I thought it would be interesting to post some of my thoughts on the “law of diminishing returns,” as that applies to home theater. I also wanted to narrate this from my personal and honest point of view, not just mouthing what you can read in articles.
When you get hooked to the home theater hobby, there are a couple of moments when you get really excited. That’s when you have an improvement in your system which is a kind of quantum leap over the previous. In my personal experience, those “wow” moments have been the following:
1. The first time I listened to a 5.1 system, with the bullets zinging from behind you and the planes roaring round you. My first recollection of a 5.1 system was in the late 80's but I got my first system in the early 90's. Up to now, this is the hook that catches most new customers. Kaya bibili ka ng basic 5.1 system.
2. The DVD. This was such a vast improvement from VHS and laser disc. Kaya bili ka ng DVD player and, more expensive, all those DVD bala. I recall this happened in the late 90's.
3. Dolby Digital and DTS. This was light years better than Dolby Pro-Logic. Kaya bili ka ng sound processor (or receiver) that can handle DD and DTS. This happened at the same time as DVD's.
4. I personally did not see that huge an improvement between 5.1 and 6.1 or 7.1 but there is a big difference between Dolby Pro-Logic and Dolby Pro-Logic II. Kaya bili ka uli ng bagong processor. This was already in the early 2000's.
5. The first time you see a projector and big screen. WOW! The big screen makes a huge difference. Kaya bili ka ng projector at screen!
6. The selection and improvement of speakers. Very often, you can hear huge improvements in sound as you buy or upgrade to better speakers. I must have upgraded my speakers 6 or 7 times. Nevertheless, it is very easy to waste money in speakers. In my view, if you want to upgrade your speakers, it is better to look at a new speaker that you are pretty certain will be much much better than your current set, not just marginally better. It's that "wow" factor. Oftentimes, that means saving up to buy much more expensive speakers (easily twice the cost of your present speakers) or finding a top-notch 2nd hand speaker set at less than half the original cost. Patience at swerte na lang yun.
7. The power amplifier. As you upgrade your speakers, you realize that your power amp is not bringing out the best in your speaker kaya napapabili ka ng matching power amp. Actually, what happens is bibili ka muna ng receiver. Later, unti unti ka bibili ng separate power amp kaya nagiging useless tuloy ang built-in power amp ng receiver mo.
8. The room. In my case, and I think this is true with a lot of people, this has been the most expensive part of my hobby kasi gagawa ka ng dedicated room with all the expensive acoustic treatments and furniture. Kailangan mo talaga ng consultant because it’s very expensive to make a mistake. You can change equipment but how can you change your room? I did a lot of research before I built my theater – and I can tell you that it was a fun experience!
9. Digital projectors. My previous projector was a very good Barco 3-gun CRT projector, but it really pales in comparison to my Sony VPL-VW100. In all aspects except maybe black level. For many years, CRT projectors reigned supreme pero parang LP sila na nabaon ng digital technology ng CD. Yet, it may have been only last year that digital technology reached a point wherein prices became affordable to a lot of people.
10. Video processor. A good video processor, combined with a good projector, can produce magic. Parang HD, or at least very close to it. Kaya ako napabili ng DVDO VP-50. For a long time, only Faroudja and Runco had good processors. In just the last few years, several companies have developed new technologies and have significantly brought down the price.
11. HDMI cables. Previously, I had an S-video cable with booster. I had also tried component cables but there was virtually no difference with the S-video cable. The S-video cable has a huge improvement over composite cables. Well, the HDMI cable has the same huge improvement over S-video. I guess the reason is that now, there is a pure digital signal from the DVD player to the video processor to the projector. HDMI is really new, baka last year lang.
12. Room-correction technology. It has always been recognized that any room (except the extremely expensive anechoic chambers or similar professional set-ups) will influence the acoustics so that you have a less than flat response across the frequency spectrum. This is why there had been attempts by some companies to market room-correction systems, such as the JBL Synthesis system and the Direct-Drive subwoofers of Velodyne. Both are extremely expensive. Relatively recently (maybe just the past 2 years), we have new technology from “Audyssey” that provides excellent room correction and packages it in receivers (Denon, Marantz, etc.). The improvement in sound is tremendous. I have this technology in my Denon receiver. Kulang na lang is the room-correction para sa subwoofer, and this is retailed by Velodyne as their SMS-1. Baka yun ang sunod na bilhin ko.
