| Why are there no prices listed in your website? |
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Thank you for your interest with our products and above all, thank you very much for spending your precious time in our website. Please rest assured that all our products are priced at a very competitive range, if not lower, than most home electronics retailers.
Just visit our showrooms at Liang Court and Sims Drive and you will understand why.
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| Is the Money-Back Guarantee for real? |
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Yes it is. At Audio House, we trust our customers. If you are not satisfied with our service, price or products' quality, we will live up to our Maney-Back Guarantee promise - no question asked.
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| Why you always able to sell at a lower price? |
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It is simple. We locate our show rooms away from the major shopping complexes. Therefore we are able to pass on the saving on premises rental to our consumers.
Furthermore we order in bulks. This means that we are able to negotiate even better prices than most, if not all, companies. These savings in turn will be passed on from us to you.
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| Does lower price mean lower quality and the less I'll gained? |
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That is a big NO. We simply pass on the savings from our business operations to you. In fact, you can expect to gain even more. Let's put it this way - we make less You gain more
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| What is Case Trust and how does it benefits me as a consumer? |
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As a Case Trust member, when you walk into Audio House, you can shop to your heart’s content, assured that what you see is what you get. Even if there are problems later, you can resolve it in a friendly manner with us. We also offer our customer Money-Back Guarantee and 0% Installment plan for major credit cards. How does all that sound?
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| What are the Terms & Conditions on Audio House's voucher? |
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Thank you for asking. The Terms & Conditions are as follow:
- It cannot be exchanged for cash
- It can only be exchanged for goods at Audio House Liang Court and Audio House Sims Drive
- Any unutilised amount from the voucher will not be refundable
- Voucher is valid for one year from date of issue and no extension upon expiry
- Voucher is not replaceable. We will not be responsible for the lost voucher
- Voucher is valid when duly signed and stamped
- We will not accept torn, defacement or damaged voucher
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| How can I pay? |
We accept payment made by major Credit cards, Cash, Cheque* or Telegram Transfer(TT)*. All payments are to be in Singapore currency. With a transaction/administrative charge, you can even choose to pay through the 0% interest installment plan up to 36months offered by these banks.
* Payment to be sent and received by Audio House before the delivering.
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| Is the transportation/delivery charge refundable? |
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It is not refundable once delivery is done.
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| Why most of the time my call is not answered during your promotional periods? |
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Please forgive us for not been able to answer your calls at times. It is just that our people are simply too busy. Our showrooms are always packed with people even before the start of our sale, let alone during these periods. Please pay our showrooms a visit and you will understand why.
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| (TV) What makes HDTV special? |
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HDTV Technology is complex with numerous benefits to broadcasters and program providers, but the value to the viewer can be reduced to three things:
1. Better Resolution (crisp, detailed picture)
2. Widescreen Viewing (a.k.a. 16x9 aspect ratio)
3. Digital Picture and Sound
Resolution
The crisp, life-like detail you see with HDTV is due to the resolution this technology provides. It's like the difference between the old dot matrix printers and the laser printers we use now.
The picture you see on your TV screen is actually thousands of small dots, called pixels (which stands for picture elements). Your regular, analog TV displays about 200,000 pixels. HDTV displays 1 million to 2 million pixels (up to 10 times the resolution of the picture on a regular TV).
Currently, digital TV broadcasters have been using two different formats for sending HDTV - 1080i (interlaced) and 720p (progressive). It doesn't really matter which format the broadcaster uses (1080i or 720p), because most people can't even tell the difference when they're watching HDTV.
Aspect Ratio
Aspect ratio is simply the proportion of the width of the TV screen to the height of the TV screen. Regular TVs use a 4x3 aspect ratio, which means the picture is a little wider than it is tall (a screen that is 20 inches wide is about 15 inches tall).
HDTV uses the widescreen (16x9) aspect ratio used in the film industry. Therefore, the TV that is 15 inches tall would be 27 inches wide.
The widescreen format provides a more compelling viewing experience because it mimics our peripheral vision - our field of vision is much wider than it is tall. Additionally, you get to see more of the action.
Digital Signal and Sound
Digital signals can be compressed, enabling a much more robust signal with no variation in quality. Digital signals, in contrast to analog signals that are used with regular TVs, can be reproduced precisely because they use the sames 1s and 0s that are used with computers. Therefore, you won't see ghosting, snow or fuzziness with a digital signal.
Another requirement of the HD format is the ability to send the audio using 5.1 channel sound. However, to experience this surround sound phenomenon you must connect your TV to an audio system that is capable of reading the 5.1 channels (often called a home theatre system).
More on HDTV @ www.hdtv.org.sg
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| (TV) How many scan types are there? |
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There are two scan type: 1) Interlaced scan: These TV images are created by lighting up every other row of horizontal lines on the screen in one instant, and then going back through and lighting up the remainder of the lines in the next instant. It happens so fast that your eye can't really tell it's happening.
2) Progressive scan: These systems light all the horizontal lines in the same instant, which can make the image seem "smoother" and more like film (or real life).
