Podcast #735: THX tune-up to the Rescue

We had a friend recently who was complaining about their HDTV experience at home. They weren’t seeing the quality they were hoping to see after upgrading their TV, and were contemplating returning it. In talking through it with them, we were able to convince them that perhaps the TV settings just needed to be dialed in to look great in their viewing room. They didn’t want to spend money on a professional calibration, so we went to the trusty THX tune-up app to see what we could do.

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Podcast #734: Bragi Dash Review and HDR Explained

For more than a year now we have been talking about 4K TVs and how they are supposed to be the next big thing. But in actuality the increased resolution is only mildly better than equally spec’d 1080p HDTVs. We have pointed to case study after case study that says you need very large (100” or more) screen to see a difference between 1080p and 4K when sitting at normal viewing distances. This alone is not a good reason to upgrade.

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Podcast #733: Home Automation: OpenHAB and OpenRemote

There is this dream we have to be able to automate everything in our homes, but do it ourselves, without hiring an installer, and do it for cheap without breaking the bank. So far we have used a lot of Insteon devices, and tied them into other systems to expand the overall reach of what we could build. Luckily, we aren’t the only ones with this dream and a few open source projects have popped up to help us DIY-ers achieve our dreams.

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Podcast #732: Audioengine HD6 Powered Speaker Review

We have been reviewing Audioengine speakers since just about the beginning of the company’s existence. We started with the A5 and have more or less used every product that Audioengine has released. Whether it's been the original A5s from almost 10 years ago to their high performance D1 DAC. Everyone product we have reviewed has delivered on Audioengine’s commitment to build innovative and high quality audio products.

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Podcast #731: DTS Play-Fi

We had a chance to check out the WiSA standard in our review of the Axiim Q Wireless Home Theater System on Podcast 728 a couple weeks ago. On top of that, Ara is a big AirPlay fan for whole house audio and Braden is invested in Sonos. Since we can’t have just one, or even four, standards, it looks like another competing technology, this one from DTS, is hoping to fulfill our dreams of wireless audio around the home. The technology, called DTS Play-Fi, looks pretty promising and has some solid companies in its corner.

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Podcast #730: Interview with Will Price, CEO of Simple Control

Ara has been using Simple Control as his home remote for many years. It is the one piece of gear that he can’t live without. His setup includes three rooms, lights, thermostats, and iTunes control all in one great looking app. We produced a video demonstrating the capabilities, though a little dated they show the capabilities pretty well.

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