Technology woes
Dec. 20th, 2004 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rscAs both ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwg and I have mentioned somewhere along the line (I think only in comments in other people's journals), we bought a TiVo last week, only to discover that the unit had a defect that caused its audio to fail after a few minutes of watching. So we went back to Best Buy and exchanged it; the new one is fine, no problem, and we're getting good use out of it.
So, being in the mood for "home theater" toys (more especially since the arrival of the extended Return of the King DVD), we went to TweeterEtc on Friday to buy a set of surround-sound speakers (the Polk RM10, for those who know/care about such things), did some measurement, went to Radio Shack to buy some more speaker wire, threaded wire through the closet and around the back of the living room, and got everything hooked up.
But...
After much fiddling with the controls on the receiver, and some menu setup on the DVD player, we got sound to all the speakers, but the sound to the rear speakers is distorted, especially in the right channel. Much experimenting, including putting the right rear speaker much nearer the receiver and using a shorter cable (in case the problem was excessive resistance on 60 feet of 18-gauge wire), but no significant improvement. So we're forced to the conclusion that something is wrong with the rear-right channel of either the receiver or the DVD player, most likely the former. (A further annoyance is that we have another DVD player, which would allow us to test this hypothesis -- except that it's in Gloucester, and we bought the speaker system on the way back from our mulch-for-the-winter visit to Gloucester, and weren't about to do another round trip just to pick up the other DVD player.)
This is as far as we got on Sunday afternoon, before deciding that we didn't feel like dealing with it any more that day, and that we should wait before going out and buying another receiver to see if some inspiration should strike (none has). And I don't think we're going anywhere we have to drive to before tomorrow. We could actually use at least one more receiver; the tuner in the one on the first floor (my 30+-year-old Optonica, which doesn't get used much, but still) has pretty much failed, and the system in the bedroom isn't very good, and either need could be filled by the one currently in the living room, which works fine in non-surround mode (and of course we now have an extra pair of speakers, too). But it's annoying, and will be really annoying if we get another receiver and the problem is still there.
So we still haven't watched the damn movie. Putting it off until at least tomorrow isn't so bad, though, since we'll probably be watching the Patriots tonight in any case.
jwg and I have mentioned somewhere along the line (I think only in comments in other people's journals), we bought a TiVo last week, only to discover that the unit had a defect that caused its audio to fail after a few minutes of watching. So we went back to Best Buy and exchanged it; the new one is fine, no problem, and we're getting good use out of it.So, being in the mood for "home theater" toys (more especially since the arrival of the extended Return of the King DVD), we went to TweeterEtc on Friday to buy a set of surround-sound speakers (the Polk RM10, for those who know/care about such things), did some measurement, went to Radio Shack to buy some more speaker wire, threaded wire through the closet and around the back of the living room, and got everything hooked up.
But...
After much fiddling with the controls on the receiver, and some menu setup on the DVD player, we got sound to all the speakers, but the sound to the rear speakers is distorted, especially in the right channel. Much experimenting, including putting the right rear speaker much nearer the receiver and using a shorter cable (in case the problem was excessive resistance on 60 feet of 18-gauge wire), but no significant improvement. So we're forced to the conclusion that something is wrong with the rear-right channel of either the receiver or the DVD player, most likely the former. (A further annoyance is that we have another DVD player, which would allow us to test this hypothesis -- except that it's in Gloucester, and we bought the speaker system on the way back from our mulch-for-the-winter visit to Gloucester, and weren't about to do another round trip just to pick up the other DVD player.)
This is as far as we got on Sunday afternoon, before deciding that we didn't feel like dealing with it any more that day, and that we should wait before going out and buying another receiver to see if some inspiration should strike (none has). And I don't think we're going anywhere we have to drive to before tomorrow. We could actually use at least one more receiver; the tuner in the one on the first floor (my 30+-year-old Optonica, which doesn't get used much, but still) has pretty much failed, and the system in the bedroom isn't very good, and either need could be filled by the one currently in the living room, which works fine in non-surround mode (and of course we now have an extra pair of speakers, too). But it's annoying, and will be really annoying if we get another receiver and the problem is still there.
So we still haven't watched the damn movie. Putting it off until at least tomorrow isn't so bad, though, since we'll probably be watching the Patriots tonight in any case.
