[RKDinOKC]

After my 10 speed racing bike, the really great sounding stereo was the next big thing. Got it one piece at a time starting with the tuner. It was all setup by the time I went to college, and I probably only had about 50 albums. Bought a few albums in college, but not many. Was into making my own mix tapes and taking them to play on the stereo system I put in at the restaurant I worked at.

When I got out of college I accidentally knocked the needle off the cartridge on the turntable while dusting it. Took my turntable to a really good stereo shop to get a new cartridge put on. The tech did a tune up on it. He was expecting his test results to show I needed a better turntable. But he was surprised, said I would have to speed $5000 to get one with better specs. And that was in 1981.

That was when I went surround sound. I had a component system so I replaced the pre-amp with one of the first AV pre-amps, added an other stereo amp and a couple of rear speakers, got cable and from then on the stereo was not just for music, but was the sound system for my TV and movies.

I've upgraded my system in bits and pieces over the years. Now the Turntable, CD, DVD, Cassette, and Video Tape machines are boxed up and in the attic. All my system has now is a 100watt 5.1 AV receiver hooked up as sound for my internet TV, and AppleTV. Let's me watch or listen to just about anything from anywhere. I can also stream from my computer, iPhone, and iPad. Kinda cool to shoot a video on my iphone, edit it in imovie (on the phone) then watch it on the 65" TV.

Last summer a friend told me about how great this internet feed from skynet was to watch the Formula 1 races. Was able to spoof my ip for my TV and computer to think I was in London (skynet is england only), use my computer to find the feed, then pull the URL up on my TV's web browser. The video was grainy and sucked. When I went to visit that friend a month or so later I found out why he thought it was so great, he had a 21" computer monitor for a TV and the video looked okay that small but still not as clean and clear as th HD from NBCsports.

The next step in entertainment is to setup your own internet media server. Friend has one setup that trolls the internet for videos, movies, tv shows, and music he likes, automatically downloads it to his server, and has an interface kinda like Tivo that lets him pick thru what he want's to watch. It is very hodge podged together software, but it does work and he does not subscribe to any TV, video, or movie services. The only down side is he never watches anything live.