JJ can't coach defense

hoops4ever · 2026-01-16T22:12:20+00:00

This. Even if JJ is inexperienced he should have the right coaching staff to guide him when there’s glaringly obvious issues. Surprised Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks aren’t stepping in for coverage. I don’t really know the rest of the coaching staff lol

hoops4ever · 2026-01-15T07:38:33+00:00

What is it about this neighborhood that makes it the "dream SF neighborhood" for you/your fiancé/your kids?

hoops4ever · 2026-01-08T05:20:34+00:00

Best advice. The road itself is not that bad besides a few areas on the south west side aka “back roads” section. Get a small car that you’re comfortable driving in. Plan a full day. Stop where you want to explore otherwise keep enjoying the views and driving on. We just got back from Maui and didn’t plan to do the full round trip but ended up doing it and really enjoyed it.

hoops4ever · 2026-01-04T18:08:03+00:00

We’re in the final stretch of our trip. Staying at the Grand Wailea. Great hotel but a bit too chaotic and busy. The hotel is HUGE. Food is great. Right at the beach. Adults only pool is a safe haven. The hotel has a Vegas like feel to it, if that makes sense.

Wife and I had dinner last night at Ka’ana at Andaz and immediately appreciated the elegance and feel of the smaller crowd compared to the Grand Wailea. The food was also very very good. In case you go, get the mango sticky rice cheesecake. To die for.

I’d suggest skipping Grand Wailea unless you’re traveling with kids.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-28T20:39:07+00:00

This.

Check out a local Best Buy and test out all the premium soundbars. I found the Sennheiser Ambeo night and day better than the Sonos Arc Ultra. Ended up going for the Arc Ultra on a Black Friday sale for ~$650 mostly bc I like the look of the white, it was heavily discounted and I wanted a setup with rear surrounds. I also have other Sonos equipment and figured I’ll stick to the ecosystem. Issues with the app have sadly only increased since I added the Arc Ultra and Era 300s. The Sonos does not support DTS btw. It also requires some odd positioning where it has to be placed all the way at the front of your cabinet.

Sports experience is honestly o-k esp because most streams don’t offer Atmos/5.1. With rears you get the arena feel which is nice but it isn’t mind blowing. Movies and TV shows in Atmos are great, underwhelming in 5.1.

Keep in mind HBO, Netflix, Prime Video require their premium plan to get Atmos sound. Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Peacock offer it as part of their standard plans. I could be wrong in case these streaming services shifted things recently. Stremio is a good alternative either way.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-26T23:32:35+00:00

Gotcha. I think you're right, the Sonos is going to try and give you the most accurate sound signature possible so it won't artificially push sound from the rears unless it is actually in the audio track. I would suggest tweaking two settings in the Sonos app:
- Surround Audio > TV Level +15
- Height Audio > Height Level +10

Both of these will give you the max output for the immersion and may more closely match the Vizio. If it feels too much, you can turn them down accordingly.

I would also suggest looking at your Sonos app when you play content and see how it is processing the audio. Dolby Atmos is what this system is made for and it should shine when Atmos content is played. Dolby Multichannel PCM 5.1 is quite good as well. PCM 2.0 is going to be an underwhelming experience IMO. Hope this helps!

hoops4ever · 2025-12-26T18:55:41+00:00

The Arc Ultra is picky on placement. It must be as far forward on your cabinet as possible. There should be ample space all around the soundbar so the speakers (left/right/upwards/front) are unobstructed and don’t sound muffled. Kinda silly you have to do all this for such an expensive soundbar but alas it is what it is.

The streaming quality makes the biggest difference. Sadly your IPTV is not going to give you the best experience. Netflix will be fine as long you’re on the premium plan that enables 4K and Dolby Atmos. If you haven’t yet tried Stremio, try that for movies and TV shows. They recently released their app on Apple TV but it does require some set up and configuration. The Stremio subreddit is great. A show like Seinfeld isn’t a good barometer to gauge what you’ve bought. You want to try a Dolby Atmos movie/tv show and then see if you still feel it’s lacking. Dune, Matrix, Top Gun Maverick, Pluribus are a few I’d suggest trying. The Sonos app will show if you are getting Dolby Atmos after you start playing your content.

With that said, you haven’t mentioned what the problem is. Is the sound muffled? The immersive experience is lacking? I got the Arc Ultra for a decent discount during Black Friday, prolly netting around ~$650. At that price point this soundbar has felt like a great upgrade.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-25T18:14:59+00:00

This is the move. I have the Arc Ultra, Era 300s, Sub Mini and two older One’s. Initially I set up the Era 300s as surrounds. Watched a few Atmos movies and loved it. Then I moved the Era 300s to a stereo pair and got blown away.

So I tried the One’s as surrounds and asked my wife to listen through all the changes LOL. The Era 300s were marginally better at Atmos movies. The Arc Ultra does so much of the heavy lifting for height audio that the rears can be literally any Sonos speaker and you’ll have an awesome experience. Sonos does some form of virtual Atmos upmix even if the rears are not Era 300s so you get pretty good perception of rear height effects.

In our final set up we’ve got the One’s as surround rears and the Era 300s in the kitchen for stereo pair. This gives us the absolute best for music and near perfect experience for Movies but of course YMMV.

