AV Rant Listener David F. —

gave some great suggestions on the podcast for people who would like to apply room correction or EQ using a PC without the need to for additional hardware.

However, if you’re interested in an outboard solution that you can use with any source after having programed it with your computer, miniDSP has recently introduced some boxes with Dirac Live. And rumor has it, there are more models on the way:

http://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series

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AV Rant Listener Bruno —

wants to sit about 15 feet away from his projection screen, and he has about a 116″ wide space where the screen can go. He wants as cinematic an experience as he can get, but he doesn’t want his 16:9 HDTV content to end up being too small.

One possible solution is to opt for a “constant area” screen. A constant area screen starts out with a strange 2.07:1 aspect ratio that doesn’t natively fit either 16:9 nor 2.35:1 aspect ratio content. But with small masking panels on either side or small masking panels on the top and bottom, you can create either aspect ratio with the largest size possible for both:

Scroll down a bit on the following page link for the Constant Area options:

http://seymourav.com/masking.asp

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AV Rant Listener Fred R. —

wanted to know what gauge speaker wire should be used for lengths up to 100 feet.

12 gauge speaker wire will handle just about any installation in a home, but for 100 feet or longer, something even thicker is technically an even better choice.

We actually made a mistake on the podcast when we said that Blue Jeans Cable’s Canare 4S11 14-4 speaker wire could be installed inside walls. Turns out, the Canare 4S11 is NOT UL-listed or NEC rated.

So you’ll want to stick with their 10 gauge Belden 5T00UP wire if you’re running long lengths inside walls:

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm

Monoprice has in-wall rated 14-4 speaker wire, though, and that remains a great option:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023902&p_id=4040&seq=1&format=2

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AV Rant Listener Andy —

wanted some demo material for his new SVS PB-2000 subwoofer.

AVS Forum has their “Master List of BASS in Movies” thread, which should have anyone covered for demo material suggestions:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/113-subwoofers-bass-transducers/1333462-new-master-list-bass-movies-frequency-charts.html

Some folks at AVS Forum also created a bass demo disc that you can download and enjoy:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/19-dedicated-theater-design-construction/1412846-ultimate-bass-demo-disc.html

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AV Rant Listener John M. —

has been using the AVS HD 709 setup pattern disc.

It’s a great way to get a whole bunch of video test patterns without having to pay any money:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/139-display-calibration/948496-avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration.html