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, “Sure. If I pay for it.” Accumulating shelves full of gear is not my goal; rather, satisfaction comes from sharing my hobby and passion with others. If I uncover a piece of equipment that I believe is otherwise hidden from the public, share my findings and offer another option to outfit a system, then that's a success.My philosophy stems from frustration with brick-and-mortar shopping. Outside of major metropolitan areas, there are few – if any – places for consumers to experience or experiment with gear outside the realm of the Sony's of the world. Nothing against Sony, but there are hundreds of other manufacturers' products that shoppers will never know about unless ...

The Epson Home Cinema 1080UB is a 1080p LCD projector, designed with superior black levels in its class as the main selling point.   Epson dismissed the square, blocky look of most projectors (and, for that matter, Epson’s newer models) in favour of a sexy, contoured look.  The projector has no sharp edges, instead implementing rounded sides and corners, and is white.  The design is aesthetically pleasing and easily distinguishes the Epson Home Cinema 1080UB from other projectors.Looking at the unit from the front, the lens is edged off-centre to the right side, while the left side shows the vent for the fan.  The infrared receiver is neatly squeezed in between these two.  Sidling to the rear, the various inputs can be seen.  2 HDMI v1.3 inputs are included, typical for 1080p projectors.  Next to those are a PC input, as ...

Introduction Every AV enthusiast is different and we each use our systems for different types of music and movies.  Many of us listen to a wide array of musical genres and must strive to get the best sound for each and every one we listen to from a single system, although some audiophiles go to extremes to accomplish this goal by having different speakers or even entire systems for different musical moods.  This is great if time, money and space are not a limiting factor in your pursuit of audio nirvana, but for the rest of us, we need a universal system to accurately reproduce the different genres we listen to; often, this system must do double duty as a home theater.   Finding one speaker to achieve all these goals is not easy, and building one to do it isn’t either.  ...

The Basics: Exceptional Innovation has established a name in custom-retail and home-automation circles for its Life|ware system, a software-based automation platform that runs on Windows Media Center PCs. The addition of Life|ware to a Media Center PC allows you to control compatible whole-house products (lighting, security, HVAC, music distribution) easily through the Media Center interface. It was only a matter of time until EI decided to release its own Media Center hardware, with the Life|ware software preloaded; these new units are called Life|media. Life/media is available in five different configurations, which vary in hard-drive storage, processing speed, graphic cards and overall size. The LMS-750 is a higher-end, four-rack-space model with a 3TB hard drive, DVR functionality, a DVD/CD burner and two built-in CableCARD/Clear-QAM tuners to access premium HD channels (for non-cable users, the LMS-700 offers the same specs, but sports dual NTSC/ATSC ...

The Basics: Exceptional Innovation has established a name in custom-retail and home-automation circles for its Life|ware platform, a software-based automation system that runs on Windows Media Center PCs. The addition of Life|ware to a Media Center PC allows you to control compatible whole-house products (lighting, security, HVAC, multiroom distribution) easily through the Media Center interface. It was only a matter of time until EI decided to release its own Media Center hardware, with the Life|ware software preloaded. These new units are called Life|media. Life|media is available in five different configurations, which vary in hard-drive storage, processing speed, graphic cards and overall size. The LMC-500 is a mid-level, three-rack-space model with a 2TB hard drive, DVR functionality, a DVD/CD burner, an FM tuner and two NTSC and ATSC tuners (the step-up LMS-550 replaces the FM/NTSC/ATSC tuners with dual CableCARD/Clear-QAM tuners, but otherwise has ...