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I've got a pretty decent home system. I can hear the difference of good vs bad recording on it...even with ears not being what they used to be.

I prefer to have the best quality I can have for home listening, and to rip to lossy formats for horrible listening environments like the car and on the portable for the gym. I mean, why would anyone not want the best possibly copy for perm. storage, and then rip from that to suit needs? Seems like a no brainer for me. I don't have the fastest connection at home (about 7mbit down), but, its fast enough that downloading a whole uncompressed cd isn't THAT bad...lossless AAC would not be a big deal.

I've got good speakers and a decent amp to run them on and a decent subwoofer and soon to get a newer processer. I've got klipsch center channel, and some day hope to round out the surround with klipsch heresey's or the like.

No, I didn't plunk down a bunch of $$ all at once, but, have been building my stereo since I was 12...a piece here and there, swapping out things over the years. It is very efficient and I can hear differences in music on it. On good recordings, you can hear people breathing in the background...

I'm not an 'audiophile'...I don't freeze my stereo cables...but, I do and always have as a kid, appreciated good sound reproduction...I bought what sounded best to my ears. Others that have heard my system agree often that it is good. So, for people out there (there has to be more than just me) that want good sound for home listening...they want the best source they can get for that.....and go from there for poorer listening environments.

Yes, external switchers seem to be pretty much required as of now. A shame.

A/v preamps; Outlaw Audio has a preamp with a couple of DVI inputs; since in some cases HDMI and DVI can be adapted, might be worth exchanging some email with them. They might be cooking up an HDMI version too, as DVI version is about 2 years old now. I looked at this preamp very seriously when considering component, was going to pair it with a full complement of Marantz monoblocks; I'm kind of sorry I didn't go for it, the Denon I ended up with for component has the worst menu system known to man. It ended up in the basement with the 720p projector, though, so my kids have to deal with that thing now. ;-) Aside of OA, this search turned up news from Sunfire, NAD, Anthem, and Arcam that all looked interesting.

There is a HDMI transmitter/receiver pair as well, unfortunately last I heard it was only good for up to 1080i/720p. There was some talk of a 1080p model, but no actual hardware as yet. When they get there, I'm going to try it because my projector is quite some distance from my other A/V gear, a consequence of a somewhat large display (204") and limitations of the lens on my projector. As it stands now, I've got some awfully long cables run under the floor joists and I'm not very happy with that.

None of those things will EVER happen. Apple has come to understand you can run quite a profitible biz by having 7-10% marketshare.

So have these guys and small family businesses, and local restaurants vs McDonalds etc, etc, etc.

What is it with people that you have to have substandard quality but 99% market share to be good?

Sure, there is a market for the Dells and Microsofts of the world. Sure there is a market for Wal-Marts of the world. But there also is a market for quality vs quantity and cheap prices. After all. Apple is currently 158 on the Fortune 500 list (up from 263 last year), and Dell is 25, Microsoft 58.

Personally, I'm much happier typing this on an Apple than I would be in IE on a Dell...

I dont personally own a nice audio system, but if i did, i would definitely use components from a company such as outlaw. They are a small, direct order company. They make very high quality components, with no extraneous features, and keep the price VERY low.

Personally, i dont buy all the sony, bose, panasonic and circuit city garbage. They just rip you off

As far as a receiver, I've heard very good things about the Outlaw Audio 1050. It's a 6.1 channel receiver, but for $599 (available only by ordering online directly). From all that I've read, quality such as theirs would normally cost a few hundred more. And, I'm not the type to usually buy such inexpensive components (in contrast to the Panasonic DVD H1000 that I own, for instance), but this product just won me over. As such, I'll be placing an order for one within a couple weeks. And, no, I don't work for them ;).

Alex Bischoff
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As far as a receiver, I've heard very good things about the Outlaw Audio 1050. It's a 6.1 channel receiver, but for $599 (available only by ordering online directly). From all that I've read, quality such as theirs would normally cost a few hundred more. And, I'm not the type to usually buy such inexpensive components (in contrast to the Panasonic DVD H1000 that I own, for instance), but this product just won me over. As such, I'll be placing an order for one within a couple weeks. And, no, I don't work for them ;).

Alex Bischoff
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Here's their website... They only have a couple of products so far, and the receiver I'm talking about it on their main page. (These things have gone into back-order twice already... and they are getting outstanding reviews on several home theater discussion forums.)

This little puppy they're selling will blow the doors off of probably any top-of-the-line "big name" receiver out there.

My roommate pointed me to it because I wanted to pick up a really good receiver without spending the $1000 like he did on his receiver. My roommate is a SERIOUS audiophile, and has proven to me time after time that low-end professional audio equipment is always better than high-end comsumer brands.

This thing costs $600, and while this may be out of /.'s price window, I still wanted to point the community to one of the best deals out there.

Stay away from the major names. Major name = major price.

Sir Poopsalot
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