Video Asylum

Posted by waVeman on June 14, 2002 at 10:59:15

In Reply to: Questions To Ask When Buying - Top10 posted by brianr74 on June 13, 2002 at 10:21:46:

......experiment with the components you're interested in. Some manufacturers are making their equipment quite difficult to operate. Especially work with the receiver. If you have problems getting it to do what you want, you will seriously regret buying it, no matter how good it sounds!

Examples: For me anyway, B&K receivers are just a mess. Even after 15 minutes of button-pushing, they were (and still are) confusing to operate. Same for the big Denon receiver, the new 5803. Holy cow! The space shuttle has less buttons. And some seem to affect other button's dutys in an unexpected fashion. Or, they do nothing--and the alphanumeric display refuses to provide any user assistance (one mid-fi brand does--& it's very helpful). And then there was the Yamaha receiver yesterday. A seemingly innocent mid-priced ($450) model that took me almost ten minutes just to adjust the surround-channel levels. Those cursor keys seem to have no logical operating pattern. Very frustrating.

Another Big One to check out: The remote. 1) A--Are the buttons big enough for your fingers to operate without pushing nearby buttons unexpectantly? B--Are the buttons in logical places, ESPECIALLY the volume/channel & play/pause buttons? If they aren't, this can cause near-insanity. 2) Are ALL the component's features controllable without the remote? If they aren't, better keep track of that remote!!! 3) If remote says it's "universal", check out the manual to see if it is really universal--they don't always have the codes for every component made.

Is the display of the component easy to read from a distance? Nothing like having to get up every five seconds to squint at tiny characters while adjusting things at the beginning of a movie, especially if you have a tray of food on your lap & are trying to eat!!! Same with an on-screen menu: some are awesome, with large letters and use color to separate various sections (good) while others are just plain horrible--only blocky white letters on a blue background. (My Panasonic R31 dvd player has nice graphics, but they soooooooo tiny. Not good.)

This stuff may seem trivial, but constantly fighting with badly-designed equipment can really take a chunk of fun out of using it.