Rickstrange Home Improvement

Before purchasing a sound system for your home, it is important to understand the vocabulary and basic components that make up a quality sound system. For the average listener the vernacular may be a bit overwhelming. What makes up a sound system? What are the components and features of each? How does this relate to what I can hear? Let’s explore this further.

A typical sound system or home theater system consists of 3 major speaker components: subwoofer or bass speakers, mid-range or woofer speakers, and tweeters to bring out that full rich melody that sounds so wonderful when it reaches your ear. Each component is specifically designed to reproduce sounds within its respective design frequency range. Subwoofers reproduce very low frequencies called bass sounds while woofers are designed to reproduce mid range frequencies. Tweeters, on the other hand, reproduce high frequencies such as the tinkle of a bell. Typically there is an accompanying or built-in amplifier to provide the necessary power to run all the components. As stated above, all combined provide the listener with the very rich full range sounds comparable to what one hears at a movie theater. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking at that plasma television, or LCD or DLP television mounted on the wall, what is it missing? Of course you have HDTV connected in some way or another through cable or satellite, but what about the sound? Do you have the surround sound system that makes the entire set-up pop? What good is a great picture if the sound isn’t at the same quality level?

What do you enjoy about going to the movies besides stepping in sticky stuff as you make your way down the aisle and into your seat? The previews are always a great part of the experience, but the rude kids in the back aren’t, so what is missing? Of course it is the big, booming sound that makes you feel like you are in the movie. When there is an explosion on the screen, you expect to feel it. When a rocket blasts off and pushes its way through the atmosphere and into the silence of space, you want to be along for the ride and hearing what is going on is half of the experience. Read the rest of this entry »

The 20th century saw TV reach dizzying heights, with technology and programming leaping further than anyone would have predicted. Yet the 21st century, even with global recession and money worries on a massive scale, has ushered in an era of technological advance in television media that has the masses crying for more. Read the rest of this entry »

Buying a new desktop or laptop is quite expensive if your reason is simply because you want a touch screen monitor. An affordable way to upgrade your monitor to touch screen capability is a touch screen kit. It turns your old screen into a touch screen by the add-on frame that you attach to your monitor so that it responds to your touch. When sometimes it feels like the mouse is working too slowly that you wish you can just touch the screen to click a box here and there or move the cursor faster, the solution has arrived. It is time to stop wishing because your wish is granted. Read the rest of this entry »

It is good that compact wireless audio systems like the Sonos Play:3 are growing in quality and availability as space becomes unheard of these days. As the population grows, the issue of space grows as well. No more are the days of oversized huge style homes, now people are more and more often huddled up in apartment buildings, condos, and houses in neighborly subdivisions.

It is very helpful to know that good quality wireless audio systems fit securely into corners when necessary. Today we have greater usability because the speakers can be totally concealed and still be operated through your wireless mobile device. We also have LCD, 3D and plasma televisions that can also be mounted on the wall and out the way. Read the rest of this entry »

The iHome company makes a various range of products. They are all meant to be a perfect integration for the Apple portable devices, in specific the iPod, iPhone and iPad. The company, which has been into the marketplace for several years, wants to provide the Apple user with the possibility to use their favourite mp3 players or phones also as alarm clocks or to listen to the music inside in a bigger stereo system.

Among the products from iHome there are two that are worth considering. These are the flagship product, the iA100, and its little brother the iP90. They share some features, however they are also different somehow. Let’s discover the commonalities and the differences. Read the rest of this entry »

Touch screen features are the latest, most popular offers in a lot of consumer electronic products including car radios hence the introduction of touch screen car radio. It may be a matter of personal choice when opting between this feature and knobs and buttons. However, when a person is driving, not losing focus on the road is extremely important. A car radio with the said modern feature allows location of utilities that need to be activated when one wishes to have music to drive by. Read the rest of this entry »

New technology is great, but it doesn’t do much good if it is too complicate for the average person to use it. Not everybody is a technical wiz and not everybody has an engineering background. Most people want the newest technology, these fancy devices that help make life easier and more enjoyable, but they don’t want things that are so complicated and clumsy to use that they can no longer see the benefits in using it.

This is the way most technology succeeds, it has to get past the awkward, non-user friendly phase and somebody has to present it to the people as something worth using. It also has to be user friendly enough to get the initial group of non-technical people to accept and to use it. You used to be able to tell who was technically inclined and who either wasn’t technically inclined or just didn’t care by performing one small test in their home. Read the rest of this entry »

Purchasing new home products can be an exciting venture, especially if they involve purchasing products featuring new, enhanced technology. When considering the purchase of a new LCD TV, there are a few characteristics that should be compared.

