Introduction We’ve all been there. Stuck at a red light trying to enjoy our music in the comfort of our own vehicles. Maybe you play a bit of air guitar, or sing along, whatever your inner child wants, it’s okay because you’re in your car. Your bubble. Your sanctuary. That is, until, the jerk in the three thousand dollar Honda Civic with the grapefruit shooter for a tailpipe rolls up next to you and assaults you with what I can only describe as an amplified fart trapped within a soda can. Sure, he’ll call it bass. I call it automotive flatulence. That trunk rattling, muffler busting sound isn’t bass. It’s distortion. It’s noise. And if you’re one of these people…do the world a favor, turn it down. The only person you’re impressing is yourself which judging by the slapdash way you’ve snap-tightened your car isn’t saying a whole lot. If you want bass - ...

Introduction Over the last few of years, the AV industry has enjoyed an enormous boost in enthusiasm, with much of its momentum due to the recent advancements in video technology. Though they once seemed like sci-fi or something from a Jetsons’ episode, flat televisions that hang on the wall are becoming commonplace in home theaters across the country. With the flat TVs’ increasing size and quickly dropping prices, mainstream America can walk into a Best Buy or Costco and pick up a mighty fine HDTV that can be the centerpiece of a respectable home theater system for $2,000 or sometimes even less. Once you invest in your flat HDTV, you now have to deal with another issue: how do you get speakers to match? In many rooms, the advantage of a flat HDTV is the fact that it is actually flat. Traditional speakers are generally anything but flat, so in order to remove all of ...

Introduction MartinLogan, a well-known name in the audio enthusiast community, is undergoing a radical change. The entire line is being revamped. The Summit retails for $10,000 per pair, which is slightly less than its award-winning predecessor, the Prodigy. In staying true to its history, the Summit is a hybrid design with an electrostatic panel mated with a dynamic woofer, but it features a host of new technology and sports a completely new industrial design. Visually, I find the Summit to be the most attractive MartinLogan I have seen to date. It is more reminiscent of the Scenario than the Prodigy it replaces, in that its panels are not surrounded by visually imposing frames. The panels on the Summit are surrounded by frames featuring MartinLogan’s AirFrame technology and made from aerospace-grade aluminum. The panels feature a whole slew of technological and design innovations that have a bunch of catchy names, such as MicroPerf Stator, CLS, Generation 2 ...

Introduction There have been many challenges in rebuilding the AVRev.com reference theater (which I have previously written about and archived for Modern Home Theater how-to features, with more details to come). One of the challenges not discussed is what I was going to do with the living room where my former reference system lived. Removing the large equipment rack thankfully created more space that allowed for the sleek installation of a lightly tinted glass wall. Removal of the floor-to-ceiling, bird’s-eye maple media storage cabinet that housed my Stewart roll-down screen also opened up some serious space. The design challenge was unique, considering the entryway to the new theater, as well as the stairs leading to the new addition, is exactly where my Wilson WATT Puppy right speaker used to be placed – how could you get great sound in a room or, in this case, a series of rooms, including the living room, dining room ...

Introduction There have been many challenges in rebuilding the AVRev.com reference theater (which I have previously written about and archived for Modern Home Theater how-to features, with more details to come). One of the challenges not discussed is what I was going to do with the living room where my former reference system lived. Removing the large equipment rack thankfully created more space that allowed for the sleek installation of a lightly tinted glass wall. Removal of the floor-to-ceiling, bird’s-eye maple media storage cabinet that housed my Stewart roll-down screen also opened up some serious space. The design challenge was unique, considering the entryway to the new theater, as well as the stairs leading to the new addition, is exactly where my Wilson WATT Puppy right speaker used to be placed – how could you get great sound in a room or, in this case, a series of rooms, including the living room, dining room ...