When people learn that I write reviews of A/V equipment, invariably I get asked, “Do you get to keep it after you're done?” I always chuckle and say, “...
I think there will come a time at Halloween when I could hand out the remote controls scattered about my house along with candy corn and gum, and satisfy the string of trick-or-treaters ...
The first time I got to hear a piece of Manley Labs tube gear was when I reviewed their superb Neo Classic 300B Preamplifier a few months ago. To say I was impressed ...
A friend of mine likes to tell the story of someone who has too much money. It seems he had an acquaintance who was planning on upgrading a home theater system and wanted ...
Right at the core of the $500-600 price point, Yamaha BD-S1065 Blu-ray player enters against some stiff high-end competition. It’s a sect currently dominated by Oppo’s BDP-83, ...
Sometimes “good” isn't good enough. If it was, a certain A/V receiver would have been on many a home theater enthusiast's wish list for Christmas 2008. Instead of rushing ...
This Tuesday, the second Blu-Con conference was held in Beverly Hills, California. Blu-Con is entirely dedicated to the topic of Blu-ray and its potential future within the movie, hardware, software, gaming and ...
The bug struck me late 2003. I was at a bookstore looking through magazines when a cover lured me in with its display of speakers and amps and CD players – the components of ...
Back in 1981 Sammy Hagar had a big radio hit, singing, “There's only one way to rock.” When it comes to setting up a digital music server, however, there's most ...
The Olive 4HD Hi-Fi Music Server is a product that’s as impressive as it is niche. It was created for one purpose – to play high definition digital music – and it pulls out all the stops. The 4HD features two terabytes of space for storage of digital music in a variety of formats. It’s capable, as one would expect from a high end music server, of playing back media files in AAC, MP3 (at 128 and 320 kbit/s), WAV and FLAC.
Along with the announcement of the availability of the D12 Amplifier from ELAN, the company has also announced the D16, which is set to ship in March. ELAN’s new highly efficient ‘green’ amplifiers were redesigned from the ground up in order to create energy efficient and powerful amps.
The recent industry focus on three dimensional video has left consumers asking a lot of questions from technical concerns about what televisions and devices will be able to view the content to the somewhat shallower question of “Do I really have to wear these stupid glasses?” Spatial View, in collaboration with Sony Music Entertainment Germany, has answered both of these concerns in a more positive way than you might expect.
The latest Energy Star requirements have been announced by the Environmental Protection agency, and it all seems pretty reasonable. While agencies like the California Energy Comission set to ban televisions that use large amounts of power, Energy Star takes the other tact by rewarding manufacturers with Energy Star certification on products that meet the requirements.
Samsung has finally retaken its lead as the number one provider of LCD televisions in the United States with a solid 16.8% share of the market. Perhaps saying that Samsung has retaken anything is a bit grandiose though, since their share has still decreased significantly in the last year. In the third quarter of 2008, Samsung held 21.6% of the market share.
Warner is getting behind the Blu-ray format in a big way with their DVD2Blu initiative, which lets consumers trade in their old DVDs for discounted Blu-ray versions of the same titles. With the format war long over, the standing argument from movie lovers to avoid Blu-ray adaptation is a nagging and seemingly unsolvable one. “But I’ve already got all the movies I love on DVD,” they say. “That means I’ll have to buy everything I own all over again.”
RTI unleashed a slew of details on their ST-7 Universal Controller. The ST-7, which is slated to hit in early 2010, has been named the honoree of CES’ Design and Engineering Award for Integrated Home Systems. The highly anticipated ST-7 is more than just a standard controller. The new offering from RTI features a seven inch LCD display, with an integrated multitouch capacitive touchscreen.
A pair of new projectors – the IN5534 and IN5504 – is now available from InFocus. Created especially for situations which would tax normal projectors, the IN5534 and IN5504 were designed to be able to run 24/7. Both projectors offer WUXGA resolution (1920 X 1200) and Texas Instruments DLP technology. Both feature automatic ceiling detection and keystone, which helps to eliminate common image distortion issues.