To begin with, a consumer should estimate the approximate size LCD TV that they wish to purchase. When making this decision, consider whether it will be mounted or set on a tv stand. Oftentimes, stores have wall mounts that are available for purchase, since these televisions are so lightweight and skinny. However, if the plan is to insert the TV into an enclosed stand or tight space, that space should be measured before entering into a purchase.

Another important aspect that should be considered when purchasing an LCD TV is the native pixel resolution that will be acceptable. Flat panel televisions have a set number of pixels on the surface of their screen, and these pixels make a difference in image quality. A pixel resolution of 768 would be appropriate for a smaller TV, while a resolution of at least 1080 would be more acceptable for a larger-size television. The higher the pixel resolution, the better the quality will be. This is the case especially if the TV will be hooked up to a Blu-Ray DVD player.

Scaling is another quality that consumers should look at before purchasing and LCD TV. This is the process of matching an incoming signal resolution to a TV’s native pixel resolution. Although it ultimately depends on the quality of the incoming signal that the TV receives, poor scaling can cause a lack of detail and jagged image edges.

In addition to these aforementioned qualities, buyers looking to purchase a new television should consider potential motion response time. LCD TVs have been widely known for their slow response time when it comes to moving images. However, 8ms or 4ms is considered to be a desirable response time, with 4ms being preferable. If a television does not list it’s motion response time, consumers should be careful in proceeding with the purchase.

An LCD TV’s contrast ratio plays a big role in how dark images appear on an LCD screen. Low contrast ratios will make images appear dark, while light images will appear blurry. Native, Static, and ANSI contrast options are the most desirable options.

While brightness is a characteristic that is best measured by the naked eye, the viewing angle should be highly considered when shopping for an LCD TV. A side-to-side viewing angle of 160 degrees is preferable, but 80 degrees will suffice, as well.

Lastly, the tuner and connection that are incorporated into a potential LCD TV option should be highly considered. A built-in NTSC and ATSC tuner will allow viewers to receive over-the-air broadcasting, and a QAM tuner allows viewers to receive HD images without the use of a cable box. Furthermore, at least one HDMI connection is necessary, so that buyers can also attach HD-cable and satellite boxes, gaming systems, and DVD players.

Advice…

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Looking at some of the technical specs of today’s power amplifiers, one cannot help but be at a loss in trying to compare different models and terms, such as “t-amp”, “THD” etc. I will give a short overview of the output power spec in order to help you better understand the meaning of this term and how they relate to the performance of an amplifier.

If you are looking to buy an audio amplifier to set up your home speakers, you will often be confronted with a number of strange terms describing its performance. But how do these numbers relate to how the amplifier sounds and how are these to be interpreted? Let me now go ahead and explain the wattage rating of audio amplifiers.

The output power of the amps is given as “wattage”. This describes how loud your amplifier can drive your speakers. If you have a small room then you don’t need much more than a few watts. If you want to set up speakers outdoors or in a concert then you will need several hundred watts of power. Please note that many amplifiers will start distorting the audio once the audio reaches higher wattage. If you want to enjoy low-distortion audio then you may want to pick an amplifier which will give you more wattage than you will actually need.

Some specs will give the wattage in “Watts peak” while others will show “Watts rms”. “Peak” means that the amplifier is able to deliver the wattage for a short period of time only while “Watts rms” means that the amplifier will continuously deliver that amount of power. The peak rating has been somewhat abused by vendors stating enormous peak audio power while their amps are in fact built with tiny power supplies unable to handle more than just a few watts rms power.

Nonetheless, while the rms rating will tell you more about the amplifier’s actual performance, be sure though that the amp has a peak power rating which is substantially higher than the rms rating. This is because most likely you will be using the amp to amplify music or voice. Music and voice signals by nature always fluctuate in terms of their power, i.e. the power envelope of the signal will vary over time. This is because at certain points in time the signal will have bursts of power which by far exceed the average power of the signal.

However, be aware of the fact that the maximum output power also depends on what type of speakers you are using, in particular the impedance of the speakers. Speakers usually have impedances between 4 and 8 Ohms. An audio amplifier which has a fixed internal supply voltage will have a maximum output signal swing that is limited by that supply voltage. If you are driving an 8-Ohm speaker then the amplifier must deliver twice the output voltage than when driving a 4-Ohm speaker in order to deliver the same amount of power. Thus often maximum output power is given for a specific speaker impedance.

You can find additional information regarding t-amp models at Amphony’s website.