teh "what did you buy today"-thread

[vestcoat]

I finally caved and upgraded from my TV's speakers, to some surround sound.  I am hardly an audiophile, so spending what I spent was already tough for me...  All of the forums basically claim you need to spend $5k just to have something that isn't junk, but I can't do that!

Anyway, this is what I picked up:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/Home-Theater-Systems/Speaker-Packages/SP-PK52FS

Nice, Clash. That system will be great. Home-theater enthusiasts on the internet don't know what they're talking about. They love to talk about "fidelity" on one hand while filling their dens with wireless blue-tooth garbage, overpowering subwoofers, and hyped, tinny sound bars on the other; all while EQ'ing the shit out of their receiver.

Surround sound systems don't need fidelity, they need to sound dramatic and immersive. As long as there's a clean, digital feed for the audio, non-blown tweeters, and room that can accommodate proper speaker placement, anything will do. I run L-R Fisher boxes from the Eighties, a $200 Aiwa receiver from 2001, and a three-piece rear/center kit I bought from Radio Shack for $50. No sub, but the mains have 8' woofers. Sounds just tits.

[munchiaz]

Music CDs
Soul Coughing - El Oso

That takes me back.

Me too! That's why I bought it for $2. Except I grew up with the Flintstones version of the music video.

These videos were great back in the day.

Heres another one

[Mathius]

Damn! lost my bookmark on this thread again. Can everyone please send me their recent pickups just so I don't feel so out of the loop?

[bob]

I finally caved and upgraded from my TV's speakers, to some surround sound.  I am hardly an audiophile, so spending what I spent was already tough for me...  All of the forums basically claim you need to spend $5k just to have something that isn't junk, but I can't do that!

Anyway, this is what I picked up:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/Home-Theater-Systems/Speaker-Packages/SP-PK52FS

Nice, Clash. That system will be great. Home-theater enthusiasts on the internet don't know what they're talking about. They love to talk about "fidelity" on one hand while filling their dens with wireless blue-tooth garbage, overpowering subwoofers, and hyped, tinny sound bars on the other; all while EQ'ing the shit out of their receiver.

Surround sound systems don't need fidelity, they need to sound dramatic and immersive. As long as there's a clean, digital feed for the audio, non-blown tweeters, and room that can accommodate proper speaker placement, anything will do. I run L-R Fisher boxes from the Eighties, a $200 Aiwa receiver from 2001, and a three-piece rear/center kit I bought from Radio Shack for $50. No sub, but the mains have 8' woofers. Sounds just tits.

vestcoat is right. It doesn't take a fortune to make a nice sounding system.

I will however tender the headroom argument in favor of having lots of power and big speakers.  It is nice when watching a movie to have the dynamic range where dialog is loud enough to be heard without being fatiguing,  but explosions to kick in with authority. A properly calibrated system (spl meter, test tones, and parametric eq) won't be overpowered by subwoofers, but when called upon they will be able to bark with authority. It takes a lot to reproduce the 20-30 Hz range without muddying, distorting, or making other butt-like noises.

Throw sherlock holmes in there and tell me how it sounds. 

[TheClash603]

I finally caved and upgraded from my TV's speakers, to some surround sound.  I am hardly an audiophile, so spending what I spent was already tough for me...  All of the forums basically claim you need to spend $5k just to have something that isn't junk, but I can't do that!

Anyway, this is what I picked up:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/Home-Theater-Systems/Speaker-Packages/SP-PK52FS

Nice, Clash. That system will be great. Home-theater enthusiasts on the internet don't know what they're talking about. They love to talk about "fidelity" on one hand while filling their dens with wireless blue-tooth garbage, overpowering subwoofers, and hyped, tinny sound bars on the other; all while EQ'ing the shit out of their receiver.

Surround sound systems don't need fidelity, they need to sound dramatic and immersive. As long as there's a clean, digital feed for the audio, non-blown tweeters, and room that can accommodate proper speaker placement, anything will do. I run L-R Fisher boxes from the Eighties, a $200 Aiwa receiver from 2001, and a three-piece rear/center kit I bought from Radio Shack for $50. No sub, but the mains have 8' woofers. Sounds just tits.

vestcoat is right. It doesn't take a fortune to make a nice sounding system.

I will however tender the headroom argument in favor of having lots of power and big speakers.  It is nice when watching a movie to have the dynamic range where dialog is loud enough to be heard without being fatiguing,  but explosions to kick in with authority. A properly calibrated system (spl meter, test tones, and parametric eq) won't be overpowered by subwoofers, but when called upon they will be able to bark with authority. It takes a lot to reproduce the 20-30 Hz range without muddying, distorting, or making other butt-like noises.

Throw sherlock holmes in there and tell me how it sounds. 

