Introduction You have probably noticed the vast library of articles in AVRev.com covering the latest and greatest video and audio components our industry has to offer you, the enthusiastic consumer. Much of the focus for home theater has been on enhancing sight and sound stimuli while watching movies, but what about the other senses? Certainly seeing and hearing a car crash can be exciting. Amazingly, now you can add the sense of touch to the crash. For years, there have been products that you bolt to your chairs that make your butt rumble and shake, yet these systems succeeded in doing little more than making my rear itch. The D-BOX Quest chair is a completely new, revolutionary product that adds rumble and shaking effects to your simulated crash, as well as real-time motion, getting you one step closer to actually participating in the action. The D-BOX Quest recliner/loveseat uses a two-axis motion simulator system to ...

Introduction After owning my new 61-inch rear-projection HDTV for about 30 minutes, I started jonesing hard for a High Definition PVR. When I finally made the move to HD, tacking on a few thousand dollars for the set and a extra few bucks to my monthly satellite bill, I somehow had justified in my mind that I could just live with my standard definition TiVo running into my TV and that someday later, I would own an HD PVR. That “someday” came about a week later for me. I called up Dish Network to inquire about the cost of their 921 receiver and, much to my chagrin, it was in the $1,000 range, priced comparably with their HD TiVo competition from DirecTV. (Note: The 921 is currently priced at $549 according to Dish Network.) This price point is a barrier to entry for most home theater enthusiasts, but it just so happens that ...

AV Education on RHT Darkness: A Theater's Best Friend Written by Michael Levy As a child, Sundays were frequently spent at the local Lowe’s Paradise Theater. It truly was a paradise for me. How little I knew back then that I was watching a medium at the height of its glory. The screen was huge and often opened into panoramic width. There were dimly lit stars on the ceiling, feigning a midnight sky as I watched the stars on the screen. Everything was dark maroon. The seats and the walls were velvet. The only lights during movies were dimly lit guides to your seat on the floor. My first memories of it were from when I was very young. I was small enough to sink into the plush seat and in love with movies enough to be lost in the new world on the screen projected through the darkness. Yes, darkness, an important ...

Introduction In a recent poll conducted as a part of an Audio Video Revolution sweepstakes, a question was asked to the nearly 20,000 respondents as to what AV product they are planning on buying next within the next six months. We asked a very similar question in 2003: for a resounding majority, the answer was an HDTV set. In 2004, the most likely purchase was an HD-DVR (or TiVo). This new AV component category led all others, including HD sets themselves, with 28 percent of our readers saying this would be their next purchase. To say HD-DVR is a scorching hot new category of gear is to understate its importance. To not mention how bad and overpriced the category of HDTV tuners have been since the early adopters started dialing into HDTV would be to forget an important piece of recent AV history. Up until now, nearly every HDTV receiver has been practically pathetic in ...

Introduction There’s nothing more satisfying while watching a movie or listening to music than deep, bone-shaking bass. While surround sound in the home has given us a magical experience of movie-watching in our living rooms or home theaters, a lot of home set-ups tend to ignore the lower frequencies, the argument being that as long as it booms and fits in the living space, what more could be achieved? Then came alternatives. High-performance mini-cube subwoofers garnered acclaim by producing a better sound than the subwoofers that come in pre-packaged systems and it didn’t intrude on the décor. People were amazed at what these diminutive cubes could produce, with their long excursion drivers and high-powered amplification. Seemingly, the quest for a home friendly subwoofer had ended. But as impressive as the performance of the space-saving miracles are, they don’t generate the sound pressure levels and true lower frequencies that their bigger cousins produce. In order to get ...