Hello from Steve Eberbach

**Seberbach** · **04-10-09, 02:53 PM**

I have lurked here occasionally for a year, and now must actually participate, or be forgotten.

So I resolve to visit more often and contribute something.

Some history:

My first home theater was made with four large homebuilt speakers hooked up to simulcast "Rock Concert" driven by two Crown DC300s and a very old vacuum tube and 3CRT projector called a "telemural" made by RCA. This television set had been used for years by the University of Michigan school of Medicine for televising close-ups of surgical procedures to students. Finally it was retired and became available at UofM Property Disposition at a price affordable to working people like me and my roommates.

Every weekend my house was packed full of friends who came to view "Rock Concert" at live-concert sound levels with video. In those days, I and friends had also started a small company called "Ann Arbor Video" which was definitely non-profit, but gained me and friends access to many events via "press passes", as we had rented one of the earliest publicly available portable video camera and recording systems. It needed a team of two or more people to operate effectively. Best was two to carry, load/unload, and operate camera and recording equipment plus at least one to do interviewing, narrating, and still be in the picture!
I and friends also rented equipment and provided large screen video locally for concerts and music festivals. It was fun working behind the scenes in those early days of rock and jazz concerts, even though it was not a way yet to earn a living. Some of my buddies are even now still doing this kind of work professionally for a living.

I have had a video projector of one kind or another for many years, but unfortunately, I always was an early adopter and have stuck with obsolete equipment for years until the price for better equipment becomes so low I am compelled to upgrade. The latest projector is an (old!) InFocus X1 DLP, and it is still going strong. It stays in the upstairs living room by the kitchen; my entire family prefers that greatly over having a separate (even a fancy setup) sound and video room far away from the daily living space. This is not a man's hobby thing, it is a daily living family thing we all use (and abuse) a lot.
We have destroyed many a disc and disc player over the years, but the rest of the old equipment just keeps on truckin'.

Sound is provided by an (amazingly good sounding) Harman Kardon 5x40 watt/channel surround "receiver" unit purchased new in box on Ebay for around $150.
It drives a pair of DCM SurroundScape speakers and a DCM SurroundScape center channel coaxial speaker, so the sound is still quite good way off center as well as in the sweet spot in front of the screen. We also use that now for our main "stereo" and have abandoned the fancy "audiophile" sound setups. We also have a set of Sony "gyro" head-tracking virtual-surround headphones. They are very unfortunately now discontinued, an I am looking forward to seeing their replacement someday with something as good or even better. They sound just like the speakers, except you do not feel the bass if the speakers are turned off.

They are excellent for someone who has to sit way off-center, or is listening out in the kitchen.

That does not mean I won't set up some of these audiophile systems again in the future....It is just a problem that we never even bought a "Hi-rez" disc player after our house burned down and we lost our optical-disc music collection, and Sony, Phillips, Hitachi, Panasonic, and others cannot come up with a decent sound disc format that I believe will last more than 10 years. My wife and I still have our vinyl albums after more than 50 years. They were, and still are, safe in the cellar. And we often grab those CD collector sets of re-mastered oldies when they are available, as well as new issue audio CDs, and, of course, many, many, many Audio/video DVD's! Those are not available on Vinyl 33 RPM format.