On Monday 23rd March, returning home from London, I broke my journey to visit the home cinema of bigboss. I went for two reasons, one, to listen to his Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 sound system anchored by his Marantz SR7009 receiver and two, to view his Sony HW40ES projector / Draper Sesame 2.1 with ReAct 2.1 screen combination. As it happens, a third impression was formed during the visit which I'll briefly touch on. I had meant to report back before now, but I've been busy, plus my skin has been reacting badly to some treatment that I've been having, sorry for the delay.
Visit to bigboss on Monday 23 March 2015
- Thread starter Son_of_SJ
- Start date
(1) The Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 system. For this we listened mainly to the first Dolby Atmos Blu-ray, the 3D version of Transformers: Age of Extinction. From memory, it sounded pretty good, though I do struggle to say exactly how good it was. On several occasions since, I have listened to my own disc, defaulting to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, expanded to 11.1 Audyssey (with front height and front width speakers). My system sounded fine, though I think (without being absolutely sure) that Bigboss's 7.1.4 system sounded better. A major weakness of this attempt to judge the effectiveness of Dolby Atmos is that it stupidly didn't occur to me, during the visit to bigboss, to ask him to switch between the 7.1 Dolby TrueHD default and the 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos expansion, using the Atmos data embedded in the disc. A further weakness was that I really didn't know even the default 7.1 soundtrack well, I had meant to listen to it before my trip, but ..... So in summary, I am not as convinced by 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos as I might have been, had I known the soundtrack to Transformers: Age of Extinction better, and if we had done the straight 7.1 / Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 comparison.
As it happens, there evolved quite a discussion about the merits of Dolby Atmos during the review on AVForums of the flagship Denon AVR-X7200W receiver, here https://www.avforums.com/review/denon-avr-x7200w-review.11351 . Now, if you go to the end of the review and click on the Discussions tab, you'll see that in message number 2 I ask about the Denon, with Mr Withers replying on message 5 and 6. More relevantly, in message 64 I ask him about the Atmos 7.1.4 / Audyssey 11.1 comparison, and he replies in message 66, although IDEALAV emphatically disagrees in message 71. Bigboss and I have a civil exchange in messages 82 and 83.
To repeat, I'm fully prepared to believe that 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos is better, for Dolby Atmos encoded discs, than using the root 7.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack expanded to 11.1 Audyssey. I myself just haven't quite heard it yet.
As it happens, there evolved quite a discussion about the merits of Dolby Atmos during the review on AVForums of the flagship Denon AVR-X7200W receiver, here https://www.avforums.com/review/denon-avr-x7200w-review.11351 . Now, if you go to the end of the review and click on the Discussions tab, you'll see that in message number 2 I ask about the Denon, with Mr Withers replying on message 5 and 6. More relevantly, in message 64 I ask him about the Atmos 7.1.4 / Audyssey 11.1 comparison, and he replies in message 66, although IDEALAV emphatically disagrees in message 71. Bigboss and I have a civil exchange in messages 82 and 83.
To repeat, I'm fully prepared to believe that 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos is better, for Dolby Atmos encoded discs, than using the root 7.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack expanded to 11.1 Audyssey. I myself just haven't quite heard it yet.
(2) The third impression that I mentioned. This is his subwoofer, KK DXD-808 which I think he got for a discount price of about £800 from LSound in Norway. On selected excerpts from Blu-Rays of Oblivion and The Orphange, which I do know quite well (I don't know Transformers: Age of Extinction nearly as well) the KK DXD-808 subwoofer performed about as well and as deeply as my own (£600, second-hand) SVS PC-13 Ultra (old-style, with the 750W Bash amplifier) subwoofer in my parlour, or the £5,800 Velodyne DD18+ subwoofer which I heard, properly set up, in an acclaimed dealer's shop. So that is a good subwoofer!
