TechMyAV

 W.A.F. The oh-so-critical and ofttimes elusive Wife Acceptance Factor (or Wife Approval Factor). Just what is it and why you should care. Men are from Mars and Women from Venus and all that. If you haven't noticed, men and women are different. We think and process things differently, have different opinions and priorities, and generally live life according to these differences. When couples live together, these traits can become very evident and even a source of contention.  They can also be harnessed to compliment one another, creating something that is greater than the sum of its parts. WAF at its most basic level goes something like this: You are looking at purchasing some new speakers. You have 2 different models in mind, and each model comes in 3 colors. You run the idea past your wife. She really doesn't like the larger of the two but in the smaller set, she thinks that the white color would go best in the room. So that's the set that has the highest WAF. The WAF is ...

 Part II - Configure and Tweak In Part I we covered many of the items needed to get things connected and installed. Now it’s time to get things configured and tweaked, dialed in to extract the maximum from your new equipment. Hopefully, you’ve experienced some enjoyment along your journey so far. The most fun, of course, takes place once your feet are up, right along with the volume. A little effort now will get you there while pasting a huge smile on your face.  Inputs and Sources Taking on this task piece by piece, step by step, we’ll start with the most important relationship in most setups. The TV and AV Receiver (AVR). Be sure to have the AVR and TV connected via HDMI ARC. This allows the receiver to play the audio the tv is experiencing. Note which inputs these correspond to. In fact, during this stage, a notepad and label maker may go a long way to making things go a lot smoother. If HDMI ARC is not available, there will most likely be a digital output of either digital...

 Part I - The Connections and Installation Understanding how to connect and set up your A/V Receiver for your own home theater is not as daunting as you might expect. Making this task easy is a matter of taking it piece by piece. In that same sense, we'll break this setup down into two articles, Part I - The Connections and Installation and Part II - Configure and Tweak . Congratulations! You've decided that your very own surround sound home theater system to go with your tv or projector is something you just couldn't go without. Deciding to set it up yourself also deserves a quick pat on the back. This will not only save you money, but can help you to better understand your equipment and extract the absolute maximum enjoyment it has to offer.  Looking at the back of a receiver generally causes two reactions. In the smaller camp are those A/V nerds (geeks?) like us here that get all giddy and excited. However, for most people it can cause a bit of apprehension, maybe even ...