The All Purpose Advice Thread - Part 2

That's what I am using, looks like an overkill but it is very secure and very flexible in terms of how you want to hang it.
I have many of those
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005MZKD8M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

How are you attaching it to the wall? I’ve got a bunch of mounts like that attached to desks now, but I’d really like to get these neatly organized on the wall.

 

It works for me because I have a wood panel above my desk that is like 3 inches from the wall and open at the bottom.
On the wall I use cheap things like this one, they are basic but covered with rubber and do not damage a headband. For HPs with long cables I use two, top for headphones bottom for a cable. Not ideal but works well
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0765TP2Q5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

I use something roughly similar to this. Works great.

 

My son just asked for a set of computer speakers for Christmas - his primary use is gaming, and some video streaming. He's weird in that he's not really into music (I always wonder if he's really mine, lol), so music performance doesn't really matter.

I haven't purchased computer speakers in 10 yrs, so no idea what is decent these days. Would love to hear thoughts...

 

Budget? I was looking around at smaller speakers for the family TV space cuz built-in TV speakers are sharp and glarey. Managed to fast talk them into letting me get Kali LP-8s which are great fun, but I mainly use headphones so what do I know? They also have ultra-nearfields which I haven't gotten to try at all but seem promising.

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?profile-posts/22342/

^ I had to look for this a bit, remembered that there were compact JBLs that some folks were liking a while ago, the JBL 104s still seem nice sans its lacking low bass.

 

I use the Creative Pebble…it’s no-fi but better than the laptop speakers.

 

I'm guessing 100-200... unless I need to adjust my budget since its been so long since I've been in the market. I have a pair of AudioEngine 2+ that are probably 10 yrs old at this point...

 

As tempted as I am to recommend a cheap pair of powered bookshelves or passive bookshelves with a cheapo class D amp, if he’s gaming then something with a separate “sub”woofer is probably better. Last time I was aware of such things, the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 set was respectable and cheap. If this isn’t for music then just go for maximum boom and don’t think too much about it.

For a completely different direction, Audeze still has B-stock Maxwells left in their Black Friday sale.

 

A bit above budget, but this is a good closeout price on the Vanatoo Zero :
https://vanatoo.com/shop/speakers/transparent-zero/

 

My wife has been asking for a blu ray player. We don’t watch much TV and don’t have a 4K, OLED, etc TV (I think ours is 1080 LCD). I know next to nothing about video and can’t tell from online reviews whether blu ray players automatically upsample or can recognize what they are connected to. We may get a better TV at some point, but I was looking for something we can also use now. We also have DVDs. Any blu ray player suggestions?

 

In general yes, they'll recognize what they're connected to and will upscale/downscale as appropriate. My stock recommendation would be the Sony UBP-X800M2. It has a very good upscaling engine and will also play SACDs if you're in the mood for it.

 

PlayStation 5

 

My parent's church needs to run a 75 ft hdmi cable (laptop at one end, tv on the other). My understanding is that regular hdmi craps out past 20ish feet and I need either an active hdmi or optical hdmi cable. Is that correct?

A couple options I'm looking at:
https://www.amazon.ca/DTECH-Support-Technologies-Distance-Connection/dp/B07V6DK7KP
https://www.amazon.ca/Monoprice-Cabernet-Ultra-Active-Speed/dp/B016KOQ3VY
https://www.amazon.ca/BlueRigger-Fiber-Optic-Cable-48Gbps/dp/B0CY4VGXZ7

Open to suggestions, though preferably it is a single cable plug'n'play solution without adapter widgets in between. Would like to have this ready for them before next weekend, so I'll likely need to order today or tomorrow. Thanks.

edit: trying to avoid amazon garbage brands if possible

 

@Armaegis Yes, at that length you need a repeater or optical.

I went through several 50 foot repeater and optical cables for my home theater. They tended to fail with 4K HDR signals. Tthe brand linked below was recommended by a custom projector guy as the one he installs. It solved the problem and has been working for a couple of years with no issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W3KRLKT

 

Perfect, thanks! I've seen that name mentioned before, but it sounds vaguely amazoncrapable so I wasn't sure if it was an ok brand or not.

 

There's also active HDMI over ethernet cable if that works for you. One of my locations has that and it has always worked.

 

Can confirm, I’ve had a few RUIPro fiber hdmi cables and they’ve done 4k/60 no problem from Nvidia Shield TV to TV and Epson projector. I also like the CMP Plenum Rated cable from Monoprice as it's nice and thick and feels very sturdy.

 

What model? I bought an active HDMI over twisted pair extender from J-Tech Digital recently that promised to support CEC and ARC, but when I opened it up I didn't find any transformer isolation of those signals. Same thing with the fiber HDMI cables: the fiber part is only used for the high-bandwidth video signal, and the rest is just regular wire. I'd specifically like to have isolation for ARC and I don't know how to achieve that.

I'll also rant about consumer SPDIF over coax: very, very few consumer-grade transmitters/adapters/converters actually have a balun, and nobody actually specifies whether they do on their products. I'd love to find a USB to coaxial SPDIF adapter that (a) has a transformer and (b) only exposes sample rates up to 192KHz to the host, and I'm just completely failing to find one on both counts.

 

Tough to say as it's in the wall. I'll see what I can do...