Scott joins Leo to talk about 360 reality audio, launched by Sony. Scott says SONY goes so far as to take the shape of the human ear into consideration when designing spatial audio, to make the experience more lifelike and Scott says it works best with Sony headphones. The challenge, though, is that there is a lack of content, as mixing must be done to create the spatial separation of each track in the audio experience.
CES begins next week and Scott joins Leo for the 16th straight year to talk about what we can expect to see. In fact, they met at CES during the first week of the Tech Guy 16 years ago. What can we expect? Scott says we'll see more 8K displays, which Leo says is rather silly. Just how realistic do we need TVs to get to real life? Scott says that while resolution is one consideration, there is a greater sense of depth, thanks to HDR and video processing. So the depth of field looks more realistic. Upscaling will look much better as well, like going from HD to 8K. Or 4K to 8K.
Scott saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and he was a bit disappointed. He thought it was "stitched together" as a story, and he didn't think the Dolby Cinema was as good as he's seen before. He also thought it was too damn loud. The deep black of space was simply missing. So it was disappointing. But he does say that JJ Abrams and his team did a great job incorporating footage of Carrie Fisher that wasn't used in the last two films so that it worked rather seamless. Scott also said that the music was virtually nonstop throughout the entire film.
Scott joins Leo to talk about home theater and how well Tuba Christmas went. Scott says they had an audience of over 1,000 this year, and it was a marvelous yuletide celebration. There was even one group that tailgated in the parking lot before the concert.
Scott got an email from a listener about a Sony X900F TV and wants to know if he can improve the picture quality and how. Scott says that there's a new disc from Spiers and Munsel called "UHD-HDR Benchmark." It's a 4K Blu-ray that will enable the user to calibrate and optimize their TV to the best possible performance without having to hire a professional. He also wants to be able to control his TV and his soundbar with the same remote. Scott says that is hard to do since their Sony remote is not a universal remote. Leo says you can maybe turn on CEC and it could control your soundbar.
Black Friday may have passed, but with Cyber Monday just two days away, Scott is back with another round of killer home theater deals. Scott says that Best Buy has been open later this weekend, and the larger TVs are very cheap ... 75" for $750! Unbelievable deals, sure, but Scott warns that you may end up with compromised performance. If you can't really see the difference, it may not have that huge an impact, but to the educated home theater eye, once you learn what to look for, you can't unsee the flaws. So when it comes to BlackFriday deals, sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
Scott joins Leo after a brief bout with Larengitus, to talk with Leo about this year's Black Friday deals. Scott says that while rumors are that Black Friday deals are for products just made for Black Friday, he says that isn't true at all. They are mostly for overstock, last year's models, and even this year's models. Abe's of Maine has killer deals on OLED TVs, including the LG C9, for 52% off. 65" C9 $1750.
In the speaker category, the Sony Core SSCS3 and the CS5 Bookshelf are 50% off at Best Buy. You can even buy a Sony Atmos system for half off. Klipsh is also 50% off.
Blackie would like to create a surround sound system with a minimum of wires. Doable? Scott says that there are wireless systems that work quite well. He'd probably still want to wire the front speakers. But the surround speakers and subwoofer can be wireless. Vizio's soundbar as a dedicated wireless subwoofer and surround speakers could work. But they'll need to be plugged in or be connected to the subwoofer, which would be in the back of the room.
Rich bought a P50 Vizio that died after 6 months. He got a replacement, which lasted about a year and a half. Then the replacement died. All sound, no picture (intermittently). He's also been having issues with HDMI. Scott says that Vizio's have a known issue with failing HDMI ports. So try and plug into another one. But more often, the power supplies fail, so that maybe the problem. Rich adds to monitor the problem and maybe add surge protection. But also get back in touch with Vizio. The warranty may enable a return.
Scott joins Rich to talk about an issue connecting a tape deck to a modern AV receiver with no tape in/tape out option. Scott says older receivers had that feature to record and playback certain AV signals. But that went away about 20 years ago. No receiver that Scott knows supports that anymore. With modern streaming, nobody really records anymore. But with certain receivers, including the Marantz NR1509, you can still record it. Look for a preamp out or pre-out port.
