WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.160 Audio is just as important as visuals. Don't believe me? 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:06.480 Well, here's some 480p footage with great audio, 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:09.400 and here is some crisp 4K with bad audio. 00:00:10.280 --> 00:00:14.720 That is why so many of you invest in upgrading your TV speakers. 00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:19.240 But here's the thing, thousands of you every month are doing it wrong. 00:00:19.240 --> 00:00:22.480 When we looked at the Bose TV speaker a couple of years ago, 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:27.520 we concluded that it was okay, but also that if you have this kind of money to spend, 00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:30.760 you can do much better. How much better? 00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:35.960 How about a dedicated AV receiver? How about six-channel Dolby audio? 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:40.560 How about all of that for less than the price of one of these? 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:46.200 Don't believe me? Just watch. Step one is to rip out my bougie sound system. 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:52.560 Step two, plug in the Bose TV speaker for a before test. 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:56.320 I'm still apart of the family, my little girl. 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:00.440 And I'm fine, I'm totally. Just like this soundbar. 00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:05.200 Fine. Not a lot of bass, but what do you expect? 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:09.480 It's fine. Yep. Step three is to hit up the local Facebook marketplace 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:15.080 where we found a total of three solutions that we think have a solid crack at beating our Bose. 00:01:15.080 --> 00:01:18.600 And look at this, we also found this segue to our sponsor. 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:23.440 Marketplace solution number one is the Sony HTSF2300. 00:01:23.440 --> 00:01:26.760 It may be a lowly home theater in a box kit, 00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:30.400 but it includes a dedicated, only semi-proprietary receiver 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:34.760 that's gonna unlock a lot of options for us. These non-standard speaker connectors 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:40.000 will be a minor thorn in our side later, as will the HDMI 1.2 connector, 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:45.000 when we need to grab a separate remote in order to change TV inputs or adjust volume. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.760 But for the better quality, I think the trade-off is going to be worth it 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:53.680 compared to our TV speaker. We'll be hooking this up using the same optical link 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:57.680 that we used for the Bose TV speaker. Originally, we had hoped to find a receiver 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:02.560 that would handle video switching for us as well, but it turns out that even the worst ones 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:07.280 that will handle 4K would have immediately blown our budget. Man, TossLink was so cool. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:11.800 The data rates started low and stayed low, so it can only do 5.1, 00:02:11.800 --> 00:02:15.760 but it's not susceptible to any kind of interference, which is pretty cool. 00:02:15.760 --> 00:02:20.600 Now comes the part where we actually set everything up. Ah, I guess, how not tedious. 00:02:20.600 --> 00:02:24.720 Thankfully, he included the cables for those proprietary clips, nice. 00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:29.600 You might have noticed, by the way, that we cheated and totally did not take my gear out of here. 00:02:29.600 --> 00:02:33.840 Yeah. That's where we're ending that. 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:37.560 We're needing to get a little bit creative about speaker positioning here, 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:40.880 but that's one of the drawbacks of a setup like this. 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:44.120 By the way, this kit originally came out in July of 2007 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:49.040 and was around $500 back then, or 750 adjusting for inflation. 00:02:49.040 --> 00:02:52.040 Thankfully, we only paid 40 Canadian rubles for this. 00:02:52.040 --> 00:02:56.040 Wow, that's a great value, I have high hopes. I mean, it even includes the stands. 00:02:56.040 --> 00:02:59.120 Oh, and they're height adjustable. 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.160 That's pretty cool. Yeah. 00:03:03.160 --> 00:03:06.880 A convenient thing about these kits is they typically come with all the cables you need, though. 