Founded in 1998 and quickly making a name for themselves in the subwoofer market, SVS is now a global maker and distributor of complete speaker systems. They are a unique organization, with a design ...
Italian speaker maker Opera has been making headlines recently with their great-sounding demos at various audio shows, earning them positive print and online reviews. I reviewed their floor-standing Seconda model, which I found ...
Active speakers have had a tough road in the audiophile world. They are fairly commonplace in recording studios and other pro sound environments. I have heard several theories for this, including the fact ...
Rein Audio impressed me when I had the opportunity to review their very fine sounding X-DAC last year. The German based company, just a few years old, has since developed a few more ...
The very aptly named HiFiMan has been around since 2007, and I first became aware of the company from the ads for their high performance portable file players. They have developed into a one-stop ...
With the move to computer and hard drive based digital sources, one would think a format tied to a physical medium would be odd in 2013. But SACD has proved to be remarkably resilient ...
I’ve enjoyed reviewing several Rogue products over the last few years. The Brodheadsville, PA based company makes beautifully built, excellent sounding tube preamps, power amps, and integrated amps. They have products ...
Audience, out of San Marcos, CA, is one of the most respected companies in the power conditioning arena, with their line of adeptReponse series consistently getting rave reviews from the audio press and ...
PS Audio, out of Boulder, CO, has been a major player in high end audio for decades. Their power distribution/conditioning units and digital source components have been go to products for droves ...
MartinLogan enjoys a place at the mantle occupied by a relatively small group of state of the art speaker companies enduring the test of time. Nearing its third decade, the Lawrence, Kansas company ...
Boston Acoustics was founded in 1979 and quickly made a name among budget audiophiles, and later home theater enthusiasts. They became a big player in car audio as well. In 2005, D&M Holdings ...
Sometimes good things appear in big packages. So it was when Federal Express arrived at my door with two huge boxes that happen to house one Opera Seconda loudspeaker each. Opera manufactures its ...
You can find countless phones these days that allow you to connect up to an HD display thanks to MHL or mini HDMI connectors, but the upcoming Galaxy Beam from Samsung acts as its own display thanks to a built-in projector. It's not going to replace a Sim2 or Runco of course, but it beats just about anything out there in terms of portability.
Practically everyone that watches Blu-ray movies has a wishlist of the titles they'd like to see finally come out, and you'll find Spielberg's blockbusters on most of those list. 'Jurassic Park' came to Blu-ray recently and 'Jaws' is announced - though the release date is a month and a half past the 4th of July which would have been much better timing. It was announced yesterday that fans of the legendary whip-slinging adventurer Indiana Jones will be able to get their fix this fall.
Panasonic has announced that they'll be teaming up with Nuance to bring Dragon TV voice control to their sets. If you've heard of or used Dragon Naturally Speaking you know just how far voice recognition has come. What was once a chore is now a slick way to get things done. It's not perfect, but it's far better than it used to be. The addition of that voice recognition as a way to control televisions is another step forward.
The SB-900 is an inexpensive and relatively compact subwoofer from the folks at Atlantic. It's also one of their most popular models, but it's not optimal for everyone's setup. To meet the needs of more home theater enthusiasts, Atlantic has created a down-firing version of the subwoofer which allows for far more options in placement.
When you're browsing Netflix for great films and newer titles, you may have noticed a trend. Many of these titles come courtesy of Starz. The 29th marks the last day of the contract between Starz and Netflix, which means over 800 movies are leaving the streaming service. Not all of those flicks are great of course, but Netflix is losing titles like 'Young Frankenstein,' 'Toy Story 3,' and the 'Spartacus' TV series. It also marks the loss of 'The Pixar Story,' which is a very cool documentary on how the company got started and clear up any confusion about why Steve Jobs was honored at the Oscars - dude took a big risk on Pixar and it paid off.
It’s strange to see a one giant and seemingly unstoppable chain like Blockbuster in such bad shape, but it seems brick-and-mortar is on the way out. After purchasing Blockbuster last year, Dish has been working to make the brand into something of its former self, but it seems the future of Blockbuster is not in traditional retail. 500 of the existing 1,500 stores will be closing in the first half of 2012. Execs say that these are specifically underperforming locations, but it’s a clear sign of things to come.
TVs don't get much more high end than Bang & Olufsen. The company makes sets that are built as much for picture quality as for the aesthetics of the TVs themselves. After all, who wants to ugly up a perfectly nice room with a less than swanky looking TV? Bang & Olufsen's new TV is slim and the aluminum profiles are designed to accentuate but not outshine the screen.
