This is a slightly touchy subject. My original intent in building this site was to celebrate the Dynaco company formed by David Hafler, and crewed by talented folks such as Ed Laurent, Wade Burns, Joe Sparacio, Jim Elliott, Sid Lidz, Bob Tucker, Bill Phillips, Harry Klaus, Erno Borbely, John Ferranti, Doug Hercus, Richard Pley, etc. etc. I wanted to provide detailed info on the equipment they designed, supported, and serviced, right through the end of the company in 1980.

There are many schools of thought on this subject. Linn for example say that more should be spent on the source (CD player, Turntable) and less on the amplification or speakers. We on the other hand tend to think that balance is best; basically spend the same on each component. By doing this if you decide to upgrade your hi-fi at any time in the future you will know that your system will always be balanced. Also by balancing your system the features on your equipment.

of a few years ago, most consumer off-the-shelf systems feature either 5 identical speakers or 4 identical speakers with a center channel modified for better placement on top of the television. For a home theater system designed primarily for watching movies, the center channel may be of dubious quality and design though. In many older (circa 2000 or so) consumer music-only surround system, the front speakers may be matched direct radiators and the rear speakers may be dipoles (see 1.10).

Ideally, surround speakers should be either wall-mounted or stand-mounted to either side of the couch or primary listening area, from one to six feet higher than seated listeners' ears, and slightly forward or rearwards of the listening area if you wish. Axiom's Quadpolar surrounds are especially versatile and can yield excellent performance with stand or wall-mounting to the rear as well as at side locations. (see our dedicated stands for the QS Surround speakers in the Store).

Check what kind of connector the device has (e.g., stereo minijack) and buy the proper kind of cable to connect it to the system.

No, you must import a CD to a Kaleidescape Server before you can play it. You can import a CD with the Movie Player 2, the Music Player, or the now-discontinued Reader.

Yes. All are fitted with an up-to-date Radio, CD/CD-R/MP3 stereo's and 4 speakers. They have a mini jack input on the front for direct connecting your iPod, or similar player. We'll include a couple of CD's too. [top]

Surround speaker placement, room acoustics, and personal preference are as important as the speakers' radiating characteristic. These factors vary greatly, so Dolby Laboratories cannot recommend a particular speaker for home theater use. Bipolar, dipolar, and tripolar surround speakers use speaker drivers aimed towards the front and back of the room to achieve a diffuse soundfield like that created by the multiple surround speakers used in movie theaters.

No. You must hook the Xbox optical output to some device capable of decoding the AC-3 digital audio. There are NO EXCEPTIONS. You need either an AC-3 capable receiver or an AC-3 capable PC sound card with optical input.

This is typically caused because the home theatre receiver is not in Dolby Pro-Logic or Dolby Digital Surround mode. Different brands of home theatre receivers have different methods to put the system in this mode. It is usually controlled from the remote and often called "listen mode" or "mode". Also occasionally you’ll encounter a movie with little or no surround information on the soundtrack. The older the movie the more likely this to be the case.

Kaleidescape Movie Players and Music Players provide reference-quality audio and video output that is comparable to the very best CD and DVD players that are available today.

That's the steering system of the Dolby Pro Logic decoder in your receiver extracting the rear channel information. Because the process is very phase dependant, the swishing sound (phase shift) can be evident during action scenes with a lot of panning. The latest Pro Logic II is less susceptible to this effect.

It indicates which CD Player is controlled by the channel-specific keyboard controls (e.g. 'space bar' for pause). You can still use DJ-1800 in this way without any additional audio hardware, as long as you don't mind DJing in mono. To DJ in stereo, you'll need to buy a second output device for your Mac, such as a Griffin iMic. These aren't too expensive. Alternatively, if you don't mind DJing in mono, you can use the 'Mono + Mixer' mode in DJ-1800.

Yes. You can buy it from your local game store or from us. A single copy is only $2.99 and a five-pack is $14.95, for those DMs who want to provide one to every player around the table. (You also may download PDF copies of A Player's Guide to Ptolus free from DriveThruRPG.com.)

It is getting difficult to find pullout CD players any more, since detachable faceplates are much more convenient to carry around. However, there is the obvious trade off - it is still possible to steal the chassis for the detachable face unit, when that is not possible with a pullout. Although some companies will advertise that it is very difficult to get replacement faces without the original receipt, thieves can still get the faceplates.

Many people report problems while playing CDs from a portable CD player into their car audio systems. The problem, stated very simply, has to do with the stepping of the motor requiring a varying amount of current and non-isolated power and audio signal grounds. Using a liberal application of capacitors and inductors, this voltage variance can be restricted to a window of 8.990 to 9.

Other uses are portable DVD players, Mp3 players, and Satellite Radio devices. Boostaroo also enhances downloaded AVI's, video sound files, portable TVs, racing scanners such as used at NASCAR, motorcycle intercoms systems and the like. It's also used in a number of schools to triple the availability of sound in computer labs and music classes that use tape or CD Players.

CD-i can display both main planes in either normal, double or high resolution, which are 384x280, 768x280 and 768x560 respectively. Some encoding techniques are limited to a single resolution, for example a DYUV image is always standard resolution. It is possible for the images on each of the planes to be displayed at once, even if they are in different resolutions. For example double resolution CLUT4 menu bar can be overlayed on a standard resolution DYUV image.

Yes. There are two line level input jacks on the IM3303 to allow multiple peripheral source connections to the system. Standard "RCA™" jacks are used to make the connections. Connect the source output (a pre-amp level signal) to the IM3303. Amplification will take place within the IM3303 master station.