Product reviews

It is 2010 and the latest big thing in video is 3D movies. All of the major manufacturers are starting to sell their 3D audio-video receivers and processors and prices for 3D capable gear are starting to settle down to reasonable levels. So let's take a look at mid-range receivers from  three major manufacturers - Denon, Pioneer, Onkyo and Yamaha.

Before we look at individual units - let's take a look at a few basic features that are mandatory in the new generation of receivers:

HDMI 1.4 - in reality there is nothing special about HDMI 1.4 vs the 1.3a. In fact, it is only a change in specifications for the ports and cables that do not introduce any hardware changes. In theory, all HDMI 1.3a devices would be 3D capable if they had powerful enough processors to crunch the massive amounts of data associated with 3D. So while the HDMI ports and cables are not really any different, the processors in the new machines are upgraded to ones with enough power to work on more data.

Room sound auto-calibration - this is one of the most essential features that eliminates the need to manually set speaker distances, individual sound levels and it will even tell you if you got your cabling wrong.

HDMI upconversion - this allows one to take video and audio from any type of connection and any  source and upconvert it to 1080p over HDMI. If you don't have this feature, you may have to connect more than one cable to your TV to enjoy the old sources.


On screen display (GUI, overlay) - the ability of the receiver to display all the settings and controls on your TV instead of small LED screen on the unit itself. Very handy and mandatory in this day and age.

Connections and ports - Last by not least - What and how many devices can be connected. Everyone has different needs, but a few types of connectors and ports are essential nowadays. HDMI, digital audio (RCA/coax  and Optical/SPDIF), component for older HI-Def sources, USB for iPod/iPhone and other sources.

As you can see, I'm not listing 7.1 or 7.2 for that mater as a required feature. Most of these receivers will have the ability to hook  up seven speakers and at least one subwoofer, but it is not as widely used as industry wants us to believe. Majority of people (around 78% according to AV magazines) use either stereo (2 speakers), 3.1 (left, right, center and subwoofer) or 5.1 (left, right, center rear left, rear right and subwoofer) setups. This is due to the fact that good speakers in general are quite expensive and many chose to have less but of better quality, others don't have enough space for 7 speakers, and many have already built their 5.1 theaters that they are happy with. Even most 7.1 receivers are 7.1 only in name and not in function as one would have to sacrifice second zone connections and even may need to get a separate two channel amplifier to power those two speakers.   

Now that we are done with the basics, let's take a look at our lineup in more detail (in no particular order):

Pioneer VSX-1020-K: This is a mid-upper range Pioneer receiver that is aimed towards people with good speakers, good understanding of cutting edge technology and a variety of old and new sources of video and audio.

The good:
Works with iPhone/iPod  - this receiver has front USB connection to let one use iPod or iPhone as the source for the music and video. It will display full album art and controls on the TV screen and will allow for almost all iPod functions

We are undergoing some remodeling at our house, namely installing hard wood floors, baseboard and crown molding. Since I'm a big do-it-yourself proponent and a notorious penny-pincher, I've decided to take a look if it makes sense to it myself. At $2.5 per square foot for labor - we would have to pay around $3,000 for floors alone and about another $800 to get our baseboards and crown moldings installed. Not sure if $3800 is a lot of money for you, but it sure is for our family.

In order to install the floors, crown molding and baseboard I will need a miter saw. But which one and where to buy it? I knew nothing about miter saws, so immediately I've made a few mistakes before I got what I needed. So if you need a miter saw - read the rest of the article to learn from my mistakes and do the right thing from the very start

Mistake #1 - I went to Harbor Freight and bought a 10 sliding miter saw. When i got this beast home, unpacked it and turned it on I've discovered a few problems. For starters the blade and fence (the rail against which you line up the piece being cut) were not square, as in they were at an odd angle. So if i cut anything - it wouldn't be at the angle I wanted it to be. The second problem was the unbearable noise the motor on this cheap saw produced. So at $150 it was cheap, but the quality was definitely lacking. 

Mistake #2 - Alright, so cheap saws were out of the question - i needed a quality, name brand tool. I've quickly searched CraigsList and picked up a used Bosch sliding miter saw. After driving about 20 miles each way and returning home,  I've discovered a serious crack in the rail support block.  I was so mad, I couldn't think about anything else. Next day I've returned the old, broken saw to the seller.

Mistake #3 (almost) - this time I've almost made a mistake by buying a single bevel miter saw. The difference between single and double bevel saws is that in single bevel one you can rotate the saw only left or only right. While in dual bevel, it can be tilted left or right. This makes a huge difference when doing a lot of cutting of baseboard or crown molding. Otherwise you will need to flip the boards constantly and hope that your saw cuts cleanly not only on the top surface, but also on the bottom one.

So it was clear - I needed a new saw that wasn't broken, had warranty and from a reputable seller. I went to Home Depot and saw that their selection, while good, was overpriced. I could get the same tools from Amazon.com for about 75-85% of the cost, not pay tax and get free shipping.

After reading various message boards, review sites, blogs and comments I've realized that there are only 4 companies that make dual bevel miter saws of good quality at reasonable price - Bosch, Makita, Ridgid and DeWalt. All the rest were either expensive, lower quality or major design flaws. I've spent a week talking to contractors, sales people, do-it-yourselfers and random people who knew something on the subject. So trust me - I've done a lot of research about miter saws.