I finally set up everything and watched the new Evil Dead to see how it sounded.  I definitely am very happy with the speakers, but as a guy that has always just used TV sound, I honestly am not an expert!  I am excited to play some XB1/PS4 with it set up, as I am sure I will see a huge difference there.  I read online that speaks need to be "broken in" before they sound as intended, which can take some time.  Is this true?

One thing I noticed when looking at my Blu-rays is that very few movies are in 7.1 sound, almost all of them just have the 5.1 track.  Dredd was the only movie I had with 7.1 advertised out of the stack I was looking at.  The other thing I noticed is that I can only turn the sound up to about 20, out of what I assume is 50, because I live in an apartment building with shitty neighbors.  The real victim is the sub-woofer, which I literally have set to 1 out of 10 (it has its own power/volume), because my downstairs neighbor will come up to my place with his Nam flashbacks (already happened when I tried playing Rock Band drums in the living room).

I was at my gf's uncle's house and he has these giant speakers from the 1950s-1970s that he pulls out of the garbage and they sound really good.  The one he showed me he said he paid $3 at a garage sale and it is a $1k speaker.  He claims anything made after the 70s is crap, which further made me believe that most sound guys just are opinionated and don't actually know anything.

[NightWolve]

Even though I don't even own a Vita yet, I snagged a copy of Ys: Memories of Celceta - Silver Anniversary Edition. 

P.S. - Sorry NW, but I can't resist Falcom and at least it was a used copy.

Heh, I might've missed this comment, hadn't looked in here in a while.

Well, I understand, it's a conflicted rock and a hard place for me as well, still being a big Ys fan, but yet willing to totally pass up new releases on anything because of knowing the guy that works at XSEED who translated these new Ys games, and how the fan translations were "acquired" from the "other guy" that I mistakenly used to work with for the older Ys games... I don't quite know how to get justice in this situation exactly and so it goes on, remaining unresolved... Ya know, it's a no brainer, but it really pays to be wealthy in life to take care of shit like this right when it happens so you can get immediate closure of some kind on it.

Anyway, Falcom already got their license fees paid from these X.X.XSEED a$$holes even if only one US copy sold of whatever licensed game, so... I don't and will never have the influence that I would really love to have to wage an effective PR war to get them to reverse their decision, but I will do what I can (Ken Berry almost cooperated with me on the 2nd phone call when I presented my case, but then totally flipped on the last call and decided after more consultation with B.J.DeuceBag and Lipschultz/Wyrdwad that I could simply be ignored, and basically gave me the old "tough, too bad, get lost!," approach etc. Tried bullshitting me with "spin," selective logic, and denial, etc.!)...

[Nec.Game.head]

lately I've been hunting down Sony PVM monitors. These are the ones I've obtained over the past 2 months. Three 2950Q's three 20M4U's and and last but not least a BVM D20F1U .. These have all came in very handy lately for the retro gaming meet ups that I host at my place.

[HailingTheThings]

[/URL]

"Hello down there! Do you need help?"

[Nec.Game.head]

Unbelievable scanlines !! Lol just getting the hang of taking pics of CRT's correctly !!

[Joe Redifer]

Wow. I hope you're not entered in the PVM giveaway raffle! If you are you should be disqualified you have plenty of awesomeness!

[PunkicCyborg]

Nice PVM collection, I too am a PVM hoarder. I can't help it I see one on CL and next thing I know I am knocking on the back door of a endoscopy clinic to buy their old monitors

[Mathius]

Nice PVM collection, I too am a PVM hoarder. I can't help it I see one on CL and next thing I know I am knocking on the back door of a endoscopy clinic to buy their old monitors

So that's what they used these things for.

[PunkicCyborg]

Nice PVM collection, I too am a PVM hoarder. I can't help it I see one on CL and next thing I know I am knocking on the back door of a endoscopy clinic to buy their old monitors

So that's what they used these things for.

I think this PVM has some colon burn in on it

[Medic_wheat]

At one point that was my original idea. To have a bank of PVMs made to look like a security monitor room. Since they are very stackable (not sure how the heat and venting would be affected). That may have to be put on hold until I have a house lol....


Yes from my understanding these are used primarily for medical imaging. I don't know if PVMs or bums are still being produced mind you.

[VenomMacbeth]

In the past couple weeks, I've bought:

Silent Debuggers loosie (thanks again hoobs!)
Splatterhouse PCE CIB
Midnight Resistance CIB
and Thunder Force V, Saturn version!  My local game store got a bunch of import saturn titles including Battle Garrega, Stellar Assault SS, and Blast Wind, but TFV was all I could afford.  I was gonna get a copy of Assault Suit Leynos 2 but they sold it before I got there.

Also, I bought an INL Retro-programmer & made myself a copy of Metal Warriors. I'm thinking of doing Ninja Warriors & Hagane next.