| Editorial December 2002
Have It Your Way
Breaking with tradition is normal. Nowhere is that fact
more evident than with that old holiday standard: the turkey dinner. Growing up in the
South, in sleepy little Wilmington, North Carolina, I grew accustomed to having baked
turkey for lunch on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. To have anything else, prepared any
other way, would just not suit the occasions. And living in the South, tradition is
important, especially when it comes to family meals. Or at least that’s what I was
programmed to think.
A couple of years ago I was introduced to what I thought
then was a bizarre concept: deep-fried turkey. To those of you who have not heard about
this -- like if you’ve been in a South American prison eating rat soup -- it’s
probably a shock. It just doesn’t sound right. Turkeys are too big to deep fry, and
what do you do with the stuffing? Get that stuff away from me!
Then, by chance, I had the opportunity to partake. Mama
mia! That’s good stuff, Maynard! I couldn’t believe my taste buds.
How had I been deceived for so long? Was baked turkey second-rate? From that point on, I
thought to myself, to heck with tradition. I’m having me some deep-fried turkey every
chance I get.
By now you’re asking yourself: What do deep-fried
turkey and home theater have in common?
It’s how we think about things. If something that is
not quite conventional comes along that really appeals to your palate, make it yours and
start a new tradition. That’s what I’ve done in my home theater and I know
I’m not alone.
OK, see if this doesn’t sound familiar: a DVD player
feeding an A/V receiver via a digital cable, which in turn drives a 5.1-channel speaker
system. That’s the most conventional home theater around, but it’s not the only
way to enhance the movie-watching experience in your home.
What if you can’t accommodate five speakers and a
subwoofer? What if you own some oldie-but-goodie speakers that are just too tough a load
for the A/V receivers out there? What if you want to upgrade from a receiver-based system
but don’t have the scratch to buy a state-of-the-art processor? There are answers to
these questions if you’re willing to break with tradition.
I eschew the use of an A/V processor in my system, instead
opting to let my DVD player decode Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks. I also listen to
music in the DVD-Audio format, so I plug the six-channel analog outputs from my DVD player
into a multichannel preamp (read about those in my SoundStage!
"Surrounded" column, "Multichannel
Music's Swiss Army Knife: The Multichannel Preamp"). The multichannel preamp then
drives two stereo amplifiers in my four-channel system. As you can see, my system is
pretty far removed from the more conventional system described a couple of paragraphs
above. But I love it!
There are other ways to skin a cat, too. Some of my buddies
listen to movie sound through a traditional stereo system. Others use receivers only as
low-cost processors, adding more powerful stand-alone amplifiers to drive power-hungry
speakers. And 5.1 is not the only speaker configuration around. You may hanker for 7.1
channels, or choose instead something like my 4.0 system. Now before I get all those
e-mails telling me that "to hear what the director intended, you need this and
that," let me tell you that I know what you’re saying -- and you’re
right, technically. But one size does not fit all in the real world, and I’d rather
you enjoy it your way than think you’re stuck with the same old turkey as your only
option. Happy holidays!
...Jeff Fritz
editor@hometheatersound.com |
