bit of money on a quality design.

To get the three way design you have to go two rungs up the Paradigm ladder to the CC-570. The 570 is part of Paradigm's "Reference" series of audiophile quality speakers. The 570 is an amazing speaker that will knock you back into your seat. The CC-370 is a $300US speaker where the CC-570 retails at almost a grand.

Think of it this way, a center speaker should include a midrange! A real center will make a dramatic difference for movies. For two channel music (CD, MP3 etc) it can only serve to fill in the central soundstage, not exactly a critical job if you have well positioned front speakers. But, if you've upgraded a two channel stereo to 5.1 surround for Home Theater and skimped on the center speaker reasoning you'll upgrade it later, you might be wondering why some soundtracks seem robbed of oomph and sometimes dialogue is a bit thin. Well, later is now.