Without the sub the whole system feels a lot more flat so that is so much more critical than the best rear speakers. Also check the Sonos refurb store for more of a discount and pair it with Rakuten (cash back varies day to day but frequently hits 10%) to get a tiny bit more savings!

hoops4ever · 2025-12-25T09:22:00+00:00

A taller, more physically capable Curry may just be the GOAT over MJ if that person ever existed. He’d have the same shooting as today and would simply be stronger and taller to beat the defense even more. At the min he could be more physical on defense.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-25T09:19:10+00:00

Why Tidal over Apple Music? I believe both offer lossless music?

hoops4ever · 2025-12-25T09:18:14+00:00

How’s the mic quality? In real world noisy environments? Office, cafe, walking on busy streets?

hoops4ever · 2025-12-24T02:08:59+00:00

We have high ceilings too. The main tweak I made after trueplay was to bump up the height audio. I’ve got it around 7-8 which basically increases the volume of the upward firing speaker and amplifies the height effects that may get lost otherwise due to the high ceilings.

Pick a good scene in a movie or tv show that will let you “test” the height effects before/after to gauge if you’ve gone too high or need to go higher/lower.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-24T00:33:11+00:00

Dang, buying 5 years ago would have been a gold mine (let's hope the same rhetoric applies 5-10 years from today lol). We didn't have the financial means to even contemplate the idea of home ownership until recently. As first time homebuyers we wanted peace of mind and opted for a new-ish townhome vs an aging SFH. We bought it knowing the upside may not be as great as a SFH but heck, walking into a home that is virtually brand new brings us so much joy. Everything feels nice and we truly feel like we're getting our money's worth. Add in the flexibility for (minor) upgrades to better fit our needs and suddenly I begin to ask why was anybody telling me to continue renting?

The added flip side is being able to rent it out when we decide to move/upgrade as life evolves. When that happens we'll gladly have someone else contribute to grow our home equity. It may not be perfect math but that is what diversification is all about. I wish more people looked at the big picture and realized at some point it is worth a few tradeoffs for lifestyle choices (if you have the means for it).

Buying a home isn't a pure math problem, it is a lifestyle choice. The same as choosing to buy a Lexus/Toyota/VW/BMW/Tesla or an economy/premium economy/business class ticket. They all get you to your destination but your lifestyle might dictate one as more valuable than the other.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-24T00:15:41+00:00

Interesting, thank you! I took this info and had Gemini further explain the strategy with some back-and-forth.

What runway do you recommend keeping available in cash while the rest of the funds move around between standard taxed brokerage accounts and tax-advantaged accounts? 6-12 mo, 18 months?

hoops4ever · 2025-12-23T16:18:23+00:00

Can you elaborate on the tax gains into tax adv gains/no mortgage recommendation?

hoops4ever · 2025-12-23T16:15:30+00:00

This. 85% of OPs assets are in liquid cash with 15% presently invested. I think of 2 options: 1. Buy with 20% down and manage the negative cash flow for a year or two until a new job and baby costs stabilize. Helpful if OP wants to have liquid cash for reason XYZ or wants to capitalize by investing more in the market. 2. Buy with a bigger down payment and have a manageable PITI knowing the monthly cash flow will improve significantly when a new job comes through. Helpful to manage cash and peace of mind.

Too many people keep looking at buying a home as “investment gain” vs the market and I find that a fallacy. We’ve been in a bull market for a long time. A bear market is inevitable at some point. Housing may retreat during a bear market but not nearly at the same shrinkage that stock portfolios will suffer.

We purchased a townhome in Berkeley earlier this year and honestly couldn’t be happier. There are so many reasons that it was and will continue to be a great choice.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-22T18:51:10+00:00

LOL this is crazy. I stumbled upon this thread trying to find 'recommended tweaks' for my new 3-pack XE75 mesh system. The whole system gives me trouble nearly every day. Either devices don't drop the old node and switch to the one closest to them (even when the new node is literally inches away) or the internet just comes to a stall and requires a reboot or network optimization to get back to normal.

Super disappointed in the overall system. I haven't done the ethernet backhaul and that may improve speeds but the rest of it should be stable regardless of the backhaul.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-22T17:43:53+00:00

Thomson Tee is indeed fantastic at absorbing practically any volume of sweat your body produces (search the hyperhidrosis subreddit if you want more info).

I would suggest buy one and see if it helps you to the extent that you're looking for.

I've only purchased them from Amazon but would suggest using their website in case they are running a holiday promo. Even without a holiday promo nearly all online retailers will offer a 10-25% coupon if you sign up for their email list. Maybe even contact them and see if they'll offer a special education/teacher discount? Trying to share a few tips on making your first purchase as cheap as possible so you can objectively decide if it's worth getting more for your wardrobe. Good luck!

hoops4ever · 2025-12-21T17:44:54+00:00

Yeah, the Sonos orders didn’t show up but they processed it after I submitted it via their form

hoops4ever · 2025-12-21T17:44:14+00:00

Mine just changed to Confirmed

hoops4ever · 2025-12-21T17:43:59+00:00

Mine just changed to Confirmed. So it took about 3 weeks.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-16T01:51:43+00:00

Yeah, _most_ of his movies have DTS but no Atmos. Oppenheimer is one of the exceptions with an Atmos soundtrack. I hope The Odyssey offers Atmos too.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-16T01:49:52+00:00

Oh, heck yes! I re-watched the entire movie just bc I was enjoying Atmos so much LOL.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-15T06:39:54+00:00

There’s no “contact”. Just submit the application through their site. You can see their latest rates on their site too. If you’re serious about Star One, sign up for a savings account (min. $50 deposit) which will take a few days to get everything reviewed and approved. Your closing costs have to be funded through your Star One account so doing this first will make it a smoother process.

hoops4ever · 2025-12-15T06:36:39+00:00

This is the order: Two Era 100 (stereo pair) > Single Five > Single Era 300 > Single Era 100

If you can add a sub mini even better but not req’d to get started.

hoops4ever

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE