Dave - I am sure the sound is compromised. But my ears are not the same either - age has taken some toll on the hearing. In addition to all the reduced "boxes", my wife is very happy that I reduced the number of visible wires.
I remember my big speaker days. I worked in an audio/video store and received an employee discount. I was a serial purchaser, going through ARs, Burhoes, JBLs, Design Acoustics, to name a few. Now it's all built-in except for the subwoofers. Is sound compromised? Probably. Is my wife happy not to have boxes everywhere? I don't think I need to ask.
Re speakers. In my old house in Minnesota when I had my consulting company, I had a fairly nice office downstairs away from where my wife watched tv. I added a set of speakers front & back along with a sub woofer and a nice amp. The speaker I show here was one of two rear speakers; the front speakers were the larger version of these. I was able to listen to some beautiful music - music hall quality. I could crank up the volume and shake the room. When we sold that home and moved to AZ, I only brought the smaller rear speakers with me - selling the others. At times, I miss the rich sounds. Ah well, life moves on.
Re background. I had a lot of fun with this. I found a generic background that I liked (sort of like rippled cloth) that had some structure to it. I took it into Photoshop where I changed the hues. I did this a couple of times on different layers to get the red and blues. Then I went to Topaz Studio where I used the Glow tools. I did this a couple of times to get the effects I wanted. I then blended these together, and masked out different areas. Jim
Cool Jim, what program did you use for the effect? I understand about how the old stuff is better. When I was stationed in Germany I bought a excellent set of Fishers for 40 bucks each at the Frankfort PX. They were great and I would crank them to the max. I finally got rid of them recently. Paul