Our Hweeyooooh Renovation

[retchlow 7]

and OMG....i SUPER LOVE THE PINK SMEG FRIDGE!!!!

[Makanology 29]

Ah yes, Smeg fridges have very short wires for their plugs. Love how the pink fridge fits in so well in your kitchen

[Ks Toh 74]

I initially also wanted alot more power sockets but my id said that 4 is enough. Now i have already used up all the power sockets (1 for tv , 1 for starhub , 1 for ps3 and 1 for speaker) and i hate using the multi-taps. zzzzzz...... note : in future insist on putting up more rather then less.....

That is the problem with IDs and contractors. They always under provide for power sockets.

[Jnohclee 0]

Omg!! Super heartz ur pink smeg! *drool*

haha , my wife had the same reaction when she saw it for the first time in our house

hello! i noticed you did the stucco wall. any idea if it's cheaper than craft brick wall?

hmmm , i am not too sure as we did not compare the prices....and our id didnt mention craft brick. he charged us 1200 for the wall tho.....is it exp?

and OMG....i SUPER LOVE THE PINK SMEG FRIDGE!!!!

hahaha. it is even better seeing it live!

Ah yes, Smeg fridges have very short wires for their plugs. Love how the pink fridge fits in so well in your kitchen

Thank you! so glad it fits in well. Hmm , the technical division said that they will come and extend the plug....just not sure when.

That is the problem with IDs and contractors. They always under provide for power sockets.

Exactly! should have just listened to myself and insisted on more.

[Ks Toh 74]

I feel that we should listen to our own instincts. Like the time when I wanted to put a spare power point in the false ceiling. I had no idea what I needed it for, but just in case.

The ID thought I was crazy. My wife too. 2 against 1. I was out-voted. No point in the false ceiling.

But just the other day, my wife asked if I could think of a way to fix a webcam on the ceiling without running ugly wires in sight.

I thought for a moment, and .......... now where are you going to get the power from up on the ceiling ????

[pster 0]

Hi, your stucco wall looks great! How do I tell my contractor about it? He is clueless about it and showing him these photos hasn't worked. Do PM me, thanks!

[Ks Toh 74]

Their brand name that they stuck on the quartz.....Odd.....

My wife will flip if she sees this. She will demand that all brand names be removed. Especially something so big.

[Jnohclee 0]

I feel that we should listen to our own instincts. Like the time when I wanted to put a spare power point in the false ceiling. I had no idea what I needed it for, but just in case.

The ID thought I was crazy. My wife too. 2 against 1. I was out-voted. No point in the false ceiling.

But just the other day, my wife asked if I could think of a way to fix a webcam on the ceiling without running ugly wires in sight.

I thought for a moment, and .......... now where are you going to get the power from up on the ceiling ????

haha that is so funny and true! sometimes i cant explain why i want something done this way or place something somewhere . It seems mad at that time but eventually it will turn out to be useful and logical.

[Jnohclee 0]

My wife will flip if she sees this. She will demand that all brand names be removed. Especially something so big.

We hated it too!

Hi, your stucco wall looks great! How do I tell my contractor about it? He is clueless about it and showing him these photos hasn't worked. Do PM me, thanks!

hmmm , i told him i wanted brick wall and he came up with the suggestion of using stucco. I have no idea how are you going to communicate that to your contractor except using photos

[Jnohclee 0]

Hi guys, need some help now. Would like to do up a nice sound system for watching movies in the mbr. Does anyone have any idea which soundbar or system will be good for a surrond sound effect? Basically to feel like i am in a cinema?

Thanks in advance!!

[Jnohclee 0]

Hi guys , back after a really long while. Our home is more or less done. Still alot of unpacking to do. Its a real mess now. Haha. Anyways , we have decided and bought a Philips Fidelio HTL9100 soundbar. Quite a heart pain to buy it but we were looking around so much for a nice soundbar that is basically easy to use and preferably wireless to minimize the issues of wires and this seems to fit the bill! Hopefully it will sound as good as the reviews say so.