(3) Watching his Sony HW40ES projector / Draper Sesame 2.1 with 96-inch ReAct 2.1 screen combination. My memories of projectors, even at home cinema shows and in dealers' rooms, are not always entirely favourable, in fact before going to bigboss I had never seen a projector that I would have chosen over a good, large, television. So I was very keen to see bigboss's projector / screen combination, which by the way is a silver, not white, screen.
We began by watching the projector with the windows open, and the projector picture held up very well against the daylight. But for proper viewing, we closed the windows. Oh, I should say that bigboss has not yet had his system calibrated, he is using published calibration settings that he found on the internet, which is not as good as having a proper calibration of his own equipment, but should be reasonably accurate. I must immediately mention that I myself have not had my own Panasonic TX-P65VT65 calibrated, I am using Steve Withers's published calibration settings, but I do intend to get my Panasonic calibrated, when funds permit.
We watched excerpts from the Blu-rays of The Orphange, Transformers: Age of Extinction 3D, Finding Nemo 3D and Argo. So, how good is bigboss's projector / screen combination, bearing in mind that I'm used to watching calibrated (by Steven Withers) plasma televisions in my own flat (the only one of the four which has not been calibrated is the new (December 2014) Panasonic).
Well, I'll cut to the chase. With one fairly significant caveat, bigboss's projector / screen combination is the best 1080p picture, for both 2D and 3D, whether television or projector, that I have ever seen. As I say, I've seen a fair number of projector / screen combinations that should have been impressive, at shows and at dealers, but somehow I didn't find them impressive. Bigboss's pictures seemed to be bursting out of the screen! Very, very good. And I'm confident that my overall excellent impression isn't only a funtion of the sheer size of the screen (96 inches) compared to even my largest television, because I'm usually spectacularly unimpressed by screens at the commercial cinema, which are far bigger. However, the one fairly significant caveat, which in fact doesn't apply to 1080p pictures, is that it wasn't so impressive with Sky pictures, even the Sky HD pictures, whereas all but one of my televisions (Pioneer PDP-428XD, LG 60PZ950T and Panasonic TX-P65VT65) are pretty good with even standard-definition pictures from Freeview. (Oddly, the one television that's not so good with standard-definition Freeview pictures is my acclaimed Pioneer LX5090 in the front bedroom, though it's fine with Freeview HD pictures.) And I do watch a fair amount of Standard-Definition Freeview pictures, on the crime and detective channels like Quest, TruTV and CBS Reality.
We began by watching the projector with the windows open, and the projector picture held up very well against the daylight. But for proper viewing, we closed the windows. Oh, I should say that bigboss has not yet had his system calibrated, he is using published calibration settings that he found on the internet, which is not as good as having a proper calibration of his own equipment, but should be reasonably accurate. I must immediately mention that I myself have not had my own Panasonic TX-P65VT65 calibrated, I am using Steve Withers's published calibration settings, but I do intend to get my Panasonic calibrated, when funds permit.
We watched excerpts from the Blu-rays of The Orphange, Transformers: Age of Extinction 3D, Finding Nemo 3D and Argo. So, how good is bigboss's projector / screen combination, bearing in mind that I'm used to watching calibrated (by Steven Withers) plasma televisions in my own flat (the only one of the four which has not been calibrated is the new (December 2014) Panasonic).
Well, I'll cut to the chase. With one fairly significant caveat, bigboss's projector / screen combination is the best 1080p picture, for both 2D and 3D, whether television or projector, that I have ever seen. As I say, I've seen a fair number of projector / screen combinations that should have been impressive, at shows and at dealers, but somehow I didn't find them impressive. Bigboss's pictures seemed to be bursting out of the screen! Very, very good. And I'm confident that my overall excellent impression isn't only a funtion of the sheer size of the screen (96 inches) compared to even my largest television, because I'm usually spectacularly unimpressed by screens at the commercial cinema, which are far bigger. However, the one fairly significant caveat, which in fact doesn't apply to 1080p pictures, is that it wasn't so impressive with Sky pictures, even the Sky HD pictures, whereas all but one of my televisions (Pioneer PDP-428XD, LG 60PZ950T and Panasonic TX-P65VT65) are pretty good with even standard-definition pictures from Freeview. (Oddly, the one television that's not so good with standard-definition Freeview pictures is my acclaimed Pioneer LX5090 in the front bedroom, though it's fine with Freeview HD pictures.) And I do watch a fair amount of Standard-Definition Freeview pictures, on the crime and detective channels like Quest, TruTV and CBS Reality.
