HT Reminiscing

[Mr Peabody]

I remember around 1990 I worked in the industry and hearing four channel surround. Then it was 5-channel Dolby Pro Logic, later Dolby Digital and DTS. Eventually leading to Dolby Tru and DTS-MA. Now no rentals, people stream from the TV. I left out Atmos. I believe only the true videophile and hardened home theater fan still spin discs.

I remember being on the forums and discussing new DVD and eventually Blu-ray players. Which remastered movies looked great. Seems that home theater thing moved fast and now I feel it's pretty much burned out. Even friends who had the surround sound are moving to sound bars.

I do miss that time. Waiting to see what new movies are coming out on DVD, going to the rental store and walking the isle looking for what to rent. Going back further in time I remember my wife and I buying our first VCR at Tipton's. A Sharp basic unit that cost $279.00. The memory of renting videos took me there. I suppose I could include Beta and VHS war but it's really not included in the times I intended on focusing on.

Somewhere along the timeline HDTV came about. These were some exciting times for hobbyists.

HT receivers pretty much had new models each year. We'd check them out see what new features were on them and what they did. Which manufacturer had the killer line for the year. For example, remember when Pioneer made a splash with using Class D amplification? For a while Onkyo was boss until they had a year with the HDMI issues. Oh man, how could I forget HDMI in this discussion. The hand shake issues, uh.

In the mid 90's the big thing was a 36" tube TV, then there were the rear projection TV's. My Pioneer was massive, I forget the screen size but that cabinet, huge. Then DLP gave us a better picture and lighter thinner sets. Plasma was somewhere in there. Then along came flat panel and changed everything.

Going from memory my timeline is probably off. Those were exciting times though, right?

 

[Mike]

I remember those days and some of my favorite times was walking out our back door of our little townhouse, walking across the street to the local video store and looking at all the movies, my new bride and I were going to rent. We were DINKS, double income, no kids and nothing but a whole weekend to enjoy the latest movies on VHS and DVD.

33 years later, we watch NetFlix documentaries. LOL..

 

[Michaels HiFi]

I agree. It felt more exciting back then.

 

[Phil A]

I was into it back then. I had surround sound in my system before Dolby. I lived in a townhouse back then added surround sdound via a Koss time delay (model k/4DS - https://www.audioxpert.net/product-page/koss-k-4ds-digital-delay-system). The internal 15wpc amp built into the Koss sucked so I used an SAE 50wpc amp driving a pair of EPI 70 bookshelf speakers for the rear channels. Those days we had no stereo TV. I used a Pioneer TVX- 9500 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/166240044029) to receive dual mono sound over the system (and I had a Phase Linear auto correlator/dynamic range expansion unit too, model 1000 series 2).

Down the road I got rid of the above and used a Phase Linear 4000 series 2 preamplifier with Sonic Hologrpahy (https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984176299...MIn7qQyLyglgMVT5paBR1VoRimEAQYASABEgL7efD_BwE).

Eventually after I moved to a new home, I obtained a Dolby surround unit when they came out and then a Dolby pro logic processor with included amplification and to have a center channel. Those were fun days. When I moved to Florida at the end of 2013, I gave one of my Carver C-9 Sonic Holography units to a friend. A few years back, I took the other C-9 unit out and had it modded and have it in a secondary 2-channel system (I use a Lumin M1 with an old Oppo 103D hooked into the C-9 and then into the M1 so I can play files with the Oppo App in Sonic Holography)
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