RimBlock

Looking at a 2k budget, I would take a look at the Yamaha RX-V1067, Onkyo TX-NR808 and the Denon AVR-2311 which should all be around that level give or take 100-200 S$. All three amps are a level above the standard entry -> mid level for most people. I would also be tempted to look at the level below (Yamaha 667/671, Onkyo 608/609) or the like to see if they are good enough and the extra may be spent somewhere else like another pait of T105s to give a 7.1 system rather than a 5.1 if that is what you currently have. 7.1 is currently not used very much but will probably come in more as time goes buy. Go have a listen and report back as I am sure the information will be useful for others as well. RB

The power per channel for most AVRs is usually per channel if only one channel is used or if only two channels are used. My Yamaha is rated at 90w/channel if only 2 channels are driven. See here for details and note that this type of specification is more or less an industry standard and not only done by Yamaha. This therefore means that if more than two channels are driven then the power required is taken out of that 90 watts. If you add 3 more channels you can therefore see the Watts/channel going down pretty steeply. Most subwoofers above the very basic have their own amplifiers and so do not take any power from the AVR. So we have an amp that can handle powering 2 channels at 90 Watts @ 8 Ohms (180W in total) but we want to use 5 speakers. This then means we would have 36 watts per channel if all were used equally (they very rarely are but it will do for a rough overview). Now my speakers for the fronts are rated at 100Watts (RMS) @ 8 Ohms. Now if I just used my front 2 speakers then the amp would be close to the max the speakers could handle but as I am using 3 other speakers, the power supplied to my front L/R speakers is going to fall quite far below the max they can cope with. How do we get round this.... we get less powerful speakers, we get a more powerful amplifier or we give the amplifier a boost by taking its need to add power for these power hungry speaker to another power only amplifier. Most one box amplifiers including AVRs are integrated amplifiers. This means they perform both the functions of the amplification chain in one box. These functions or stages are to act as a control for switching between inputs, controlling gain (volume) on the signal going to the power amp and to decode any fancy encoding on the signal coming to it like DTS, Dolby Digital or the newer HD audio formats. The first stage is known as the pre-amp stage. The second stage is increasing the amplitude of the pre-amp signal to a level where it can power the speakers. This second stage is the power amp stage. As you move higher up in the levels of HiFi, you will find that these two stages are ofter separated in to separate units to avoid interference between to two parts and to allow one part to be upgraded (i.e. the preamp part if new sound formats come out) without needing to change the other part. To aid this transition, some integrated amplifiers have preouts which bypass the amplifiers power amp stage and pass the signal to a separate power amp. The Yamaha 667 has these preouts and so I have added a separate power amp which can handle up to 200Watts per channel with 2 channels @ 8 Ohms to power my front L/R speakers. This then allows the remaining 180Watts to be spread between the center and the rear channels. Now I said before that the power of the amplifier is not equally spread between all the speakers and this is because most of the work of a 5.1 setup is done by the center speaker. If I turn off my front L/R speakers then I can still watch my shows and they sound no worst than listening through the TVs own speakers. This is why I always recommend getting the best center speaker you can and then second priority to the subwoofer. My next upgrade, if I wanted to go further, would be a power amp dedicated to the center speaker as mine is rated at 200Watts. I haven't used my current power amp for the center speaker as teh center is not used for music and so my music would suffer more than my movies would doing it this way. So from this we can see that; 90Watts per channel does not mean 90 watts per channel with all channels running. An amp with preouts will enable an upgrade later without replacing the whole amplifier. Things are never quite as simple as we would all like. Ok plenty to read there so I will stop before you all loose the will to live . RB

Ahh but they make up part of the homely ambiance surely. I like a great many thing, just that the area of HTS is where I can provide the greatest help to other members. RB

..scheming / tricky / untrusting / complement fisher Ladies also insist that we never lie to them and there in lies the paradox . There is no problem with window shopping, human nature is human nature and women do it too but are much better at hiding it. It is when someone starts to have a desire to buy that things have gone too far. RB