00:03:06.880 --> 00:03:10.720 I suspect in this case, you'll probably want to cut it a little short. 00:03:10.720 --> 00:03:13.760 Like, how far back are they expecting you to put this thing? 00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:17.280 But one thing that was missing from our kit, even though it came with it originally, 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:20.800 is a calibration microphone. The good news is it should work 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:24.680 with any omnidirectional mic, so we brought one from the office to give it a test. 00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:28.480 Oh. Yeah, that's not good. 00:03:28.480 --> 00:03:32.560 Okay. We might have to just manually measure everything. Okay, we'll give that a try. 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:36.240 I thought I'd try. Cool. Yeah. Did you put batteries in the remote? 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:39.280 No, sir. Oh, wow, these expire in 2014. 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:43.640 They're aged. Like fine battery wine. 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:47.880 Obviously, we could have spent a little bit more time on cable management, 00:03:47.880 --> 00:03:51.120 but in terms of just getting everything connected and powering the thing on, 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:56.680 that was only about five minutes. I'm fine, I'm not fine. 00:03:56.680 --> 00:04:02.120 I can't move the laptop. I can already immediately notice 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:06.160 the room being more full than the sound bar. Well, yeah. 00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:11.440 I mean, there's only so much that you can do with computational bouncy nonsense. 00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:15.840 Having dedicated speakers, especially if you're going for an older 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:19.520 or a more basic setup that is not going to be as modern, 00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:24.880 there's just no substitute for it. Yeah. This is immediately more immersive. 00:04:24.880 --> 00:04:27.120 I didn't expect it that easy. 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:33.240 40 bucks. Now, I do think that there's probably 00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:36.480 some things we could tune. Whoever was using this before 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:41.200 had their subwoofer at minus five, their surrounds at plus five. 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:45.480 So I think they just really wanted to hear a lot of surround. So I just need to find a factory reset. 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:49.440 Clearing, nice. It takes about 30 seconds to clear it. Cleared. 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:53.160 That was a very fast 30 seconds. Yeah, that's what she said. 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:56.480 God, I'm gonna kill it rolling. 00:04:56.480 --> 00:05:00.600 Now I hear that twice. Little bit of manual setup in terms of making sure it's configured 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:04.080 to the right setting, but all right. 00:05:04.080 --> 00:05:08.240 Should we try listening again? Yes. We should probably set the distances 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:12.800 for the speakers though. Remember we factory reset it. 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:14.080 We need a measuring tape. 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:20.600 Okay. Oh, dude, is this tape measure not long enough? 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:24.160 Oh, I think I broke it. No, I'm good. I'll be right back. 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:27.320 Only a six foot tape measure because it's only five foot two. It doesn't matter. 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:36.560 Oh, look at that. 10 feet, eight inches. I think this bad boy's configured. 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:39.920 Okay, you ready? Let's watch a movie. I'm actually very ready. 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:43.840 I'm kind of excited. What's the magic? Under the surface. 00:05:43.840 --> 00:05:47.560 If you listen, it's a type of... Wow. Dude, it crushes. 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:51.560 For $40, it destroys it. 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:55.200 This is what? One fifth the price? 00:05:55.200 --> 00:05:58.840 Yeah, well, it's 40 Canadian, right? So... 00:05:58.840 --> 00:06:05.760 That's crazy. That's like 30 U.S. dollars. Sine, I call you Sine. 00:06:05.760 --> 00:06:09.320 All I need is a chip. It's not amazing. 00:06:09.320 --> 00:06:14.120 No. The bass in particular, kind of lacking. 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:17.840 But what it is, is amazing for the price. 