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| (TV) What is Aspect Ratio? |
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Aspect Ratio (the shape of your TV picture): Traditional TVs have a 4:3 aspect ratio (screen shape). This means that for every 4 units of measure across the screen, you have 3 units of screen height. For example, if the screen is 12 inches wide, it will be 9 inches high.
HDTVs have a 16:9 aspect ratio — which makes the screen relatively much wider for the same height, compared to a 4:3 TV. Most movies are widescreen (16:9, or even wider), so HDTVs can display most movies without the annoying "letterbox" black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.
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| (TV) What are the different types of Flat panel TVs? |
There are two types that fall into the flat panel category - LCD TVs and Plasma TVs. Since LCD and Plasma technologies don't use the traditional picture tube to put the picture on the screen, they can be made very thin (4-6 inches).
LCD
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs are thin and flat. Generally, LCD TVs have smaller screen sizes than plasma displays because of the intricate manufacturing process needed to create the LCD panels. However, as these processes continue to improve, the screen sizes keep getting larger.
This is how it works:
In general terms, an LCD TV has a backlight that constantly shines through the LCD panel. The liquid crystals are aligned in red, green, and blue patterns—when combined, these liquid crystals equal one pixel. When voltage is applied to the liquid crystal, it opens to allow light to pass through so that the specific color can be displayed on the screen for each pixel. The pattern of all of the pixels combined creates the total picture on the screen (like a color photograph in a newspaper).
When buying an LCD:
Here are some of the specifications to consider when purchasing an LCD TV:
- Resolution - higher/more is better
- Brightness - measured in cd/m2 (candelas per meter squared), more is better
- Contrast ratio - the higher the first number, the better (e.g., 500:1)
- Viewing angle - wider is better
- Response time - measured in milliseconds (ms), lower is better (the smaller the number, the faster the response time)
PLASMA
Unlike LCD, Plasma TVs tend to come in larger sizes (and they keep getting bigger). In the past, Plasma products did not incorporate a TV tuner, but were sold as "monitors" only. However, with the advent of digital TV, more and more plasma products are incorporating digital tuners to provide the full HD experience.
This is how it works:
The overly simplified explanation of plasma is that it occurs when the right amount of voltage is applied to the gas inside of the glass to change it into a substance that is somewhere between a solid and a liquid (a plasma).
When buying a Plasma Display:
With the exception of response time, what matters when shopping for a plasma TV is the same as LCD TV:
- Resolution - higher/more is better
- Brightness - measured in cd/m2 (candelas per meter squared), more is better
- Contrast ratio - the higher the first number, the better (e.g., 500:1)
- Viewing angle - wider is better
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| What is Blu-ray Disc? |
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Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format. The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience.
A dual-layer BD can stored over 9 hours of high-definition (HD) video and about 23 hours of standard-definition (SD) video.
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| (Audio) How many surround sound channels are there? |
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5.1- channel systems actually have six channels:
• A center-channel speaker (located directly above/below your HDTV) that reproduces dialog on your screen.
• Two front (or main-channel) speakers, which reproduce most of the musical soundtrack, plus left and right spatial cues (like someone walking into the room from one side or the other).
• Two surround speakers, located on the rear side walls of the room, that produce spatial cues behind you, and also provide diffuse (not easily locatable) sounds to help create an audio atmosphere.
• An LFE (low-frequency effects) channel that uses your system's subwoofer to reproduce the deep bass notes and sounds (i.e. cannons exploding). The LFE channel, because it contains only a small portion of the full spectrum of audio frequencies humans can hear, is the ".1" of 5.1.
6.1-channel systems add one extra speaker — a rear surround that is usually located on the back wall of your HDTV viewing room, and that provides an extra level of surround-sound detail.
7.1-channel systems that add a pair of extra speakers, mounted on the back wall of the room.
A surround-sound audio signal can be created three ways:
· It can be encoded in a DVD or HDTV program discretely (each individual channel is recorded on its own channel within the audio soundtrack). This is the best way to accurately produce surround sound — when the director wants you to hear that spooky footstep right there, discrete surround sound gives you the best chance of hearing it there!
· It can be matrixed in along with other audio channels. Typically, matrixed surround-sound signals are mixed into normal two-channel stereo soundtracks. If you're listening in stereo, you don't even hear the surround-sound cues, but if you've got a surround-sound system, these "hidden" tracks are extracted from the stereo soundtrack.
· Sometimes there is no surround sound (discrete or matrixed) for an HDTV program. Perhaps the movie was filmed in the early years of the last century, when there wasn't even stereo! Surround-sound hardware can often create its own best estimate of surround sound, using a regular two-channel stereo input.
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| (Audio) What is MP3? |
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MP3 is a highly compressed computer file format used for the storage and transmission of sound and music. MP3 is also called MPG3, MPG-3, MPG Level 3, MPG Level III, MPEG 3, etc.
