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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly recommended,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Home Theater Companion: Buying, Installing, and Using Today's Audio-Visual Equipment (Paperback)
Howard Ferstler's Home Theater Companion is informative, well-illustrated, and fun to read. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in setting up a home theater system or high-quality audio equipment. The emphasis is on a bargain-oriented approach - how to get maximum quality for your dollar.This is the book for you if you are trying to figure out the answers to questions like: Should I get 2-way or 3-way speakers? Would a subwoofer improve my sound and how would I set one up? Which room should my home theater system go in? Where should I place my speakers? How powerful should my amp or receiver be? Which noise-reduction system should I use on my cassette deck? How can I add hi-fi VCR to my TV? How do I set up surround-sound? Should I get a widescreen TV? What CDs and DVDs can I use to test my system? What is an equalizer used for? Can I get speaker cable at a reasonable price? (Ferstler does a very good job of debunking very expensive speaker cables.) Should I biwire my speakers? There are excellent discussions of room acoustics, narrow vs wide dispersion speakers, and the Allison Effect (suckout in the midbass), useful tables comparing cassette/VCR/DCC/Minidisc/DAT formats for recording and VHS/LV/DVD formats for home theater, plus glossary, appendices, and bibliography. My only criticism is that the discussion of headphones could have been a little longer. All in all I thoroughly recommend this book. My copy is already worn through.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive, no-nonsense guide,
By Neil Barron (Vista, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Home Theater Companion: Buying, Installing, and Using Today's Audio-Visual Equipment (Paperback)
Although this is misleadingly shown as a Dec 2000 book, it appeared several years earlier as an oversize paperback from Schirmer Books (of G. Schirmer music publishing fame). Ferstler has written for audio/video magazines for many years but rejects the extreme audiophile/tweak contingent and deals in detail with all the fundamental aspects of audio, including the development of DVD players, surround sound, etc. It provides the information needed to select and set up equipment, but obviously can't provide specific buying advice, as does a magazine like Consumer Reports. Any reader can learn a great deal from this overview and can avoid making common mistakes in selecting a home theater system. Very favorable reviews of the guide are in Sensible Sound, May 1998, and American Record Guide, Nov-Dec 1997, which may be read by anyone using the online database, Infotrac (Gale), available through many libraries.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Home Theater Companion review,
By David Gibbons (Santa Rosa, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Home Theater Companion: Buying, Installing, and Using Today's Audio-Visual Equipment (Paperback)
Ferstler's 1997 book now suffers somewhat from the relatively early publishing date, as the technologies of home theater have been evolving quickly. The book's greatest strength lies in explaining the basics which underlie the flash. I believe Fersler assumes that the reader has a basic technical knowledge, and that the reader wants to learn some of the nuts and bolts before going out shopping. Therefore, folks just looking for a simple-minded buyer's and hook-up guide will be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you want to understand some of the compromises which go into, say, speaker design, and want a discussion of the practicalities of home theater, this is a good investment. I found that it providied me with a good grounding so that I can evaluate the cacaphony of on-line opinions.
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