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  1. Andrew Walbert

    24: Day 3 - 12/09/03 - Hour 7

    I guess it all sort of makes sense, and certainly helps explain away a few very serious plot holes that were open before. It also caused Kim's bumbling idiocy to go from making her a hero (discovering Guyell(sp?)'s treachery) to being a bumbling idiot once again stumbling upon something she...
  2. Andrew Walbert

    Have you ever felt like breaking glass?

    I've often wanted to break things to relieve tension; it's a natural instinct for a lot of us, I think. Punching things is a great stress reliever, but when I had the bright idea to punch a steel wall one day at work, my hand was pretty much useless for the next two weeks. I think I fractured a...
  3. Andrew Walbert

    What is the minimum AMD CPU for HTPC?

    For HTPC uses, any of the currently available Athlon XP processors will provide more than enough power. Unless you're going to be gaming, there's little need for the more expensive CPUs.
  4. Andrew Walbert

    Pricewatch down, need a good vendor

    Erm, I just went to pricewatch and tried doing a search in the search box and it came up with "File: unspecified error"
  5. Andrew Walbert

    GeForce FX card reviews are out, prepare to be surprised..

    I'm not impressed with the FX's performance. In fact, I'm of the distinct impression that there is a bug in the drivers causing performance to suffer. It's actually little better than what an equally-clocked GeForce 3 part would have done. Remember, it runs at 500MHz, an unheard-of speed for a...
  6. Andrew Walbert

    Pricewatch down, need a good vendor

    Pricewatch's search function has been down for a long time, now, and I'm not even sure that they're planning to fix it. With the prices of components these days, you could get a decent Socket A motherboard for $80, an Athlon 1600+ for maybe $50, and 256MB PC2700 DDR for around $40. It's not...
  7. Andrew Walbert

    Component VS S-Video for standard TV

    I'd agree, the difference between component and s-video is minimal on regular definition television. With HD, though, component will almost always be the best choice, depending on the content being viewed. Of course, the difference between composite and s-video on any tv is substantial when...
  8. Andrew Walbert

    Building a new house and HT from scratch, what type of wiring should I do itially

    If you want to be prepared for anything in the forseable future, and you don't mind spending a bit of money, run the following to every room in the house: 3-Coax (FM, OTA TV, Sat/Cable) 2-Cat6 (Ethernet, two phone lines on the other cable) 4-15A electrical (at least one per wall for an...
  9. Andrew Walbert

    Sound cards/motherboards with SPDIF

    As far as HTPC motherboards go, I'd say the most interesting one I've seen is the MSI K7N420 Pro. It uses the nForce chipset, so it has excellent sound output quality (at least as good as the Sound Blaster Audigy 2, which costs well over $100 itself). But the real deal-sealer for me is that it...
  10. Andrew Walbert

    Paradigm, Bose, Athena or Polk Audio?

    If you question whether we hate Bose because they are the "biggest name in the industry" or because they genuinely put out a bad product, let me tell you of my experience with Bose. I own the Bose CS-10 center, and a pair of Bose 201-IV speakers for my left/right. I also have a pair of...
  11. Andrew Walbert

    DSL or Cable????

    Yeah, I factored the bit/byte conversion into my thinking. I've just never seen a burst over 60KB/s, even though I should be able to get as much as 80KB/s. I've also had a few too many outages in the past year for my liking, which is why I'm probably going to switch over to Comcast Internet...
  12. Andrew Walbert

    SVS? It's the biggest let down ever

    Ok, I just kinda skimmed through this one, but.. the loudest bass recorded in air (that I'm aware of) is in the 176-177db range. To understand how loud that is, you should first realize that at around 160db, your ears can start to bleed and you'll get a bad headache pretty quick. By 170db, your...
  13. Andrew Walbert

    copper vs silver vs gold

    Wait wait wait, you mean to tell me that my high school Chemistry teacher lied to me about Gold being the best conductor? Why do so many companies offer gold-plated ends instead of silver? I mean, I realize that the general idea is marketting, but I'd think that somewhere, somebody would hit...
  14. Andrew Walbert

    DSL or Cable????

