Calvin's Games & HT construction thread - Page 39

Javry the color is new since your visit. it's actually "Much" darker and the PJ is throwing a better picture as a result - it's not quite black but it's not far off either

The Backyard and patio are more or less done - we planted a few trees and added some stone work this year from the fire pit to the raised gardens - a few new drippers in the water system etc... I'll have to get a picture up to show the new results (I'm looking forward to next year when I have the stone work treated to look "wet" so it brings out the colors in the stone should look fantastic once that is completed).

Cheers
Calvin

I've had a few questions in the last while about the in-wall / in-floor set up I have and as there is not a lot of info on AVS regarding these types I'm told I thought I would resurrect this old thread with some info on them.

Q & A
(Questions by others and Answers by myself of course)

Q) What is your opinion of the Thors?

A) I like the Thors for an in-wall / floor solution they are quite good but they are not as good as a solid "standard" enclosed sub that most people buy in the same price range (powered cube type).

Q) Is there anything you particularly like or don't like about them?

A) I don't like the metal Grill / casing that comes with the subs and if you can I advise to use the cloth as I did with the 2 I use under the screen. The 2 in back I put in the floor I used the metal grills (casing) and when I'm driving the subs hard you can hear some resonance that I wish wasn't in my sound field. However with the chairs on them I need the grills to protect the speakers...it's a trade off. If I had to do it again I would likely have put all 4 in-wall vs the 2 in the platform.

Q) Would you buy them again?

A) I would buy them again but I also haven't looked to see what is out there for competition in awhile as I'm not in the market. They are however a very solid performer for the price and as long as you get big amps to drive them you should be pleased with these subs (I use one amp for each pair and I'll blow the amps before I damage the speakers I'm sure of it).

Q) Have you had any issues with the subs?

A) None other then the grill issue mentioned above.

Hopefully that helps some folks in the future.

All the best
Calvin

The upgrade bug hit me for the upstairs HT

I found a deal on these Klipsch speakers I couldn't say no to and then they followed me home.

So far I'm just playing around with the new set up but the sub is a huge improvement over my 8" energy!

Cheers
Calvin

Hi guys sorry for the long time away I've been a busy guy of late. We've welcomed a new addition to the family. My little girl Olivia Ann will be 7 months on Saturday

Anyway I've finally retired the Infocus 333 (I'm putting it up for sale locally soon for a very reasonable price just want it to find a good home).

I'm currently using a Sony VPL HW30 while I wait for my new Sony VPL-VW95ES to arrive. I was very tempted to buy the 1000 but as I recently picked up a 2012 QX56 I decided to take it easy on the check book and perhaps save something for my little girls college fund

I'll have some thoughts and pics up soon of all the new stuff (I've been adding bits and bobs over the last couple of months the AV rack is almost all new other then the amps)

Hope you are all well.

Cheers
Calvin

I haven't pulled the trigger on the 95ES yet (I was just about when I posted above and then went back into the forums to take a final look and then a couple calls later I had nearly made up my mind on the 1000 again...Olivia will still go to university it just won't be Yale ). I'm taking down the VPL-30 ES and returning it (just grabbed it as a stop gap until I figured out which PJ I was going to go with and to be honest I was very impressed with the little guy for it's price...I didn't try the 3D just removed the PJ and hung it for a few days while I worked out the 333's replacement).
Anyway I'm about 95% certain I'm going to go with the new VW 1000ES which is quite a step up from the 95ES but as I'm likely to keep it for 4-5 years as I did with the 333 I think it's the better bet for me.

I'm going to pull the trigger early next week once I confirm a few more details (such as installation etc...)

Pics to follow soon.

Cheers
Calvin

Well I pulled the trigger on the 1000ES after spending a large portion of my time reading about the unit and the other alternatives I decided to spend the extra $$ for the extra lumens .
I'm hoping it's a great multi year PJ for me. I should have it in the city early next week and hopefully installed by Friday next week if all goes well. More to follow!

Cheers
Calvin

Awesome I sure hope so! Thanks for the post Mookie Can I ask you what your using for a mount if your using a ceiling mount and if you can share some info? Can you switch out the bulb and filter with out having to bring the PJ down with the one your using? Did you do the mounting yourself and if so was it easy to mount and set up with your screen?

Thanks again for the post
Calvin

Hey javry Long time no chat! I'm very excited about the 1000. I'm boxing up the 30 I picked up while I was shopping around for my next PJ tonight. The new 1000 should be installed friday if all goes well!
You still swing by Edmonton from time to time? If so give me a shout sometime we'll get together and chat HT again. I'm still in the same place, same HT with some near gear added. I'll get some pics up again soon. I posted some pics of my new ride in the 20k+ forum recently as well as the QX is a new addition for me as well. I'll have my thoughts on the unit up shortly after I run it through a few movies and games

All the best
Calvin

Update: PJ was delayed in transport I guess I got the call today and I've had to reschedule for next wednesday for the installation now. They are supposed to be at the house at 11:00 AM for the install so I'll take some pics and do a couple posts as it happens since I won't be doing anything else (for a change glad I don't have to lift this beast as my back isn't what it used to be!)

