HT Reminiscing

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Mr Peabody

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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?
 
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..
 
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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I left out of the original post remember we got large rear projection TV's but they were still 4:3 ratio until HDTV came along with 16:9 ratio picture size. DVD's had the set up menu so we could select which size picture. I remember having a HDTV and some stations were HD and some were not, we had to select an aspect to stretch out the non-HD station to fill the screen. Unless you preferred to just watch the square picture with the sides blacked out. Ah, the good ole days, LOL
 
Mr Peabody said:
I left out of the original post remember we got large rear projection TV's but they were still 4:3 ratio until HDTV came along with 16:9 ratio picture size. DVD's had the set up menu so we could select which size picture. I remember having a HDTV and some stations were HD and some were not, we had to select an aspect to stretch out the non-HD station to fill the screen. Unless you preferred to just watch the square picture with the sides blacked out. Ah, the good ole days, LOL
Click to expand...

I remember that. I thought the wide format was weird and at the time didn't see the need for HD and then 4K. Boy was I wrong!
 
And I had a Sony Betamax SLF-750 or something like that so movies were a little more limited. It was great for making 5 hour Mix Tapes due to the wider sound tape area. The Demo Tape was impressive and I just sold it a few years ago. My 2 OPPO 93s have not seen a DVD or BR for years and are mostly used to stream movies from a hard drive/stick or Pandora thru the house. I still have a HT setup that incorporates my main but nothing special.
 
Shadowfax said:
And I had a Sony Betamax SLF-750 or something like that so movies were a little more limited. It was great for making 5 hour Mix Tapes due to the wider sound tape area. The Demo Tape was impressive and I just sold it a few years ago. My 2 OPPO 93s have not seen a DVD or BR for years and are mostly used to stream movies from a hard drive/stick or Pandora thru the house. I still have a HT setup that incorporates my main but nothing special.
Click to expand...


You and I were on AR for most of those HT years.
 
Mr Peabody said:
You and I were on AR for most of those HT years.
Click to expand...
Ah, The good old days. I remembering asking "What is Prog" and 2 weeks later my mailbox was full of Prog Sample Disks from Troy and others. I still play many of the 300+ CDs sent from all the trading we did before the Digital Age.
 
Good times, I remember going from VHS to Laserdisc (or at least what few titles I could get my hands on), and then being blown away by DVD when that came out.

I remember the HD media wars with HD DVD versus BluRay. I chose HD DVD but eventually got both.

And I'll never forget my first "HDTV" which was a Pioneer plasma. Big money, heat, and weight, probably only 720P if I remember correctly. At the time it seemed like a revelation. It sure was eye opening to see how bad the makeup looked on so many actresses (and actors too, very obvious back then). Good times indeed.
 
What a fun journey it has been! Every decade has brought dramatic change.

in the ‘80’s I got a VHS HiFI deck and a 25” Sony Trinitron hooked up to my stereo. A Lexicon CP-1 and a Hafler amp for surround arrived in the late 80’s, as well. along with a Laserdosc player. No more VHS stock outs for premiere movies at the video store! Not many people had Laserdisc players.

In the 90’s it was Dolby Digital and finally DVD. Toward the end of the decade things picked up a bit. It was progressive scan DVD, a Denon 3300 receiver for 5.1 and a Sony VPH -1272 projector on a 100” diagonal screen. That was amazing. A plasma TV showed up in the living room sometime in this decade.

In 2000’s it was a dedicated 5.1 home theater with a Fosgate Pre/Pro and Sherborn 200 wpc 5 channel amp with Blu-Ray and a Sony VPH-G70 projector on a 106” diagonal 16:9 Stewart screen. Later in the decade the Fosgate/Sherborn electronics were replaced with McIntosh gear - three MC 601’s and a MC 602 and an MX-151. The G-70 was replaced with a JVC DILA projector.

A move to Colorado in 2016 saw the dedicated theater disappear due to space constraints and a combined 2 channel HT system emerge using the best of the two separate systems. 4K JVC Projector, Sonus Faber Amati Futura/Vox speakers, McIntosh tube electronics, and an Oppo 205 player. Streaming kicked in and Blu-Ray purchases declined to must have re-watchable totles.

Fast forward to 2026 and I am building a combined 2 channel and 9.4.6 Atmos listening space/theater with a 12’ diagonal curved screen, an 8k JVC projector with ISCO Panamorphic lens, and Kaleidescape source in addition to streaming and the Oppo 205. Room is designed to distribute modes below the 150 Hz and remaining LF room modes will be handled by a spherical double bass array implemented with 4 13” 2kw subwoofers and a Trinnov 20 channel preamp/processor. Front LCR are powered by McIntosh MC 2301 tube amps. The 12 surround/height channels are Purifi Class D amps.

I am a week away from starting to calibrate everything. Early indications are very positive.

Through all this having a nice 2 channel system is a priority for me personally. The HT is super fun for the entire family. They are two completely different experiences.
 
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Worked part time back in the day setting up Nova Beam CRT projectors which could double as coffee tables and 10ft satellite dishes. I think the Carver receivers with Sonic Holography were just coming out at the time. Still prefer an UHD disc over a stream and always had a few hundred titles. It was also painfully expensive updating the formats from VHS to Laser Disc(particularly) to DVD to Blu-ray and finally UHD bluray. Fortunately, someone not with the times was always happy to accept the slightly older formats. My 100lbs of Laser Discs went to a friend in Northern CA. The place burned to the ground a couple years back and insurance paid him for the discs! Learned long ago to go separates and only have to update the processors. With vision and hearing starting to go, future upgrades would not be perceptible so time to relax.
 
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