Well, mostly good news, with aggravation small enough to be categorized as, “expected.”
FINALLY got the TV and AV re-connected and working today. Fortunately, TV appears to work fine.
Which is a good thing. Because due to a long sad shaggy dog story, installation was delayed well beyond what would have qualified for a free shipping on a return.
Picture is great, and while it dominates the room a bit, I don’t mind. Guessing when football is back, it’ll be great. Meanwhile, we’ll watch BluRays of Alabama games with happy endings.
Only sticking point is kind of to be expected. We now have a TV, BluRay, CD player, vinyl turntable and two speaker zones (one for the main room, and one covering four pairs of speakers in other parts of the house), plus, hopefully, AirPlay. So it’s a lot, and required some re-programming of the universal remote.
A few glitches on that point, primarily due to some Infra-Red (IR) overlaps in some places and gaps in others. AV crew understands the problem, and is coming back with IR ”bugs”, which they are confident will fix everything. Fingers crossed there.
Unexpected bonus: We‘d been having some problems with peripheral speakers not getting signal. Turns out, it was gradual failure of a pre-amp / distributor (didn’t know there was such a thing until now). We replaced it, and the difference is sound, even in the main area, is like going from one of those old self-contained record players to your first true stereo system (OFC reference there).
So, bottom line:
TV — great
B&H — first class
Shipping carrier — did their job just right — delivered a large package of sensitive cargo on time and in good shape. So far, no apparent damage.
AV crew — Incomplete, but positive so far. Attention to detail on what they call “dressing” (organizing wires, hiding them from public view, and making them as unobtrusive as possible within the cabinet) was first-rate professional. Most stuff works fine.
TBD on tying up the loose ends, but I would be surprised if the performance profile fell apart at this point. Still, not done yet.
My and Mrs. Basket Case’s learning curve on changes from previous setup — TBD.
I've said I would pay double for this speed if necessary.