Getting it tmr so fingers crossed!! And will give my review after trying it out

For now here is how it looks.

The speakers at the side can be detached for surround sound!!

(Picture credit to engadget)

And this is the review from CNET australia :

The Philips Fidelio HTL9100 is a soundbar/subwoofer combo with detachable surround speakers, Bluetooth support and HDMI switching for full home theatre control.

A lot of soundbars use all kinds of interesting techniques to try to generate surround sound. But all the techniques I've seen so far have been electronic. Philips' one is physical and really, really clever: a 191mm section on each end of the soundbar just pulls right off and becomes a left or right surround speaker. These sections each have a rechargeable battery, good for several hours, and a Wi-Fi connection to the main unit. You put them behind you and you have real surround sound. When you're finished, you plug them back on to recharge and form part of the soundbar.

There's more to the system than just that of course. The Philips Fidelio HTL9100 also has a separate subwoofer that connects wirelessly and with two HDMI inputs along with optical, coaxial digital and a pair of analog audio inputs, acts as central control unit for your home-entertainment equipment. The HDMI output, which is normally used to pass on the video from your Blu-ray player or PVR, supports the Audio Return Channel, which means that when you're watching a TV channel on your TV, it can pass the sound back down the same HDMI cable to the soundbar for higher quality sound. It also supports Bluetooth.

With the surround extensions attached, the bar measures 1035mm long and when put on a bench in front of the TV, only 73mm tall. Apparently the unit senses whether it is 'desk' mounted or wall mounted by its orientation and applies different internal processing to the sound accordingly. Wall mounting brackets are supplied.

The subwoofer is rather unusual. It has a 165mm driver in the bottom, firing downwards, and its footprint is not much bigger than a square sufficient to encompass that. Yet it has a reasonable amount of internal volume by means of being over 500mm tall. It is bass reflex loaded.

Unlike most soundbars, this unit comes with a mid-sized remote control, well populated with keys for selecting inputs and adjusting things.

One word of warning. A section on the carton has the logos for a bunch of Internet media services: Spotify, TuneIn, Napster and the like, preceded by "works with". When I saw those I assumed that the unit was network enabled, capable of streaming some of that content. No it isn't. No, it doesn't "work with" them. If you have a smart device (Android, iOS, possibly Windows 8) with appropriate apps installed, then you can stream their audio to the unit via Bluetooth, but that's a very different thing. Otherwise the tiny AU$40 Bluetooth speaker I use to listen to podcasts when I'm shaving can be said to "work with" Spotify et al.

In use

Now do be aware that to get the most out of this system you're going to have to be prepared to move the surround speakers. And it's not just so that they can be charged up from time to time. Stereo music comes from them, in addition to the soundbar, when they are disconnected. That can be good if you're having a party or something. But there's no way of switching it back to the front bar only, so if you want to listen properly to stereo music you should plug them back in. I'd be inclined to just leave them plugged in the whole time, except when I want to sit down and watch a movie. Then I'd put them in place for surround.

I spent quite a bit of time fiddling with the subwoofer. The problem I had was that the subwoofer, placed in the usual corner of my room, was too loud. With the bass control reduced to the minimum it was maybe six decibels too loud on stereo music, and ten on the LFE channel. On the centre position of the bass control, it was 12dB too loud on stereo. That's thunderous. I should note that it was also surprisingly clean and tight.

I experimented with putting it in near the soundbar and with the control set to minimum that more closely balanced the bass, but then it lost some of the depths it had produced in the corner. That would be due to room acoustics. In the end I learned to live with the louder bass. Being clean it was fairly tolerable.

I have to say outright that this is the most effective surround bar I've heard because by allowing physical surround speakers, there can be no doubt where the rear sound comes from. It did not, however, cast the left and right front channels wide; they were confined to the width of the bar itself. So transitions in the perceived location of sound down the sides of the room was only so-so, jumping a bit from front to back. But that's pretty picky given that no other sound bars come close.