00:06:17.840 --> 00:06:21.120 Yeah. At a fraction of the cost of the Bose, 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:25.800 it is multiple times better in every possible way. 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:29.480 And we haven't even touched on one of the biggest advantages. 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:33.400 That's modularity. While our ancient optical connection prevents us 00:06:33.400 --> 00:06:37.400 from hooking up additional surrounds, a second sub or height channels, 00:06:37.400 --> 00:06:40.960 the jump from stereo or an inexpensive soundbar 00:06:40.960 --> 00:06:46.400 to a dedicated 5.1 setup, is way more noticeable than the jump from 5.1 00:06:46.400 --> 00:06:50.880 to, say, 7.1. And, coming back to modularity, 00:06:50.880 --> 00:06:56.480 nothing prevents us from taking those few channels that we do support and swapping out our speakers 00:06:56.480 --> 00:06:59.720 for something better. That is, as long as everything is rated 00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:04.480 for the same impedance. More on that later. First, let's give it a try by swapping out 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:09.000 our left and right channels for these Philips FWB MC50s. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:12.320 Just a quick snip job, a little strip. 00:07:13.320 --> 00:07:18.600 A little twist, making sure to match up the black striped cable with our black cable. 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:22.800 And finish it off with whatever fastener suits your purpose is. Yes, I know, Maret, suck, I don't care. 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:26.880 It's fine for what we're doing. Once again, we'd obviously do this a little differently 00:07:26.880 --> 00:07:30.680 in a final install, but the point is just to evaluate the sound quality. 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:35.480 And we're not accounting for these stands in our budget because we could easily wall-mount these. 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:39.880 We actually got a pretty good deal on these, considering some eBay listings list them for triple the price. 00:07:39.880 --> 00:07:45.040 What'd we pay? 40 Canadian just for these speakers. Okay, so now we're at 80 bucks. 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:52.200 Let's see if they improve our experience a lot. I would be lost broken, so it's not. 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:59.000 Those sound a lot better. Yeah, they do. That is almost a bad thing in this case 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:03.360 because it really draws your attention to how bad that center channel is. 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:07.560 Yeah, the clarity. We're still missing the base boom 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:12.280 of a proper powered subwoofer, but the clarity is a night and day difference. 00:08:12.280 --> 00:08:17.200 And just having that little wimpy thing mixed into it is like, I don't know, 00:08:17.200 --> 00:08:21.640 it's like having someone talking over the person you're trying to have a conversation with. 00:08:21.640 --> 00:08:25.120 Again, modularity, you could swap it out though. And you'll probably want to. 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:26.360 Check this out, guys. 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:30.160 I didn't think it'd be this obvious. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:37.580 But like, even through my lab mic over YouTube, 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:41.680 I bet you guys can hear the difference between those two. And if you can't, well, hey, 00:08:41.680 --> 00:08:45.240 just stick with the stock speakers and be happy with better surround. 00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:48.440 Speaking of, before we change out any speakers, 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:52.440 we want to upgrade our receiver to give ourselves better amplification 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:56.300 for, you know, future-proofing. We'll talk about the exact one we chose in a minute, 00:08:56.300 --> 00:09:00.920 but first, there's two major things you want to watch out for when you're shopping for a receiver. 00:09:00.920 --> 00:09:04.200 One is the aisle. If you're looking for video switching, 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:10.460 you need to ensure that at least the output of the receiver supports the minimum revision of HDMI 00:09:10.460 --> 00:09:15.220 that can handle the resolution and the refresh rate that your TV is operating at. 00:09:15.220 --> 00:09:18.300 Number two is gonna be the impedance rating. 00:09:18.300 --> 00:09:23.740 If your speakers are higher than what your receiver can do, you might not get the full volume or range. 00:09:23.740 --> 00:09:27.980 Whereas if they're too low, your devices could overheat and even burn out. 00:09:27.980 --> 00:09:31.620 There is some wiggle room though, as you're about to see. Have a look at this. 00:09:31.620 --> 00:09:34.740 Our STRDA1000DS has a little switch 00:09:34.760 --> 00:09:39.120 to go between four and eight ohms. Our speakers are rated for six. 