The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

LOL, I hear you Steve, yes most what you said is true, I got to giggle a little after reading Sammy's what motion issues, I am a perfectionist when it comes to picture quality, and no I am not saying Sammy is not, when 120 came out is when I finally made my first purchase for a flat screen which of course was around 8 years ago, I use to visit stores like circuit city and best buy and the new LCD's made me feel like I was out to sea cause I do get sea sick, than the 120's came out and finally I was able to watch it, as you say not perfect but watchable, the 240 to me I still see no difference between the 120.

When Sammy says what motion issues most people I know even the 60hrz doesn't bother them, I'm one of the more unfortunate one's that spots every detail almost which of course has it's advantages and dis-advatages and it's the latter in this case which sucks, so many times I will visit family members or friends e.g. most have comcast & verizon, and it kills when when they pay for HD but watch e.g. abc on a non HD channel, every time I go there I have to pick up their remote and change it, and I scream don't you people see the difference, to me non HD channels are not just inferior thier actually blurry, and they say yeah we see the difference but it doesn't bother us, lol, I just want to punch a wall, and this is not some, a lot of people are this way, so what the hell maybe I'm the goofy one.

 

Low frame rate annoys me as much as the next man - unfortunately, I've not found any of the 'motion smoothing' technologies to work off PC inputs. Perhaps they work with bluray players and the likes? I attribute it to the fact that the refresh rate signal coming to the TV is different to that of the media playing. I did see some remarkably clear images coming off a bluray in a shop once, so it can be done, but I've never been able to pull it off (tested with a 2009 100Hz Toshiba Regza, which I since had to sell :/)

As soon as LCD and Plasma TVs replaced CRTs we got horrid blurring on SD images, some TVs are a lot better at dealing with them than others. It's really a question of having a native multiple of the image (e.g. exactly the right resolution, or exactly half) - this is why at 2560x1600 on my display, 1920x1080 doesn't look hugely better than 1280x720, because the 1920x1080 is trying to be interpolated to 1.333 pixels enlargement, whereas 1280x720 - simply every pixel becomes a 2x2 square of the same colour.

As the saying goes 'once you go xxx, you never go back'. This is one of the good things about me having stayed out of 120Hz for gaming. I know once I start playing games at 120Hz refresh rate I'll hate 60Hz, and as of the moment, you can't buy higher resolution monitors than 1080p for 120Hz!

 

Well, "Adequate" as you say, is wonderful for me. And if I'm not mistaken, the Dell U2410 uses less watts to run than my 37" HDTV. I watch Blu-Ray on it often. Black levels aren't quite what they are on the JVC, or Panasonic Plasma, but it does a pretty good job. And TMT5 does have some tweaks for adjusting video settings when needed.

 

You got me on the PC info displays Sammy, that stuff is all new to me but still a good read, I need to learn a lot more soon, I have neighbors always asking me about the newer smart and wifi TV's etc. I have never experienced one and still can't give advise, I read those sets can be difficult to set up to most novices I don't know have not tried it yet, what does interest me and one of my good friends I told him about the docking stations you guys talked about ages ago here, stick a HDD that can hook up to one of these smart TV's without using disc's, that's an advantage when your the sole watcher of one TV, to me with 5 TV's in the house and my kids watching TV's all over the place I still need disc's but the docking stations still interest me.

Than you have the streaming, I have seen some and the quality was not there to me, it was almost like watching a VCR tape, that was a while back maybe it's better know I don't know, the newer set we bought a 46 Sony is a smart TV just have not had the time to mess with all the new gadgets, the Internet and wifi thing does not interest me not yet anyway, but I know if I want to hook up a docking station it does have the PC input and all the other inputs I'm interested in.

 

That certainly can be true and depends on how much the source was compressed, your bandwidth available, and what soft-player your might be using.

Recently I streamed from my laptop via a WiFi connection using Netflix and a 1080p movie and it worked very well. I did have a HDMI connection from my laptop to the Sony 56in HDTV and could play the movie on the TV while surfing the web on my laptop's display.

Now if you download DivX movies from the web it is a different story because the quality of the movie rip can be extremely poor and would look like a VCR tape.

 

Guys here is an interesting article, almost looks like a winner, and I love how the speakers are placed, they finally are going back to having speakers up front like it should be, my older 40 Sony xbr came that way, the 40 is wider than the new 46 I bought because of the side speakers, the sound is so good I hardly ever need to turn on the amp and use the surrounding speakers, anyway I would be afraid to ask how much this new puppy cost's.

http://lowersouthampton.patch.com/groups/business-news/p/sonys-new-ultra-hd-tv-lowersouthampton

 

Still quite happy with my cheapy Coby 39" LCD. Image quality comparable to anything else in the store at the time. Have yet to see a plasma that impresses me though I'm sure they exist. DLP is just lovely though. Maybe a matter of taste.

 

The most impressive (in terms of vibrance and clarity) LCDs I've seen I think are probably these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889354349

The small versions seem to be just as good. 60" imo is where size gets a bit wasteful as 1080p just isn't high-res enough to be of any benefit.