With stereo music delivered via Bluetooth, the unit sounded extremely natural and well balanced. Aside from the deeper bass being forward, there was no emphasis in any frequency band, and distortion was low. The unit sounded stressed when turned up quite loud. It produced reasonably room-filling volumes quite well, but I wouldn't recommend it to the headbanger.

Only one Bluetooth device can be paired to the unit at a time.

Philips says that the system will go down to 20 hertz within a +/-3dB band. Why they would say such a thing I don't know. A claim of 20 hertz for the bass is ridiculous. But the subwoofer still did very well, almost coming to within an octave of it. What with the peak between 50 and 80 hertz, the sub was perfectly balanced with the rest of the sound at 43 hertz in my room. But at 37 hertz, it was producing nothing useful.

Conclusion

The Philips Fidelio is a rare soundbar able to produce excellent surround sound and also act as a control centre for your home-entertainment system.

[Jnohclee 0]

Finally got the Philips Fidelio soundbar set up yesterday!

So initially i wanted it in the master bedroom so i can watch movies in bed and also because the masterbedroom has a small squarish layout compared to the living room so the sound should sound better.

But......

Turns out my old tv that i placed in my bedroom does not have a HDMI (arc) point and thus i would have to connect the soundbar to the tv using the component (red,white,yellow) cables which the manual states as having average audio quality.....

So reluctantly i set up the soundbar in the living room instead.

Set up was a breeze. Just plug 1 hdmi cable (arc) from the tv to the soundbar , place the subwoofer at the back of the room and tadaaaaa....it works! I was truly impressed by how simple it is to set up. And , congratulating myself , i sat back to test the sounds with a movie "Master and commander" and a tv show "Once upon a time" after pulling off the 2 speakers and placing it beside the sofa.

The movie was downloaded (i just discovered how to use torrents ) in 1080p and 5.1 dts (i don't even know what all that means....) and i fast forwarded to 8.00 min (the scene recommended for surround sound tests) and the sound is good. Details like the floor board creaking , the waves lapping, the rain lashing , the guns , the cannons , the foot steps of people running about and amid all these action , i could still hear the dialogue properly. I could almost swear that i heard the sound of gun fire burst from my right to the left. It was a bit odd to feel so immersive ,watching a movie in my own living room but i love it!!

So next up is the tv series. My lovely wife and i have been watching this series "Once upon a time" with anticipation and hate. Nice show but the characters on the show keep murmuring or whispering....ALL the time! Half the time for the previous 2 seasons i have trouble hearing what they say. So this will be perfect for testing dialogue out on a tv show.

The show started and Peter Pan started talking to henry. YES! I ,finally, can hear them speak clearly! And for the rest of the show , the dialogue was loud and clear. Very good. Even though this show was downloaded in SD , 2.0 sound.....but it somehow looks and sounds good~

As for music playing , i used my iphone to bluetooth the soundbar and played some music. The music sounds crisp and clear. Louder volumes did not distort and probably the only gripe i can make is that the subwoofer seems a bit subdued.

This ends my review of the Philips Fidelio HTL9100. Happy with it!

[claypot 46]

how much is Philips Fidelio soundbar?

[Makanology 29]

We like Once Upon a Time too! So agreed with you - they kept whispering in the show lol

[Jnohclee 0]

how much is Philips Fidelio soundbar?

Hi claypot , we got it for 849 at courts. It comes with a free philips docking station now. Some promotion. My brother just went to courts over the weekend and he is able to get it at 799.

We like Once Upon a Time too! So agreed with you - they kept whispering in the show lol

Haha , quite frustrating i must say. If they are not whispering , they are murmuring. The problem is if when i turn up the volume to try and catch what they are saying , the sound effects will scare the **** out of me.