It is a bit worrying that the first two could also be relevant for at least one other subject , not that I would expect anyone here to have any clue what that may be . RB

Sharp teeth, lives in the ground, the nemesis of farmers Yes I am sure it was . You may be surprised. HTS is just a means to an end. Great movies or music. Animals are wonderful too what with my parents always having cats as well. Off to catch my sons briefing for his exchange trip to New Zealand next weekend. Oh the fun of being told at 4pm that it is on tonight at 6:30...... RB

Cool, I will try to check back sometime over the weekend but tend to be pretty busy when not at work . Nah... I am busy at work fighting the good fight too boss . RB

An so, because of you I had a play with my Sub last night. The first observation I have is that the new power amp is really allowing my Fronts to shine. I found the bass really empty before I bought the sub and power amp and thought it was mainly the sub that had corrected it. After turning off the sub whilst playing the light cycle part of Tron, the bass dropped off but no where near as much as I thought it would. After turning the sub back on I had a look in the amps menu and reconfigured the subs adjustment of -10dB (the max possible for the amp) to 0 (the sub is set at 50% on the back) and turned on the max bass option. Playing the same scene I could not just feel the air pressure in my chest and through the chair but in my throat as well. The big difference it made apart from the slightly uncomfortable vibrations was that the sections without the deep bass notes were 'muddied' and nowhere near as clear as they previously were. Next I turned off the Max Bass setting and things improved distinctly. The sound was cleaner and clearer. Not as much vibration in the body but still enough through my chest and the sofa to give a very tactile link to the events on the screen. By all accounts, I should turn the bass way down and sync the pressure level with the main speakers so when one produces 10dB, the sub also produces 10dB at the desired frequencies. This was the sub blends in to the soundstage rather than stands apart and much closer. I will see if I can sort out the phase tonight to make sure that is also optimality set. My son also likes to turn off the power amp and when I came home last night the family was watching a movie with no sound coming out of the front main speakers. The movies sounded a bit strange but not significantly so. Just goes to show how much of a movie comes through the center speaker alone. RB

Chocolate fudge is sure difficult to remove with spray alone. RB

And yet most men will usually agree that they know nothing about women after answering their wife / SO honestly when she asked if another lady was pretty and then stormed off with a black face at the answer . RB

I think my Singlish vocab has just doubled..... To my knowledge, Knownothing is not living up to her (?) name as it appears she knows something . I had the same understanding. RB

May has not told you she has bought diamond encrusted cookie cutters RB

Ahh the art is trying to provide amusement , be a little naughty but be totally inoffensive . RB

Just watch out for some loveless, sexless dead inside old hag with a mobile phone waiting to 'stomp' you if you dare to bare outside of a locked bedroom with windows, shades, curtains all shut..... Ahh how much better we all live for the Stomp website and what a positive image it gives out of Singapore to the rest of the world. RB

Maybe it is a Christmas present request rather than a description of me ... and no, not a Christmas present wish for me to grow them . RB

Haha, but you are missing a S..... I still prefer H (as in huge) -TIT$..... oh dear, now I have gone and done it . Rb

. Don't worry, you get to learn all about angles very quickly with a spray. Maybe my son should do so when revising..... yes son, of course this is revision and not just cleaning the toilets....... RB

I also suspect that the question of new bulb or new projector will come up for us at that time. I guess it would depend on how far technology has moved on. Over the last 4 years there have been significant jumps in what is available at more reasonible costs what with BluRay and DTS-HD/Dolby True HD and 3D TV (gonna wait a bit before jumping on that band wagon). It is hard to see what the will hold but there is nothing so obvious on the horizon that I am aware of that will filter down to mid range consumer level in the next 4 years. Of course, I could very easily be proved wrong . RB