Meanwhile in the PC desktop scene, Asus are releasing their 'first consumer-oriented' genuine 60Hz 4K PC monitor (32") with displayport later this month, for a pretty reasonable MSRP of $3500. If it were any other manufacturer, I'd start saving, but even though the panel behind is Sharp, I think I'd plump extra for trying to import the $4500 Sharp model that's already out there in very limited numbers. By the time I've saved enough, I imagine more brands will probably have arrived at lower prices Anything that costs more than a month's salary after bills are paid probably deserves serious consideration!

 

That's certainly a pricey piece of tech. I would bide my time and wait until the quality models are established. Personally never had a problem with my ASUS display. Not even a minor glitch. I believe the panel in it is a Samsung or Viewsonic.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052

The speakers are internal so the size of it is not increased or exaggerated by them. Zero dead pixels too. The ASCR which supposedly gives it 20,000:1 contrast is a joke though. Screws up the black levels and makes it unsuitable for most things. Games are WAY too dark. The default settings on 1000:1 contrast look very vibrant and crisp. I add only a single notch of sharpness for personal taste as it somewhat remedies the small pixel density. Very subtle but lovely improvement, and these monitors should come with the sharpness up that small hair by default.

The 1000:1 contrast ratio on the ASUS is the same as on my 2407WFP. The response time of 5ms is better than the 2407's 6ms though honestly I have yet to see either monitor ghost even in the fastest paced games. The ASUS I would say has slightly warmer colors than the Dell but there is no contest in sharpness and clarity.

 

Yeah I never saw ghosting on my 11ms 3007WFP either, even though reviewers claimed they could see it - I think only having a 14ms black-white time helps (as even 6ms G2G monitors are often 16ms B2W).

Having now worked in the industry for a bit I'd solidly place Viewsonic rock bottom of the 'reputable' brands for monitor reliability, there's about a 75% failure rate of their PSUs after about 4 years.
This said, the PSU (or a component in it) also failed in my 3008WFP after 4 years. Given its worth, it was repaired (at moderate difficulty, but minimal cost) since the problem is so common there is page after page of detailed info on the fix. This said, afterwards so far so good, and it's shortly going to turn 5. Kind of lost without it really, as there still isn't anything decent to replace it until 4K monitors come to the fore. Subsequent generations of the 30" Ultrasharp only seem to have made it worse. From an engineering perspective the 3007 was by far the best, the 3008 was worth having for actually having a scaler, but added considerable input lag, a fair bit of slowness, a few bugs [DVI signal reception requires a rising edge with the connector already attached, so if you turn the PC on too long before the monitor, you will never get a picture unless you wait for the powersave to come on, assuming you still have it enabled!], and of course, the highest power draw of any PC monitor of around 180W at full brightness [which will also overheat the inverters and power off the display after 5-10 mins - max you can do is 50% brightness at about 130W, but seriously, more than 50% burns your eyes anyway!]. That said, it's a 2560x1600 monitor with an excellent panel and eight inputs, including pretty much everything except SCART (which is a european standard anyway) and RF (which would need a tuner). Composite, Component, it's all there - the only thing it can't do is passthrough audio from analog RCAs, it'll only do that with HDMI. Regretfully though, the scaler being a bit old and basic, the input lag's pretty high, yet they haven't improved it with the newly released U3014...

From reading reviews, the U3014 seems to have just as many bugs if not more, and fewer inputs. The panel hasn't really improved either it seems. It seems like the panels to have nowadays are the 27" 2560x1440s for less than half the price.

 

Likewise Dell's 1920 x 1200 panels haven't seemed to get much better than what I have now either. Similar amount and functionality of inputs as the 3007.

 

From a audiophile prospective there are no TV speakers worth a shat but you're right Fred having front firing speakers is much better then back or down firing. That Sony I'm sure is a great TV.

Isn't it funny that ten years ago or so Viewsonic was on the top of the monitor list. It just goes to show you that everything changes.

 

The best TV speakers I've heard are on our 2005 Sharp LC26GA5E - one of the original HDTVs that only has VGA and component, no HDMI. They're 10W RMS each and are located in a very sizeable speaker bar at the bottom - the bass on them is very good and the fidelity is very clear right up to a very high volume level - I'd say 90dB or so. Of course a proper system would be better, but I'd honestly say you'd get no real improvement out of a basic 2.1 speaker set, you'd have to go higher up the scale to do better.
In-built TV speakers have got better since the CRT days, but speakers as good as those still aren't exactly common.

 

Your right Steve, viewsonic was top dog back than.

 

Most TV speakers are only 1 - 2 inche drivers which severely limits their frequency response, more so in the lower frequencies. Even a 6 inch speaker has difficulty responding at frequencies below 100-150 Hz and their imaging capability is also hindered. I can get a 2 inch speaker to easily reach 90 DB at 1 KHz and it would sound OK. But now put them up against 10 in to 18 in 3-way speaker systems that have at least decent drivers and there is absolutely no comparison. Of course I'm a true audiophile and I have a decent sound system but not great from a true audiophiles point. I don't have hundreds of thousand of dollars to spend on the gear I'd really like to have so I go mid range which provides bang for the buck. My system is only in the $20K to $30K range.