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:43.520 So according to this little label that's handily silkscreened right on the back, 00:09:43.520 --> 00:09:47.040 we just need to switch it to four ohms and we should be good to go. 00:09:47.040 --> 00:09:50.760 Just from looking at the back, you can tell this is a much higher end product 00:09:50.760 --> 00:09:58.000 with way more available inputs. However, you can see that HDMI is conspicuously absent. 00:09:58.200 --> 00:10:03.320 So unless you're planning to hook your PS1 up to it, you're not gonna be using the video switching capabilities. 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:08.620 Even the audio hookups are almost all stereo. So they'd only be useful for like a CD changer. 00:10:09.500 --> 00:10:12.860 So we're gonna be stuck with 5.1 over optical, 00:10:12.860 --> 00:10:16.860 but we're still gonna have a much more potent amplifier. 00:10:16.860 --> 00:10:20.940 Oh, don't put this in the video. He cut my marettes off. Do not put this in the video. 00:10:20.940 --> 00:10:24.420 People already hate me. On the audio side though, things are a little more interesting. 00:10:24.420 --> 00:10:28.980 In addition to the digital input, which is what we'll be using just like with this receiver, 00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:33.600 it has a full 5.1 analog input, which theoretically would allow us to use 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:37.080 a third party decoder box to support more modern formats. 00:10:37.080 --> 00:10:40.680 Though we still wouldn't be getting height channels 00:10:40.680 --> 00:10:46.360 or secondary subwoofers or anything like that, because those analog inputs are only 5.1, 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:50.400 even though on the output side, there appears to be support for more channels. 00:10:50.400 --> 00:10:53.960 So we're just gonna use it as a better 5.1 amplifier. 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:57.640 Now we're just about ready to try this thing out, but we realized something. 00:10:57.640 --> 00:11:01.000 Our kit subwoofer doesn't use a standard connector. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:05.020 This is a bit of a spoiler for later. We did buy one more kit that had this chunker of a sub. 00:11:05.020 --> 00:11:08.060 We're just gonna use it now. Okay, perfect. 00:11:08.060 --> 00:11:13.900 Let's do it. I can tell just from the weight that this is gonna be one heck of an upgrade. 00:11:13.900 --> 00:11:17.540 Wait, are we still using this for our center channel? Right. 00:11:17.540 --> 00:11:21.660 Okay, we'll upgrade that later. Oh, but easy. 00:11:21.660 --> 00:11:23.500 Don't even, don't even worry about it. 00:11:25.020 --> 00:11:29.540 It's a Wii sensor bar. It's worth noting, by the way, that if your TV for whatever reason 00:11:29.540 --> 00:11:34.320 doesn't support optical out, you can also get these little arc to optical adapters 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:38.160 for about 20 bucks, allowing you to use an older receiver like this 00:11:38.160 --> 00:11:41.560 with a more modern HDMI arc setup. 00:11:41.560 --> 00:11:45.760 Took us a little while to figure out the interface here, but we've got our speaker setup configured. 00:11:45.760 --> 00:11:50.160 Ah, okay, 5.1. And then we've got all of our distances dialed in. 00:11:50.160 --> 00:11:53.320 And the sub is not on. Whoa, the sub's working, the sub's working. 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:56.360 The price we've paid at this point 00:11:56.360 --> 00:11:59.900 is a little bit complicated because we're using the center channel 00:11:59.900 --> 00:12:02.980 and rear channels from our original $40 setup. 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:05.980 We're using our $85 amp. Is that all we paid for that? 00:12:05.980 --> 00:12:09.580 Yeah. Sick. And then we borrowed the subwoofer 00:12:09.580 --> 00:12:13.500 from the $200 3.1 setup that we bought. 00:12:13.500 --> 00:12:17.740 So, and then we're using the $40 Phillips as well. 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:21.380 We're at maybe a couple hundred bucks? Yeah, and again, that's Canadian. 00:12:21.380 --> 00:12:25.260 Hey, I'm still a part of the family, Marigold. 00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:28.200 I'm fine, I'm totally fine. 00:12:29.240 --> 00:12:33.520 I will stand up. This sound quality is fine, totally fine. 00:12:33.520 --> 00:12:38.280 Like, dude, the better amp? 00:12:38.280 --> 00:12:41.640 It helps. Freakin' slap. Yeah. 00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:48.160 I wasn't expecting it to make that big of a difference with such basic speakers, especially our center channel. 00:12:48.160 --> 00:12:53.080 But, I mean, part of what you're gonna get from a better amp is cleaner output. 