MP3 uses the same type of highly efficient and extremely clever fractal-based algorithms for compression as JPG does for photographs. Just as the JPG algorithms were designed specifically to compress photographs efficiently, so the MP3 algorithms were designed specifically to compress sound and music efficiently.
Using the MP3 compression reduces the number of bytes in a song, while retaining sound that is near CD-quality. However, the degradation occurs in a very controllable manner and so can easily be kept to a level below that discernible to the listener. As with JPG, there is no loss when copying MP3 files, only when creating them.
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| (Audio) What is the difference between an MP3 file and a conventional WAV file? |
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Conventional WAV files are not compressed. For sound or music of any significant duration, WAV files are huge.
The size of a normal good quality WAV file is very roughly 10MB per minute of sound or music, whereas that of the equivalent MP3 file is very roughly 1MB per minute. In other words, the MP3 file is very roughly one tenth of the size of the equivalent WAV file, with no discernible difference in quality.
Other than MP3 file format, the other formats that can be played on MP3 player are:
- WMA - Windows Media Audio
- WAV - Waveform Audio
- MIDI - Music Instrument Digital Interface.
- AAC - Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
- Ogg Vorbis - A free, open, and un-patented music format
- ADPCM - Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation
- ASF - Advanced Streaming Format
- VQF - Vector Quantization Format
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| (Camera) What is the difference between CCD and CMOS? |
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The image sensor used by most digital cameras is a charge-coupled device (CCD). Some cameras use complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology instead. Both CCD and CMOS image sensors convert light into electrons.
Differences between the two types of sensors lead to a number of pros and cons:
- CCD sensors create high-quality, low-noise images. CMOS sensors are generally more susceptible to noise.
- Because each pixel on a CMOS sensor has several transistors located next to it, the light sensitivity of a CMOS chip is lower. Many of the photons hit the transistors instead of the photodiode.
- CMOS sensors traditionally consume little power. CCDs, on the other hand, use a process that consumes lots of power. CCDs consume as much as 100 times more power than an equivalent CMOS sensor.
- CCD sensors have been mass-produced for a longer period of time, so they are more mature. They tend to have higher quality pixels, and more of them.
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| (Camera) Why the pictures become grainy/blurry when developed to larger format? |
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The amount of detail that the camera can capture is called the resolution, and it is measured in pixels. The more pixels a camera has, the more detail it can capture and the larger pictures can be without becoming blurry or "grainy."
Below are the typical resolutions for camera:
- 256x256 - Found on very cheap cameras, this resolution is so low that the picture quality is almost always unacceptable. This is 65,000 total pixels.
- 640x480 - This is the low end on most "real" cameras. This resolution is ideal for e-mailing pictures or posting pictures on a Web site.
- 1216x912 - This is a "megapixel" image size -- 1,109,000 total pixels -- good for printing pictures.
- 1600x1200 - With almost 2 million total pixels, this is "high resolution." You can print a 4x5 inch print taken at this resolution with the same quality that you would get from a photo lab.
- 2240x1680 - Found on 4 megapixel cameras and this allows even larger printed photos, with good quality for prints up to 16x20 inches.
- 4064x2704 - A top-of-the-line digital camera with 11.1 megapixels takes pictures at this resolution. At this setting, you can create 13.5x9 inch prints with no loss of picture quality.
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| (Home Appliance) How refrigerator works? |
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General explanation of how a refrigerator works
The basic idea: It uses the evaporation of a liquid to absorb heat. You probably know that when you put water on your skin it makes you feel cool. As the water evaporates, it absorbs heat, creating that cool feeling. Rubbing alcohol feels even cooler because it evaporates at a lower temperature. The liquid, or refrigerant, used in a refrigerator evaporates at an extremely low temperature, so it can create freezing temperatures inside the refrigerator. If you place your refrigerator's refrigerant on your skin (please DO NOT try it), it will freeze your skin as it evaporates.
There are five basic parts to any refrigerator (or air-conditioning system):
- Compressor
- Heat-exchanging pipes - serpentine or coiled set of pipes outside the unit
- Expansion valve
- Heat-exchanging pipes - serpentine or coiled set of pipes inside the unit
- Refrigerant - liquid that evaporates inside the refrigerator to create the cold temperatures
Many industrial installations use pure ammonia as the refrigerant. Pure ammonia evaporates at -27 degrees Fahrenheit (-32 degrees Celsius).
The basic mechanism of a refrigerator works like this:
- The compressor compresses the refrigerant gas. This raises the refrigerant's pressure and temperature, so the heat-exchanging coils outside the refrigerator allow the refrigerant to dissipate the heat of pressurization.
- As it cools, the refrigerant condenses into liquid form and flows through the expansion valve.
- When it flows through the expansion valve, the liquid refrigerant is allowed to move from a high-pressure zone to a low-pressure zone, so it expands and evaporates. In evaporating, it absorbs heat, making it cold.
- The coils inside the refrigerator allow the refrigerant to absorb heat, making the inside of the refrigerator cold. The cycle then repeats.
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