Sure we do. If you are thinking from your level then you would be fine without but for people who have no idea where to start or where to go to shop, this will be a one stop shop for links to major online retailers in other countries where internet shopping is fairly easy. How many people who have never been to the UK knew that Argos existed or Debenhams or Littlewoods. All are major UK department stores with thousands of items to choose from and have regular big sales. My wife also commented that Zara in the UK was significantly cheaper than Zara in Singapore. Ok, ok, maybe not every tom, Dick and Harry shop but certianlly the most popular big retailers or others of particular note would be good. Cool. Links please if you think they should be included along with country so I can add them with the minimum of extra effort. Thanks Sleek. RB

Oh... and I am still waiting for your input along with May and a number of others on the 'Internet shopping guide'. I have put in links for inflatable 4 person hot tub for under S$1K (plus delivery) and an inflatable British Pub and a water powered jetpack...... Come one, come all..... add to the RT internet shopping knowledge. RB

Yep I hear you but there are people who will willingly take advantage of that whilst pretending to be friends. The fear of not being liked can push people to be overly nice and get taken advantage of. Whilst I am a fairly happy easy going guy, I have come to a point where I will push back and push back hard if I feel someone is taking advantage of that too much. Being pleasant is good but being a doormat (your example of following with an ash tray even after asking them not to smoke is a perfect example) breads a lack of respect in others if they are not your friends. Limits need to be maintained, just like when you need to set them for your children as they grow up. If they are not set in adult interaction then some will try to push the limits to see how far they can get. Well men are drawn to beautiful women and you seem to have a positive remarks from those who have met you. Being alone with a bunch of workers is not something I would really want my wife to do. My mother-in-law would be there too if I could not make it or just my MiL would be there. I don't think she gets stared at so much especially as I am sure she could stare anyone down at 100 paces . Aww shucks mam.. 't wer'nt nothing. I do hate people speaking with authority on subjects they know very little or nothing about. Again, this is why I tend to check my facts before making statements. I hate this second only to people trying to oppress others with their sense of religion or morality, as your good husband knows when we had a little discussion before anyone let on he was your good husband . {whisper} I was suggesting he should be a little less protective and you could stick up for yourself, but again that was before I knew you two were married {/whisper}. So there you go. It has no big stand out features but it is still special . One point that people may not have realised is that although modesty is a nice trait to display, after spending 50k+ on a renovation and calling it nothing special may have a negative affect on others who are not even able to spend that much and what they have spent is their life savings. They may feel that peoples comments made out of modesty somehow devalue their efforts (as in, "if she spends 80k and thinks it is nothing special, what must my 30k reno be like). As people we all measure ourselves against our piers, to an extent we cannot help it. Maybe a modest "thanks for your kind words" may be more diplomatic than "It really is not that special". I know full well that no one is doing it deliberately or because they are arrogent. It is probably a side people have not thought of. Yeah, I tend to be fairly empathic with everyone, seeing things from the others point of view and sometimes giving it higher priority than my own. Over the last 10 years I have learnt to control it much better now though. ET still brings a tear to my eye though . Oh and I hear you about the gym.... I really need to get back so I can get my waist back down. I dropped around 8KG last year (I gained around 15KG since I have been here) and I hate to think how much I have gained back now. Have to get back to the weight training and the boxing again although I am sure the gym has no issues with me paying and not turning up... RB

Seems like you need a trampoline or an adult sarong hanging from the ceiling...... Failing that, buy anyone else in the apartment ear plugs . They will probably appreciate them even more when a baby comes . RB

Ha-ha, the projector screen covers their poor innocent eyes when any serious movie comes on . I am wondering if I should buy a second lamp as I am using the projector so much. I have worked out with the current usage, the projector lamp should last around 3 years though.... Also noticed my projector has gone from 2.2k (the price I paid) up to 3.3k in KEC and the newer model, the 3600 is now cheaper by around S$600. I wonder why.... I know 3.3k was the price I was originally quoted when I checked 3 months before I finally bought. Seems I was extremely lucky or KEC have a typo on their special offers. RB

Haha, don't look down the back of the cabinet.... it is a little 'less' organised . I know what you mean though. Even though it was very tempting, I am sort of glad I didn't get a full sized cabinet. It would have only been a big waste of space. Would have looked good though . RB

Pictures too small... need bigger pictures . RB