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In: Reviews
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66 Audio is a Los Angeles based start-up focused on sports-oriented over-the-ear headphones with great customer support. I’m an active runner and audio enthusiast and I’ve had poor experiences with other Bluetooth sports headphones. So I was extremely interested when I was contact by 66 Audio and asked if I’d like to test their BTS Sport headphones. But to be clear, when my review is complete, I’m going to return the sample headphones back to 66 Audio. This isn’t a “free product bribe” review. So with that out of the way, let’s get to the review! What I liked: Useful Design and light weight. IRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 21 Comments

In my quest for the ultimate home theater bass, I’d always felt that my single Velodyne HGS-15 subwoofer wasn’t delivering quite the low frequency experience I was expecting. Visits to local IMAX theater had me jealous. So I set out figure out what was missing. Much of what I learned is included in my other post entitled Ultimate Home Theater Subwoofer Designs, which describes Infinite Baffle and Folded Tapped Horn subwoofers. This post details how I installed an Infinite Baffle subwoofer system in my home theater. I chose an Infinite Baffle subwoofer design because it delivers extremely low frequencies with perfectly flat response. Those low, chair-shaking / chestRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 1 Comment

I used to think the only way to get ultimate subwoofer bass was to spend thousands of dollars on a prestigious brand of subwoofer. I thought that people who build their own subwoofers were fringe enthusiasts who cared more about building something than about sound quality. It turns out I was completely wrong. The opposite is true: DIY subwoofers can deliver sonic performance that’s impossible for commercial subs to replicate. Here’s an overview of the two of the most effective subwoofers you can build yourself. Overcoming the Subwoofer Enclosure Cabinet Size Constraint Most commercial subwoofers are focused on achieving the best possible performance from the smallest cabinet size possible. Small cabinet size isRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 28 Comments

The single most important factor of a great sounding home theater is the acoustic properties of the room itself. Not the brand of speakers, not the receiver, not the bit rate of the movie soundtrack. Unfortunately, room acoustics is usually the area where most people give the least amount of attention. And I can’t blame them, because it’s a lot more fun to shop for electronics than it is to spend hours messing with acoustic room treatments. But if you want the best sound quality possible, room acoustic treatments are an absolute necessity. It’s almost impossible to get an absolutely perfect room configuration; you alwaysRead More →

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In: Web
With: 3 Comments

This is an update of my older list of Firefox 2.0 Extensions I’m a long-time user of the Mozilla and Firefox browsers. Google Chrome is awesome, but I’ve been unable to switch to it as my primary browser because the Add-Ons just don’t offer the customizations and features to which I’ve grown accustomed. Here’s my list of extensions that makes Firefox the ultimate browser. Essential Add-ons that I use every day: Tab Mix Plus: If I had to choose only one extension, this would be it. This extension alone keeps me from switching to Google Chrome. It makes the tabs behave any way you wantRead More →

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In: Reviews, Triathlon
With: 78 Comments

In September 2008, I reviewed the Jaybird JB200 Bluetooth headphones to great disappointment. Just over 4 years later, Jaybird released their latest model, the Jaybird Bluebuds X, with some pretty impressive claims on sound quality, fit, and battery life. The cord on my Klipsch S4i Rugged headphones are my only complaint with them, but it’s a big one. So I found a nearby Bestbuy that had the Bludbuds X in stock and picked-up a pair to see how the new model stacks up. Update 18-March-2013:  An hour and twenty minutes into my run, my headphones died – permanently. The battery was well over 50% charged.Read More →

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In: Tech
With: 36 Comments

I recently purchased a 3rd Generation Apple TV and a 22″ Samsung 1080P LED-backlit LCD TV to act as a digital photo frame for my house. I thought I’d found the perfect setup because Samsung TVs have 3 separate timers to turn the TV on and off, so it would only be on when we are home (morning and evenings during the week, during the day on the weekends.) I have over 10,000 photos in my Aperture library, and I was looking forward to seeing them instead them just sitting on my computer. After going through the Apple setup instructions on my Mac (in iTunes,Read More →

Sticky
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In: Home Theater
With: 270 Comments

I have 3 Panasonic DMP-BDT 220 Blu-ray players and all of them stopped connecting to Netflix at the same time. Although Panasonic seems to be particularity bad, all set top boxes and TVs seem to have occasionally have Netflix connection issues.  Here’s my list of the most common methods of solving those issues. Option 1 – Hidden Menu within the Netflix App to Deactivate your Device: this should work for any device as Netflix requires every manufacturer to include it. Please note that this does not deactivate your Netflix account itself, just your device, requiring you to log on again. Open the Netflix app on the device OnceRead More →

Sticky
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In: Home Theater
With: 193 Comments

4k resolution televisions are now widely available and potential buyers are wondering if the extra resolution is worth it. In some cases it is, but in most, it’s not.  The details below can help you decide. 4K (and 8K) Resolution Defined The older 1080p HDTV standard has a resolution of 1920×1080 (2.1 million) pixels. The UHD resolutions are multiples of this base 1080p resolution. 4k resolution is named for the approximately 4,000 (4k) pixels that make up the horizontal resolution across the image. More specifically, the resolution is 3840×2160, which gives 8.3 million total pixels – 4 times that of 1080p. (4k is sometimes calledRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 41 Comments

Western Digital MyBook Elite external hard drives use hardware-based encryption chips to (optionally) encrypt drives using 256-bit encryption. This is OK for security, but horrible for data recovery.  It is impossible to access (decrypt) the drive if the enclosure circuit board fails, even if the drive itself is fine.  For this reason, I highly recommend not using the hardware-based encryption unless you have a solid off-site backup plan, such as Backblaze. What if the Enclosure Fails? If you’ve enabled the hardware-based encryption, the data on the drive is completely inaccessible without the encryption chip in the Western Digital enclosure. So a simple failure of theRead More →