Recently, I was very impressed by the Musical Fidelity V-DAC II, and have been eager to hear more products from the venerable British company. The V-DAC II is part of the V Series ...
Thinking about it, it’s amazing The Avengers even exists. In 2008, the world was gearing up to have its collective mind blown by Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Nolan had ...
I’ve enjoyed Paradigm products for a number of years now. The Canadian loudspeaker company is well known for producing a wide variety of products across most price points. They make everything ...
Last month I reviewed a terrific preamp from a small company, and I mentioned that great products can come from small artisans that build per order. I also mentioned that large, multinational companies ...
Audio products emanate from all sorts of places. Many come from big established multi-national companies like Marantz or Harmon International. Some hail from medium sized, independently owned firms. And some even come from ...
Unison Research is a family owned high end audio company based in Treviso, Italy. They have been making tubed, solid state, and hybrid components since 1987. There are a number of unique things ...
Trends Audio, located in Hong Kong, is one of my favorite purveyors of budget minded, nice sounding, mini components. Recently a real market has grown for smaller components that don’t compromise ...
Rein Audio, out of Germany, was unknown to me until I received an email from Rein’s Jason Tornald asking if I was interested in reviewing their new X-DAC. Since I have ...
While I am not a headphone fanatic, I am rather picky about the phones I use for my iPod Touch and iPod Nano. I also use headphones for early morning or late night ...
Las Vegas was yet again host to CES, where hundreds of industry folks, journalists, and just plain revelers converged to see the latest trends in technology, communications, entertainment, and lifestyle products. Every ...
Integrated amplifiers are probably more popular than ever before. Today, many companies offer a one box, convenient solution loaded with features and requiring fewer cables / less rack space, which allows for full system ...
Legendary British HiFi firm, Musical Fidelity, has been at it for about 25 years now. They have been widely praised for decades for their amplifiers, hybrid tube designs, and digital source components. Musical Fidelity&...
Just a few years ago, connected devices hit the market in a big way.We saw our first Netflix boxes and streaming capable TVs.We saw Blu-ray players that could give us movies on demand and receivers capable of streaming from Pandora and other online sources.Now that those are becoming standard, the NPD Group estimates that we'll reach 600 million connected components shipped by 2015.In fact, they go one step further and say that that 600 million will all be Wi-Fi enabled.
Just as it is with televisions, 3D is becoming a standard feature on projectors. Sharp's latest entry into the projector category is the XV-Z30000, a DLP projector that offers some impressive specs at a reasonable price. It gives you a contrast ratio of 50,000:1 and 1600 ANSI Lumens brightness, which Sharp says is used more efficiently with its DLP projectors than other technologies.
The latest preamp and surround sound processor to come out of AudioControl is the Maestro M4. It's capable of supplying you with 7.1 channels of audio and can handle Dolby True HD, DTS-HD Master Audio and comes packed with Dolby Volume to prevent those dreaded audio spikes. You'll also find 3D pass-through available thanks to newly upgraded HDMI 1.4 switching.
When it comes to high end TVs you don't get much higher end than B&O.Their sets are designed as much for aesthetics as for the viewing experience and they pride themselves on not cutting corners.That's evident in the new BeoVision 12-65, complete with a built-in center channel and outputs for 7.1 channel surround sound.
Widescreen TVs are nice and all, but the aspect ratio is essentially a compromise between 4:3 TV and 2.35:1 theatrical movies.If you're a dedicated movie buff, those black bars and that smaller picture just doesn't do it. Vizio has announced their solution - a series of 21:9 televisions that fill the screen with your Blu-rays.
It's hard to argue - streaming services have a way to go before their audio quality is up to snuff.This goes double for smartphones and tablets, which tend to focus more on having plenty of apps than on the richness of their sound. Dolby, as you might imagine, would like to change that.They're doing so too, thanks to the addition of Dolby Digital Plus to a wide range of devices from companies like HP, Acer, Lenovo and Samsung.Samsung is also going to be adding Digital Plus capabilities to their Acetrax streaming app for European Blu-ray players.
It's that time of year again. 2012 has begun and it's time for everyone in the electronics business to show off everything they're bringing to market.First up from the Consumer Electronics Show is Samsung, who unveiled, among other things, a 55" OLED TV. Samsung is the second company to announce a 55" OLED this year with LG being the first.Like LG's set it's incredibly thin and boasts crystal clear images, a response time that's too small for even the most observant of people to notice and a ludicrous contrast.Sadly, also like LG's set, Samsung's new 55" OLED doesn't have a price attached.All we know right now is that it's coming sometime this year.
