Sunday, December 04, 2005

 

Episode 1, The Painted Stallion,Judy Harwin,5.1 surround sound

Tonite I watched some chapters on DVD of Episode 1, THE PHANTOM MENACE. It is not unusual for me to pull out some DVD or VHS tape to watch something when there is nothing to watch on regular television. I have a 5.1 channel surround system. 5.1 systems are capable of reproducing the matrixed EX and ES sixth channel phantomly if set up properly. Mine does. The Pod Race is really something in discrete surround sound to listen too. My 5.1 system is a budget system consisting of 4 minimus speakers two of which of been modified with piezo tweeters on the top of the cabinets with brackets and two replacement 4 inch woofers from Parts Express. Now the tweeters will not blow. The woofers do blow at times but they are cheap to replace and there is not too much work to replace them. The center channel is made up of a Garrard D'Appolito design that was sold some years back as a pair of main speakers. It works fine,has great tone, and coordinates very well with the Minimus speakers. The receiver is a Sherwood 6095R. Some years back I had bought two 10 inch raw subs at Radio Shack on a closeout. They sat in my closet until I decided to place them into two Marantz Imperial 6 speaker cabinets. They have worked out fine as passive subs in conjuction with being powered by the power amp. section of a 40 watt per channel Nad intergrated 3040 amp. Sub bass is not going to floor you with this sub setup but I have balanced it so that the bass is located from the action of all five satellites speakers which is what a sub system should do. So I essentially have a 5.2 system that IMHO works very nice for movies and music. The last three Star Wars epics sound great. There are other DVDs that sound great too.

Some years ago I was able to tape 11 of the 12 chapters of the 1937 Republic Pictures serial THE PAINTED STALLION. I watched a few of the chapters tonite. I loved the rawness and gritiness of chapter 5. This serial is part of the family that led to the updated type "serials" that encompasses the STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES films. I like this serial very much; I cannot really describe it, one has to see it to appreciate it. You will never forget the sound of the whistling arrow that is shot from "the riders" bow. That reminds me that I must someday post a thought on the IMDB about this film because there is such a flagrant historical inaccuracy; the cast are using repeating 6 shooters which in no way existed during the error of Jim Bowie and Davie Crockett.

Damm, I have a little shrine to the upper right of me of the late Judy Harwin, my girlfriend of 14 years. Tears come to my eye when I look at it.

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