I do like a good TV speaker though and the one Fred posted might just be my next TV as I don't always like to crank up my sound system every time I watch TV. And I would say Fred was right on with the Sony as it looks like the sound system in that TV would be excellent for what it is, prospectively of course.

Yes Fred, I used to love Viewsonic, past tense of course...

 

Difficult to say, I had a Viewsonic CRT in 2004 I was quite impressed with, but that bit the dust a year later and the RMA replacement wasn't the same model, and was nowhere near as good (the pincushion was out of alignment on only one side so you could never get a straight picture, and the '60Hz flicker' effect was more pronounced on it than its predecessor). These monitors that were failing left right and centre were from around 2007-2008, so it's not exactly a recent thing.

As for sound system, I'm quite sensitive to noise, hence making considerable efforts to quieten most of my PCs (which has gone out the window somewhat when I rebuilt my server), but audiophile? Compared to a lot of other people I've spoken to it seems I'm pretty tolerant. A £150 second hand set of Logitech Z-5500s has served me perfectly adequately for the last 7 years - the speakers tend not to come on too often these days as having moved back into my parents' semi-detached house, high noise levels are not appreciated

 

That is the same thing I had happen to me with my last Viewsonic and it to was around 2004 but with a 19 in VA1912wb. The replacement still looks OK monitor wise but the speakers crapped out on it. I still use it even though but the picture quality was never great and then with the problems I've not bought another.

Your Logitech's are pretty good but I have some Altec Lansings that are cheaper and possibly better for PC use, but still again that is NOTHING compared to real audiophile gear. However for today's standards I'm sure you think that is high end.

I can appreciate the sound decibel level issue as I don't get many chances to crank up my system either. As to servers and PC's making too much noise I do have problems with that on this new PC with the H2O cooling, it started out somewhat quite but has gotten worse with time, I'm not impressed with it especially since it doesn't cool the NB and if I push the PC the limiting factor is the NB over heating which was predicted. As to servers, I'd never have my server(s) in a room that I use, I put them in my Utility Closet with all of my Satellite gear & distribution system, phone distribution system, and network gear & distribution system.

Below is less switches, routers, antennas, cabling, and so on...

My Distribution Panel in the Utility Closet laid out in Visio:


My DSL/POTS Phone Distribution Panel in the Garage laid out in Visio:

 

Yeah I realise the Logitechs aren't a patch on professional audio, but given I tend only to produce sound below 80dB without much bass, and work almost exclusively with headphones, the need for anything bigger has never arisen.

Loving the visio diagram, have recently been drawing up network diagrams for work, can certainly appreciate the work that went into that. There's an equally (if not more) complex setup behind my desk with my receiver, all the A/V inputs attached to it, and then the network infrastructure for it all, but it's all a big heap of cables, nothing as tidy as illustrated by that diagram. I could try drawing up something like that, but it's too changeable really, and you lose the enthusiasm for that sort of stuff when you're doing it for your work

 

Ya, I don't have your Logitech's but a friend does and they do sound fantastic for a PC speaker system and you're right a good headset can be used if better quality is needed. My issue though with compressed music and PC's is the sound quality, plus with PC's there is a higher noise threshold to over come then high-end audio gear, but I still use my PC on occasion. I do get 60 Hz noise when I use my PC as a server through my home audio system but I will eliminate that for the most part by elevating the ground and rigging a cheap RC filter to ground to isolate most of the noise.

You're right doing detail drawings can eat up time and things do change but what I do is build modules, Groups or Stencils in Visio / library template drawings in AutoCAD, to try and keep the work down. I haven't drawn out my new SWM-16 with two 8-ways for my satellite configuration for the reasons you state, but I'm working on it right now among other stuff. I'm doing this for two major reasons, 1) I print the layout for my panels so that anyone can work with it easily, 2) The complexity is such that it helps me setup everything efficiently the first time as I've spent my time ironing out all of the issues prior and can install my setups neatly the first time, hopefully. Also it helps when I have to go back and change something down the road, of course I then have to re-tweak my drawings but that is easy the second time around.

I've used these templates to help friends and family with there house hold systems and it is much quicker and even more efficient multiple times there after.

 

The good thing about the Z-5500s is the satellites use proper speaker wire so you can hook them up to another amplifier, in this case my receiver - only the sub is self-contained, I've attached that to the receiver's SW OUT using a phono-3.5mm connector into the Centre/Sub channel on the Z-5500's control unit. Means turning the Z-5500 unit on/off is an easy way to enable/disable the subwoofer.

Whereas previously I used a plethora of RCA/3.5mm adapters and splitters and the HDMI 3.5mm passthrough on my 3008WFP, I now hook everything into the Pioneer VSX-922 and switch channels as necessary - simply changing the 3008WFP from DVI to HDMI mode to pick up the output signal. It's not a 4K upscaler, but I didn't anticipate that for the price. If I want 4K content, I'll get it native, thanks very much