Cheers
Calvin

Thanks Robb I'm very happy with the room. I find I spend the majority of my time in the house in this room (even if it is watching cartoons with my daughter lately).

cheers
Calvin

Javry,

I'm still using my AT SMX screen I had when you visited last time. I'm still very happy with the SMX I don't think I'll change my screen unless I move to another house and have to buy a new one (and even then I'd still likely buy what ever Ruben has as his latest and greatest SMX offering for the new room).

For processing / AVR I've traded out the Sherwood Newcastle for a new Pioneer Elite VSX (forgot the model number off the top of my head 52 or 53 I think... didn't really need it but wanted the I-pad app for easy control of the AVR which my wife and I really like...works great with all of my apple ipads and iphones).

Other then that I've updated my power to a Belkin and a couple of Monster power center units. I'll get a couple pictures of the rack up when I update with the PJ next week.

I had a chance to swing by National Audio / Video here locally where I'm buying the projector from and it was an interesting visit they had a few PJ's in dedicated rooms I had a chance to take a look at. The new Epson and the older Sony 85. They were in complete light controlled rooms but smaller 100" (or there abouts) size screens. Both looked pretty good but I'm sure will pale compared to the new Sony 1000es (which is what the sales guy told me as he's seen them all in action including the 1000 with the 4k spiderman demo).

Cheers
Calvin

Darryl,

Nice to hear from you again. I'll PM you my cell # so you can text or call me next time there is a HT meet locally I'd sure like to come for a meet and greet with the local guys. I'll hopefully be able to host myself again soon once I get the new PJ up and a few other items sorted out (my baby girl is 7 months old now so I'm learning to relax a bit as a new dad (I'm still just as proud and if you think I make a nice HT you should see how cute I can make babies ) and I don't spend every available minute with her as much these days so I'm sure I can spare and hour or two in the near future )

I'd like to see the 95 in action and see how it measures up to the 1000ES considering I think it's about 1/4 the price. After I see yours I may regret buying mine

I phoned AudioArk initial and Aaron was off that day but they don't carry Sony (think they only carry Epson...anyway it's only one brand for them at the moment and they couldn't help me with a 1000ES. The only local retailer I could find that is a local reseller that would honor warranty etc is National so I went through them.)

Looking forward to seeing the other guys HT's and chatting with you again.

Hope things are going well

Cheers
Calvin

Thanks Greg and Adi for the visit and posts. The Sony has arrived I'll have some posts and photos as we go along!

The Sony has arrived!

.

The unboxing



Not going to go into to many pics on the unboxing as that has already been covered pretty well on other threads here at AVS.

Peerless Mount going up.



Bottom of mount being attached to the 1000.

continued from above



Mount on.



PJ going up



First images from PJ mounted. Setting up the mount alignment etc..



The bad news is the cables in the conduit have been bound up somehow and now the guys have to cut cables and cut a hole in the ceiling in the AV room to figure out what the heck is going on and to get the new cables installed

I'm also getting my new media area done pretty soon.Hopefully with in the next 7 days. I'm buying some maple to cut and stain today and hopefully I will have the old stuff in and the new stuff mounted by the weekend or by next weekend at the latest.

For the before and afters here is the current disaster area of my media selection room





I have so many disks that I've started storing them all over the house at this point as they are just stacking up everywhere... thus the new shelving!

Good news is the hole is cut now and the cables are starting to move. Bad news is we had to cut all the cables up there and they are are going to have to pull out everything and pull new HDMI's in as well as other cabling. I'll have them pull my HDMI cable first and then I'll do the AQ comparison and then if needed we'll end up having the AQ pulled in if I want them.

The hold cut in the AV closest to help pull and cut the cables out...



The reason this happened is Connect AV that ran the conduit didn't glue the conduit and it came apart in the middle of the run from the PJ to the AV closet. Just a disaster and I'm out a few hundred in cables plus a couple extra hours of paying these pro installers dicking around!



All of the destroyed cables pictured above... not sure what to do about the conduit I think I'll have to cut into the bulk head area and find the break fix it then get the drywall and paint fixed up

Cheers
Calvin

Ok all done for now... whew.

I didn't have enough time to take as many pictures as I had hoped as the installers had to get to their next job and it took about 2 hours longer than we expected to pull the cables after the gong show it became. Anyway I didn't get a chance to set up the camera and take photos of the A/B comparisons of my $50 40' monoprice cable compared to the $600 40' Audio Quest Cable but we did it without photos. I had myself, the 2 installers and my brother inlaw over whom is about 1/2 my age and has the eyes of a hawk and the hearing I can only wish to have.

However we still did the A/B's with several sources, Blu ray, regular DVD, Xbox 360 games (forza 4 was used) and 3D (Tron and Cars 2). We just didn't get to set up and take photos as I had originally planned sadly. However we did the best we could without photos....so what did our "test" show...?

