Customer Comments - SoCal HT - HDTV and Audio Calibration Services

Thanks Ray for helping us with our theater room.

While researching the web,  magazines and visiting the home theater stores the information was overwhelming.  The salesman were pushy and tried to sell us items that were best for them, not us. Your help was invaluable. We stayed within our budget and the equipment you advised us to use works perfectly with our room. We really achieved the 'WOW" factor we were looking for.

Thank you again.
Jeff and Gail Sutherland

I just wanted to thank Ray for the great  job he did on the Audyssey Pro calibration for my 3808CI. This being my first HT I thought the sound was great until Ray worked his magic. He also made sure my components were properly matched to the Denon.

Elliot Cohen

Ray,

I was very impressed by your broad based knowledge of computers, internet, video, and most importantly, audio.
Regards,
Gary Davidson

Great Job!

I want to thank Ray for doing a great job on my Samsung DLP RPTV.
I had just put a new bulb in the TV about 100+ hours ago, and wanted to make sure that it was working at 100% of it potential. I posted on here looking for someone to calibrate my TV and Ray replied. After a PM and a phone call we settled on him coming by and doing the job Friday evening. Ray got here right at the time we had discussed and got right to work. I was very impressed with his knowledge of my TV, and then Ray told me that he has basically the same display and was very familiar with it. Ray was really good about explaining everything he was doing and why, as well as answering all my questions. When he was done the TV looked amazing, far more natural then I ever remember it ever looking. He also made adjustments to my Blu-ray player and my Denon receiver that not only improved the picture but also improved the audio. I will say that Ray’s knowledge and understanding of video as well as audio is very impressive and well worth a visit to tuneup your system. I think the slogan on his card says it best “SEE & HEAR your systems full potential”

Thanks Ray

Mark Vasquez (AVS Forum Member MV349)

Ray did my two Pioneer KRP- 600Ms (60" Plasma Displays)

I was asked by a friend how my calibrations went - done just last Saturday by Ray. Here was my answer: (BTW, Ray was meticulous, both explained carefully and showed key points to understand, documented the before and after charts for me, and noted key settings - as we found there was no saving after my neighborhood had a power outage in the middle of things!)

It went VERY well. I had to wait for Sunday's Tru Blood, that is where my most focused attention has been and it is a great source. The panels were good before, but now they and the show, almost follows Ansel Adams 9 (?) steps of white to black...with a lot of red. And definitely I see a difference.

Blacks are blacker. Before the blue was 20% overdriven, Red 12% underdriven so whites are whiter - even as the lumen level came down a bit. When it gets a white signal, no matter the white, it is not skewed anymore. No soft pinks, or cool blues. Noticeably whites stay neutral white.

The before and after charts were quite a sight to see, given there is really not a lot of adjustments (and those were subtly tweaked).
Each of R G B Low (about 30% brightness), R B G high (about 60% brightness) sets the gray level.
Contrast and Brightness for black and white level.
Color, and finally gamma - which is like an accelation of brightness.
(did I miss something?)

But the combos of all that make quite a difference.
And there was the turning off of most all other auto-filters, NRs etc.

Then....Ray set a Pure mode, Movie mode and standard mode. Pure being correct, and each of the others slightly tweaked brighter. But in my tests, I'm already calibrated to pure. And predominantly stay there - it is just SO perfect. Though I have to say with Beowulf, the gold dragon lit up beautifully with the brighter modes.

This all after I used my calibration disc. It only gets you white level, black level and color level. You need a spectrometer or similar and that feeds a laptop which drives a signal generator. All calibrated, to get the colors in line.
He also pointed out the color tint to the gray scale before adjustment and lack of it after. Once pointed out, it's distinct.

Less obvious, but noticeable is the utter detail that was being masked. Native film grain, facial complexsion, textures all are better - as is of course, color. I didn't think I would notice so much...and the more I watched the more I realized how much better it was.

So all in all, I would definitely say that calibration is of high value, and that Ray did an excellent job. As with the above, I have been suggesting him and calibration to all my plasma oriented friends (the LCD group don't seem to notice very much at all!).

Steve Kaden (AVS Forum Member stevekaden)