(4) Summary. When my pension tax-free lump sum comes through (for which I've now been waiting for eight months, dammit!) what will I do? Well, I'll probably won't change my 11.1 capable (with an added stereo amp) Denon AVR-4810 receiver for the time being, which I would have to do to upgrade to Dolby Atmos / Auro 3D / DTS: X. But about the screen - I'm really not sure. I had previously thought of something like the 4K Samsung UE75HU7500 television, cost £5,500. But bigboss's screen is substantially bigger, and would cost less than £4,000 even allowing for the cost of installing as well as buying the projector. All this is just wishful thinking until the money comes through, but I am thinking very hard ..... Bigboss's projector / screen combination, for 1080p material, was so good that I struggle to imagine how it could be bettered. And it's not even been properly calibrated yet! *acute*
bigboss
Moderator
That is a fairly extensive feedback! Thanks!
Audyssey made my subwoofer very tame. After your comment about not hearing it in a scene where it should have kicked in, I pushed it up a little bit. Since then, it's been superb!
You managed to sway me away from the Yamaha towards the Marantz, now it's my turn to sway you towards a projector screen combination! *diablo*
Glad you enjoyed the evening. I did too. *good*
Audyssey made my subwoofer very tame. After your comment about not hearing it in a scene where it should have kicked in, I pushed it up a little bit. Since then, it's been superb!
You managed to sway me away from the Yamaha towards the Marantz, now it's my turn to sway you towards a projector screen combination! *diablo*
Glad you enjoyed the evening. I did too. *good*
Series1boy
Well-known member
Son_of_SJ said:
Great review!
did you have time to compare his calibrated VT against the projector son of sj?
cheers
Native_bon
Well-known member
Very detailed review. Enjoyed reading it. Am looking to upgrade to a projector sometime in the future as well. For now just watching to see what the tv sets for 2015 can bring to the table. For now I have to keep dreaming.
Frank Harvey
Well-known member
I still say that this side of a Sony 4K model, the HW40ES has to be one of the best looking PJs available for the money. The HW55ES is better, but it is mainly contrast ratio that is improved - sharpness etc is basically the same. If my Mitsubishi HC7000 broke down tomorrow (I hope I havent jinxed it now!), I'd pick up a HW40.
bigboss
Moderator
Series1boy said:
No we didn't. He briefly checked the TV before we moved on to projector viewing only.
To be honest, you cannot compare a 50-inch TV vs an 8 feet projector, regardless of calibration. For 1080p pictures, the projector will look superior as long as the room lighting is controlled.
bigboss
Moderator
You're right David. As the Draper ReAct 2.1 screen was boosting contrast due to silver grey colour already, I couldn't justify spending extra on the HW55 even with the free PS4 offer.
Series1boy said:
First, congratulations about your selective quoting, rather than regurgitating all my guff, which is one of my pet hates!
No, we didn't compare his calibrated 50VT65 against the projector. I had thought of it, but decided not to press bigboss about it for two reasons: (one), size does matter, and a 50" television is always going to look small next to a 96" projector screen, no matter how good the television is and (two), I have a fairly good idea of how the Panasonic VT65 television series performs, since I have the 65" version at home (even though mine isn't yet calibrated), and I didn't think that I would learn too much from watching another VT65. I might have been wrong though!
f1only
Well-known member
Nice review SJ of BB's system, enjoyed it & an excellent system to review too. I am looking forward to getting some better Atmos speakers for mine but will wait for a while now. I'm with you at the moment as mine doesnt seem to make much difference at all to the effects they can produce due to the size of the onkyo's i think, so would not recommend them as they could be vastly improved upon.
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