No difference at all to any of the 4 of us. None what so ever in audio or Video was apparent. We spent near an hour trying to find anything on any of those sources and we couldn't find any (we went direct from the source straight to the PJ to bypass anything from the PE AVR to check just picture and that as well showed no difference that any of us could see).

Long story short I'm sticking with my 40' monoprice cable and the AQ cables have gone back to NAV.

I'm currently playing with the unit a little and checking out the menus etc... I'll get some screen shots up when I have some time...

Early thoughts are this is one impressive unit. It's plenty bright on my 140" 16.9 SMX even on LOW bulb setting. On High bulb setting the 3D is better than anything I've ever seen in the theater including the much touted AVX cinemas locally. It is of course much darker then 2D but still very good especially for movies that are animated such as Cars.


Cheers
Calvin

The bag full of ruined cables we had to chop up...



Some screen shots of Despicable Me - BluRay. No Calibration on low lamp. Canon Rebel SLR used no tri-pod thus a little blurry due to my hands.



Same shot zoomed in a bit (and a bit blurry as a result)



More to follow I'm off to the local best buy to grab some movies and then off to the local lumber store to grab some maple and stain for my new shelving units (figure the maple alone going to run me over $1500 on this side project but I'm hoping the finished product is worth it!)

Cheers
Calvin

I took a few photos of Tin Tin on blu ray with the SLR and a tri pod. Some of the photos are the same shot with a different camera setting as I was experimenting to see which is the closest to actual.

If you click on the "Photo Info" on the right side before you click on the photo to expand the size you can see all the camera settings etc.. that were used for each shot.

example for the "thumb" of the ship below this is the photo info:

Photo info

File Name: a4a49a41.jpg(Edit)
File Size: 524 kb - 2048 x 1367
Camera Make: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XTi
Date/Time: 2012:04:26 13:21:02
Resolution: 2048 x 1367
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 41.0mm (35mm equivalent: 66mm...
CCD Width: 22.28mm
Exposure Time: 0.300 s (1/3)
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO Equiv.: 400
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: pattern

Click on the pics to expand to full rez after you link to photobucket album.











Different setting same shot:



Same shot 3 different settings:







Same scene with some different zoom levels and settings again as noted in the photo info for those that are curious:











As good as some of those photos are they all still pale compared to the actual picture you'd see in the room...

Cheers
Calvin

Darryl,

The 1000ES can't even be compared to my 3 chip infocus it's that much better it's hard to believe it's only been 5 years. It’s like going from a blurry old CRT PC monitors when they first came out to the ultra-sharp new LED flat panel monitors we use now it's just not even close. The infocus 333 was a great machine but I could never go back to it now. The 30ES honestly is a better machine then my 333 IMO it's almost as bright and throws a better picture (of course for the brightness it only “appears” to the eye and not likely to the light monitor as almost as “bright” though but that’s good enough for me the 30ES is a very bright unit I think it’s got a couple hundred lumens on the 95 but sacrifices some contrast for that extra light, none the less it’s a great picture). Honestly I was very impressed with the 30 it's easily the PJ to beat for less than 5k CDN IMO. It was due to my impression with the 30 that I went with the 1000 and looked hard at the 95 over the new JVC's and others.

Of course the 1000 is a pretty big step up from the 30 but not nearly as big a step up as it is going from my Infocus to it. That is like night and day different where the step up from the 30 is still noticeable but not nearly as big as I thought it would be. Still with saying that the 1000ES is the easily the best picture I've ever seen anywhere on any screen (LCD, Plasma, computer monitor nothing is as sharp, vibrant, flawless as the picture it throws My brothers series 8 LG 55" LED LCD is an absolutely amazing picture but the 1000's is better it's like that amazing 55" display but 140" and just a bit better depth, blacks, colors etc... really has to be seen as the pictures I posted don't do it justice). . The 3D could be brighter or course as everyone states in the owners thread but it’s brighter than any 3D I’ve seen in the theater and it’s still a great 3D experience. It’s also nice that I didn’t have to run a cat6 cable and hook up a separate transmitter as my room isn’t set up very well for that. I did get a chance to see the 5010 in the showroom at National as well. I wasn’t as impressed with the 3D it’s a bit brighter but that is the only thing better about the 3D as it pales in every other regard I’ll take the dimmer albeit better image.
I can’t wait to see some 4K material on it as for Blu-ray it’s already amazing.
It was a shame about the cables but at least I have a decent cable up there now that does 3D and hopefully everything else I need it to do for the next few years. I may have to get the ceiling ripped open and that conduit fixed if I have to run anymore cables up there as it stands now...
I was going to call you and tell you we'll have to reschedule for next week as this weekend I have to attend a funeral on Saturday and I won't be able to meet up with you. Next week during the week or next weekend I'll give you a shout to see what new time will work for us.
I’ll chat with you next week (and of course here on the forum).

All the best,
Calvin