Unlike Dirac, Audyssey is much more restrictive with their MultEQ-X license. When you buy a MultEQ-X license, it is tied not only to the specific AV receiver, but to the user. This means you can’t transfer it to another owner. They’d have to spend the $200 if they want to have access to all the tools MultEQ-X provides. Or do they? Is there a workaround so that you can transfer your Audyssey MultEQ-X license? There sure is! Let’s discuss! How They Identify You Tying the Audyssey MultEQ-X license to the unit isn’t much of a problem. If you sell your AV receiver, the new owner has the unit in han ..read more

If you’ve followed recent trends and spent any time online you would have heard of Dirac. Dirac is a new(ish) room correction system. It has started showing up in new AV receiver offerings but sometimes requires additional purchases. In those receivers, they often have another room correction program, and the Dirac purchase is considered an “upgrade.” That purchase is called a license. You aren’t sure that you’ll even like Dirac so spending that extra money is hard to swallow. Unless it somehow adds value to your receiver? Can you transfer your Dirac license when you sell your AV receiver? Let ..read more

We all know that there is a point of diminishing returns. When spending more money on a thing doesn’t net you as great a quality improvement. This is true with home theater speakers as well. When comparing the absolute cheapest offerings to ones that cost only slightly more, you’ll notice lots of improvements. Improvements in not only sound quality but build quality and aesthetics. We’ve already talked about our suggested budget for different types of speakers. From a more general point of view, what do you get when you spend more money on speakers? Let’s discuss! More Money Means More As you ..read more

Most AV receivers these days will set your crossover for you. You run your room correction program and it spits out distance and trim levels as well as crossover settings. But should you trust those settings? Do you need to match the crossover settings for all your speakers or can they be different? Better yet, should they be different? Is that somehow better? Let’s discuss! Crossover Settings Can and Should be Adjusted Generally speaking, if you were to run your room correction and never change your speaker or crossover settings, you would end up with a decent audio experience. It wouldn’t li ..read more

When SVS decided to update their Ultra line of speakers, they had a challenge in front of them. Their Ultra line was very well-reviewed, well-received, and popular. All of the SVS speakers (Ultra and Prime) were designed with a flat frequency response. If your speakers are already designed to play evenly throughout the frequency range, how do you improve on them? Make them more flat? The first thing that you’ll notice when you see the new Ultra Evolution series is that they look different. Very different. If I have to be honest, the big upgrade you get with the SVS Ultra Evolution speakers (ev ..read more

Most speakers have a tweeter and some number of woofers. These are almost always all pointed in the same direction. Most people have never seen a speaker that doesn’t have all the drivers pointed in the same direction. When they first see one, they can’t help but be confused. Why would some speakers have drivers pointed in weird directions? Well, there is a reason. A few really. Let’s discuss! Surround Speakers When you see speakers with drivers pointed in weird directions, you often find them on surround speakers (like the ones pictured at the top of this article). These are bipole and dipole ..read more

You suspect one of your speakers is broken. It sounds weird to you and you need to figure out what is wrong. This has you thinking. Can you use the room correction program on your AV receiver to test what is broken in your speaker? It’s not as if it isn’t making noise. It just doesn’t sound right. Can this work? How would you do it? Let’s discuss! There are Honestly Easier Ways Before we begin, we will point you toward our article on how to diagnose your potentially broken speaker. If your speaker sounds so different from your other speakers that you are noticing it, something is wrong. Use ou ..read more

Most speakers are basically rectangles. They are simple (usually black) boxes that contain a number of drivers on one side. The side with the drivers sometimes have a bit of a different design. They’ll have rounded edges and sometimes the middle of the drivers will be slightly recessed. But, in general, the edges of the drivers will be attached at or near the front of the speaker. Some speakers are different. They are either curved or laid back. What’s the deal with that? Is there a reason that this design is used? Curved speakers are usually in a higher price bracket than other speakers. Are ..read more

You’ve upgraded to a new display and you’ve run into a weird issue. Your 4k TV or projector (this happens on both) sometimes displays a sparkly or grainy image. It doesn’t happen all the time and the sparkles move like static. What’s going on? Did you get a bad display? Is there a fix? Let’s discuss! Don’t Worry We Can Fix It (probably) As long as the grainy/sparkly spots move on your projector or 4k TV image, you don’t have to worry. We can fix it. If they are static (meaning that they don’t move), you have a different problem. If they are always in the same place, you either have dead pixels ..read more

We don’t always notice changes to our system at first. Sometimes, things happen gradually until we finally realize that something is different. We might not notice that our system sounds different but we would notice that the volume number ends up changing over time. What’s going on? Is your receiver sounding quieter mean that it is dying? Or is something else going on? Let’s discuss! A Receiver Won’t Sound “Quieter” When It Dies Generally speaking, a receiver won’t sound “quieter” when it starts to die. They’ll usually lose some functionality (certain inputs won’t work) or amplifier channels ..read more