My Home Theater Page

High-tech Audio/Video reproduction is a fascinating hobby. It encompasses "Hi-Fi" (audio only). It is hard to find a good one-word summary, but the word "Home Theater" (and variations in other languages, for example in German "Heimkino") has gained widespread usage and acceptance.

I avoid the term "high-end", since, to me, this is just too close to voodoo and senseless money destruction—cables in the three or four digit price range, to be (in the case of loudspeaker cables) burned-in (or, in the case of even-more expensive burn-in-free cables) not needing burn-in.

On these pages, I present "my hobby". A superior sound and a superior picture is of course part of the goal. Just as well as light, remote control and home automation, decoration, even flowers. But it is not a matter just of buying sufficiently expensive components, but also of technical problem solutions, since often the desired solution cannot just be bought, at least not within the budget of a mortal. An above all, everything must be combined with a personal style and taste, which does include more than just the technical elements.

Of course, high-quality equipment is not cheap. However, achieving the goal within a reasonable budget is a challenge. Also, I often try to (re-)use old equipment, repairing and/or modernizing if necessary and/or desired. Or to modify equipment beyond its original capacities.

Said many times before: Enjoying fantastic movies and music within the comfort of your own four walls does have its thrill.

Oh, by the way: High-tech, movies and music are not everything. For example books are much easier to transport, and requires very little resources. To me, there are few things the world needs less than, say, the possibility to watch movies on the beach on a mobile phone display...

The bulk of this previously very long "page" has been put into different articles, listed below. Note that issues concerning remote control and home automation has been moved to its own section.

On the development of the home theatre

These articles describes different stages of the evolution of the home theatre.

• Mk 0. The Dawn of Man.
• Mk 1. The Pro Logic/Laserdisk Period.
• Mk 2. The 5.1/DVD Period.
• Mk 3. The big-screen period.
• Mk 4. Real loudspeakers.
• Mk 5. High Definition. Present setup.

Different projects

Here some articles are collected, describing experiences, and, to some extent, opinions:

• On 2+2+2 multichannel setup. (Planned)
• An ir-controlled high-quality analog 8-channel audio switch.(In preparation, see this forum contribution (in German) in the meantime.)
• A simple loudspeaker relay switch box. (In preparation, see this forum contribution (in German) in the meantime.)
• High-Definition (from 2005, thereby highly obsolete, for historical interest only.)
• Multichannel Music, DVD Audio, and SACD. (Needs updating)
• Fixing the Wellington Scart switch ("Vivanco AV Control 5")
• Ipod docks (Planned)
• Bedroom and kitchen (Planned)
• Work desk sound (Planned)
• Multimedia Shelf

External internet resources

In other places on this site, I mention several Internet resources, that has somehow been useful for me, and I feel I can recommend. Here are some more. Links related to home automation and remote control are presented on the corresponding page.

• beisammen.de. Qualified German language discussion forum. I participate using the nickname "Barf". Very low tolerance level against "silliness" in all forms.
• avsforum.com America high-volume home theater forum
• Schaltungsdiest Lange Service manuals ("all" languages) for "everything", in general in printed format. Sold to everyone, very fast deliveries. On the downside, pretty expensive (typically 10–20 Euro), and the rather weak WWW-site.
• Wiki for the Tuxbox project, aiming for a free, Linux based operating system for the dBox Satellite/Cable digital receiver. Further comments are given on my dBox page.

Also see My DVD/Bluray/HD-DVD collection.