    My experience with DSL has been fine up until I connected a third PC onto the network. Other than my main PC and the media server on the network, my sister is sharing the connection with me on her PC. Unfortunately, it she's downloading anything at all, my available bandwidth gets chopped up...
  15. Andrew Walbert

    copper vs silver vs gold

    In theory, gold wiring would make for the cleanest signal as it is the best conductor. But as far as I know, nobody has ever made speaker wire with gold, because the cost would be astronomical (six or seven figures to wire a complete 7.1 system). A few companies offer pure silver speaker wires...
  16. Andrew Walbert

    Digital coax splitter?

    A good quality A/B switch would definately work, though a Y-adapter should also work fine. As for splitting one signal into two, it should work, but you may encounter some signal degredation over distance (more so than an unsplit run).
  17. Andrew Walbert

    Top 3 selling DVD/VHS for 2002...

    LOTR probably got a boost from those who bought the initial release and then decided to get the EE version when it came out. If you total Phantom Menace releases together, they probably are a bit higher than average simply because of the initial VHS release and Lucas swearing he wouldn't do a...
  18. Andrew Walbert

    24: Season 2 - Hour 9 - 01/07/03 - It's back!

    Great twists in this one. We can assume the bomb won't be found until hour 23 or 24, because too early and it would kill the season. Now, nothing was put in writing about Nina getting immunity for the crime, so until she gets that, she won't kill Jack. Since she's already given up the...
  19. Andrew Walbert

    Which is better optical audio cables or standard RCA?

    For really long runs (50M or more), optical is the better option. If you're concerned with your cables acting as antenna's, then optical is the way to go. No electrical signal being transmitted means no unwanted line noise being picked up. But honestly, unless you're able to hear a difference...
  20. Andrew Walbert

    Could someone explain the reasoning behind biwiring?

    That's actually what I meant -- two seperate pairs of cable. If it's not four unique cables, then it's not really bi-wire, if you ask me. As for what cable brand to go with, everybody will say something different. Your best bet is probably to grab a Canare cable and a Monster cable and...
  21. Andrew Walbert

    The wife said Yes ... (longish)

    My girlfriend said that I can have free reign of the HT room if she gets to decorate the master bedroom and adjoining bath when we build. Fine by me! But when I dragged her along while looking at speakers and projectors, she came out of there saying, "Uhm, Andy, you're going to keep this under...
  22. Andrew Walbert

    Could someone explain the reasoning behind biwiring?

    Bi-wiring isn't going to gain you anything but a lighter wallet. However, if you see yourself eventually moving to a bi-amp setup, then by all means go ahead and run bi-wire connections if you're building an HT from scratch. But otherwise, there's little reason for doing so.
  23. Andrew Walbert

    For those who crave INSANE Bass.......

    As far as crazy expensive woofers go, I'm a fan of the JL W7 series (as I have a single 12W7 in my Mustang, though it's receiving a rather meager 300W). But for serious bass, the 13W7 is a definate contender, I'd say. Fs: 23.5hz Qes: 0.476 Qms: 7.517 Qts: 0.448 Vas: 3.68 cu. ft. (104.3...
  24. Andrew Walbert

    should I use these to organize my cables?

    Another option for anybody buying new equipment to consider is IEEE-1394, as it should quite hopefully cut cable clutter down substantially. Not counting power: one cable for the DVD player, one for the CD player, one for the SAT receiver, two for the TV (in/out), and one for each speaker. So...
  25. Andrew Walbert

    need 1" and 1.5" mdf

    Good luck finding true 1" MDF, as just about nobody carries it. You could try talking to somebody at your local car audio shop and see where they get their stuff, as high-power subwoofer boxes require the 1" MDF. Other than that, I don't know of any national chains that carry it. As far as I...
  26. Andrew Walbert

    Some more eye candy for the 3D Guru's

    You'll have to cut+paste the link into the address bar of your browser. Geocities has some cleverly obnoxious code to prevent people from using links like that, so you have to trick the server.
  27. Andrew Walbert

    New Sub workout DVD ... K-19 !!!

    Slightly off-topic, but I am looking forward to experiencing the Horn of Helms Deep in TTT when it is released on DVD. Seems to me that such a massive and powerful horn should be given the proper bass it deserves -- deep into the subsonic range and at high db levels. Hopefully New Line will do...
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