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:56.340 And this is a very musical section of the song. So, we're really taking advantage 00:12:56.340 --> 00:13:02.460 of the left and right channel. This is a beautiful piece, always raining on a beautiful view. 00:13:02.460 --> 00:13:07.860 I can see how people get addicted to this. Yeah, the constant need to add the next speaker 00:13:07.860 --> 00:13:11.660 or the next receiver or center channel, right? Tweak the next thing. 00:13:11.660 --> 00:13:15.100 Yeah. And, we haven't even turned this up yet. 00:13:15.100 --> 00:13:20.100 My mind, all this time, all I need to change, all I need. 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:25.800 That center channel is garbo. 00:13:25.800 --> 00:13:29.800 So, it's time to jump ahead and get a new center channel 00:13:32.640 --> 00:13:38.000 in here, shall we? Question for you as we're hooking this up. These were part of another home theater in a box, right? 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.000 I couldn't quite tell, because all of these model numbers on these Sonys 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:45.400 are slightly different. I think the three speakers we got were part of a kit. 00:13:45.400 --> 00:13:48.600 The receiver that this seller was selling was part of a different kit. 00:13:48.700 --> 00:13:52.540 And, I don't believe this sub was part of that kit either. No, it wasn't, for sure. 00:13:52.540 --> 00:13:57.100 So, I think whoever we bought it from also was doing a mixed mash of everything. 00:13:57.100 --> 00:14:03.780 Cool. Dude. I just, I just, I just, you versus the guy, 00:14:04.300 --> 00:14:09.340 she tells you not to worry about. Exactly. Dude, I am excited to see how this goes. 00:14:09.340 --> 00:14:12.660 We're swapping those Phillips bookshelves into our rear channels, 00:14:12.660 --> 00:14:17.980 and then we're using our new front channels, which, as you can see, are a little stronger. 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:23.600 This is so good to eat, bro. When you gave us a miracle. 00:14:25.900 --> 00:14:29.260 What really blows my mind is that 00:14:29.260 --> 00:14:33.700 we have by no means dialed this in properly. 00:14:33.700 --> 00:14:37.940 If I gave myself an afternoon to play around with it 00:14:37.940 --> 00:14:44.740 and fine tune it, we went at the same price from, 00:14:44.740 --> 00:14:51.560 yeah, it's better than the TV speakers, but to good enough. 00:14:51.560 --> 00:14:54.800 Like I would never walk into someone's living room 00:14:54.800 --> 00:14:58.520 or theater room or whatever, listen to these speakers and go, 00:14:58.520 --> 00:15:01.600 yeah, but they could be better. Yeah. Oh yeah. 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:07.920 They're good enough. Our total price was 325 Canadian, or about 240 US. 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:11.360 So, we were actually under the Bose TV speaker. 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:14.360 For our end game setup. For our end game setup that we have right now. 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:17.420 We had enough money left over that we could buy a DVD to watch on it. 00:15:21.580 --> 00:15:25.460 Or hear me out, maybe we put that toward a universal remote or something. 00:15:25.460 --> 00:15:30.220 Even with those inconveniences, we basically crushed the competition. 00:15:30.220 --> 00:15:34.740 Everything from dialogue clarity to music quality to maximum volume to immersion 00:15:34.740 --> 00:15:38.020 is clearly better than our soundbar. 00:15:38.020 --> 00:15:41.740 So why are soundbars so popular? 00:15:41.740 --> 00:15:46.040 Well, if you were watching this going, that looked pretty inconvenient. 00:15:46.040 --> 00:15:51.900 You're not wrong. There's all the cabling for starters and even more so the effort of tracking down 00:15:51.900 --> 00:15:57.280 the right products that are gonna operate together and the right deal because our answer, 00:15:57.280 --> 00:16:02.160 it's not necessarily gonna be the same as yours. The odds that you guys find the exact speakers 00:16:02.160 --> 00:16:05.440 and receiver that we use today are slim to none. 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:08.480 But with that said, I think it's safe to say 00:16:08.480 --> 00:16:13.980 that if you're looking for a more immersive experience, spending a little bit of time googling model numbers, 00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:18.380 looking over user manuals, and maybe even giving them a quick listen before you buy 00:16:18.380 --> 00:16:23.060 could give you way better bang for your buck and even save you hundreds of dollars 00:16:23.060 --> 00:16:27.300 compared to buying a brand new setup. What you won't have to spend hundreds of dollars on 00:16:27.300 --> 00:16:30.700 is the segue to our sponsor. That's free. 00:16:30.700 --> 00:16:34.460 If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe co-check out the original home theater video 00:16:34.460 --> 00:16:38.740 we did almost two years ago. It was one of my dreams to have this place set up 00:16:38.740 --> 00:16:42.280 and those first impressions did not disappoint.