Before the Audyssey technology was available, all that you could do was set the levels of the volumes of the speakers with a Radioshack SPL meter. My receivers also had built-in parametric equalizers so that in theory, I could do the room-correction, provided I had the proper equipment – which is pretty expensive and I don’t think it could have done as good a job as the Audyssey.
13. I want to add SACD and DVD-Audio. These were developed in the late 90's and at that time, baka $2000 ang mga unang player. To be honest, I only got a chance to listen to these recently - my focus had shifted so much to HT, not audio. But the "WOW" factor was definitely there. Ibang iba ang dating ng SACD and DVD-A.
In addition to equipment, the “services” which have given me a “WOW” response have been the following:
1. Video calibration. I have the Avia and Video Essentials discs, which allow you to do the 5 basic adjustments: contrast, brightness, sharpness, color and hue. However, it cannot calibrate color temperature and gray-scale. If you don’t do this calibration, your blacks may look blue or red, and in general the colors will be wrong. Unfortunately, you need very special equipment and software to do that and I honestly don’t see anything similar to Audyssey cropping up in the near future for video. You need to request someone to do it for you. Here, let me put in a shameless plug for Alvin, who did the video calibration for my projector and the improvement has been huge. Thanks a lot, Alvin.
2. Speaker placement. There have been too many things written about the importance of speaker placement. All I can say is that they are all true. The improvements can be huge.
Among those things which are often hyped but which have not personally impressed me are the following:
1. Cables and interconnects. There are a lot of extremely expensive cables and interconnects, which promise audio (or video) nirvana. I have a few cables which are pretty expensive and honestly, I can’t tell the difference between them and cables which are fat, well-shielded and with good-quality plugs, but which cost 80% to 90% less. Plus, you need to regularly tighten all connections and use a contact cleaner.
2. Line conditioners and similar stuff. I have a decent AVR (with a time-delay function) and a good line conditioner, but I used to have an “active” UPS. It took the Meralco power, cleaned that and its output was continuous squeaky clean power. That UPS eventually died and I haven’t replaced it because I honestly can’t tell the difference.
3. DVD players. I already narrated in a previous post how, many years ago, I bought a high-end DVD player which turned out to have poorer picture quality than a cheap Chinese player. I feel that the current crop of high-end DVD players owe their higher costs to the video processing – deinterlacing and scaling mainly. However, I already have a high-end video processor so it’s pretty useless to buy one of these expensive players.
I am pretty happy with my set-up now and I guess have come to the point of diminishing returns when I better be prepared to spend a huge amount of money if I want to hear or see anything better. Actually, I have been thinking of a speaker upgrade – Revel, JMLab, B&W Nautilus … Pero parang kotse na yun, after which I may want to upgrade my power amps! Kaya hintay na lang ako muna. Ganun kasi itong hobby. As your system improves, you have to spend more and more money to make any discernible difference in your system.
The point that I wanted to make is that you should be careful about where you spend your hard-earned money when you upgrade your stuff. Be patient. Wait for the right moment and make sure there is that “WOW” factor. I don't know if a lot of people realize that a few years ago, in order to get a really good picture, you had to buy a Barco, Runco or Vidikron 9" CRT which cost P2 million and a Faroudja quadrupler which cost P1 million. Today, you can get that same quality for 10% of the price! Say a Sony Pearl and DVDO VP-30.
I guess all of this leads to HD-DVD and Blue Ray! Kasi di pa nga ako bumibili. The other day, nagbisita si DTS-ES and he brought his HD-DVD stuff. Ngayon, nag-iisip na naman ako, not because of the equipment but because of the bala. But I guess that’s the subject of another post.
I hope this long post was useful and I would appreciate comments.
Cheers!