At the end I've bought a Bosch 4410 10 sliding, dual bevel miter saw that I'm extremely happy with. This is the kind of tool that will last you a lifetime.

Between the Bosch, Makita, DeWalt and Ridgid you should really only look at one of the three kind of saws: 12 dual bevel stationary, 10 dual bevel sliding or 12 dual bevel sliding. Only these three kinds will cut through 99% of all things that are meant to be cut with a miter saw. Others either won't have enough capacity to cut some of the bigger pieces like the tall baseboard and tall crown molding nested against the fence.

Here are a few notes about each brand:

I've resisted harmony for a while. I was determined to make one of my multi-function universal remotes work with all devices, but everyone of them could not duplicate functions of at least one of my devices. So I caved in to the other side and spent the $98 at Costco for a Harmony 880 advanced universal remote control. Let me tell you - I have achieved harmony and home entertainment system control nirvana!

To all of those still on the fence, let me explain why all the rage about Harmony remote controls:

If you are in need of your own mail server, but don't want to pay for Microsoft Exchange, yet don't want to spend hours building one by hand - here is a good alternative "MailServer Appliance" from AllradSoft. It is your basic FreeBSD distribution with all the right mail server software preinstalled and ready for use. All you need to do is enter your domain name, add users and make appropriate DNS/Domain entries with your registrar.

This virtual appliance runs on VMWARE and features: mail aliases, quatas, spam filtering, anti-virus filtering, IMAP/POP3/SMTP, webmail, SSL connections, certifactes, auto-updating of all the spam/virus signatures, easy server update process, MySQL database, web management, and more.

A free version allows you to have 1 domain and 10 mailboxes. For $99 you will get a license to have unlimited users and domains as well as ISO for instals on actual hardware (not in virtual machine) ! And that is cheap considering amount of hassle it saves.

Even though time keeping during the day is not an issue these days due to clocks in computers, cars and cell phones - I still like to have a good timepiece. And in my, very humble, opinion Citizen makes best watches. While such claims are extremely subjective, I'll try to substantiate my claim. A good watch has very simple characteristics which anyone can appreciate: accuracy, reliability, amount of care required and simplicity. Before anyone says that simplicity is a preference that some may not subscribe to, I would point out that even complex mechanisms can have simple or overly complex implementations. So for any given function - the simpler it is implement, the better. Now let's see why these qualities make the best watches!

Accuracy - Quartz movement is proven to be more accurate than simple mechanical movement due to the way quartz watches work. Mechanical watches have springs and masses that move around in order to measure time. By the very nature anything at a scale of a watch spring can not be very precise, especially when the spring's force changes as time goes by, as gears wear out, dirt gets inside and so on. In Quartz watch the quartz crystal is oscillating and thus measuring time (actually it moves tens of thousands of times per second).

Reliability - a good timepiece will work reliably for generations. Not without a degree of basic care, but many watches can work without a fault for very long periods of time (provided they have supply of energy - either human winding them up or electrical source). Many very expensive watches are fully mechanical and self winding. While this is a showcase for great craftsmanship, it also introduces a layer of complexity that tends to lower the reliability of the watch. Many of the gears are so delicate, that any kind of sudden physical shock, temperature variation, or even magnetic source can put them out of service. Lack of these delicate gears and mechanisms make quartz watches more tolerant to adverse conditions.

An AirLink AR680W Wireless N router that I had for about a year was dropping all of the connections from time to time, which really annoyed me.  Since I really didn't want pay too much money for a replacement D-Link DIR-615 for $40 seemed right. The old router disconnected and the new one in place. I wish I could say that the setup was painless, but it wasn't. In fact, I was trying to get it running for about an hour. Considering that my job requires me to be able to configure any kind of network equipment. And even though I knew that all the settings were right, the unit would not obtain DHCP information from the cable modem/ISP. There was something that was preventing the system from working correctly. Note, the configuration was done all in manual mode without using any "wizards" (scripted step-by-step setup assistants).  The settings were very basic - just the internal IP, lan DHCP server, and that's all. Yet, it would not get an IP. Even after connecting laptop, obtaining DHCP information from ISP and then putting it into router manually it wouldn't work. There is some type of setting in the router configuration that is not shown to the user. As a measure of last resort, I went through the wizard - and it worked! I've looked at the settings...Yes, everything was same as when I have configured it manually.  The only difference was that during the wizard setup - it prompted me to select ISP. Whatever, that selection means during the setup - it has some system setting associated with it.

For a while i ran a very old video card in my computer. It was sevierly underpowered and cound't handle any kind of decent 3D graphics on my Sceptre 24" + Dell 17" LCDs. So it was time to upgrade to something better that could handle multiple monitors and have enough power to draw all of it in 1920x1200 for 3D apps. Now, since I've always been a big fan of nVidia video cards (mostly due to their high quality, trouble free drivers, great support and raw power) I've looked at GeForce 9800GTX+, 9800GT and similar. The price point was about right for me and before the purchase I decided to make a little research. Well, good folks from www.Overclockers.ru pointed out the simple fact that in most very graphicly demanding apps (read games), bretheren from ATI produces much better results. Especially so at high resolution with all the anti-aliasing cranked up. After two days of further reasearch it became clear that even for the same money, ATI's current offering is better than that of nVidia. At the end I've decided to try Radeon HD 4870 1Gb by Diamond.