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Audio Video NewsNew Products
JLab Taps Knowles to Step Up Earbud Sound Quality
Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 07, 2024  |  1 comments
JLab, the San Diego-based company known for inexpensive earbuds and headphones that mostly sell for less than $50 at Best Buy and on Amazon, has stepped out of its low-price comfort zone with a $200 set of noise-canceling wireless earbuds that are unique in the market.
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Audio Video News
Free NEXTGEN TV Service Is Now Live in Chicago
Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 06, 2024  |  0 comments
Five television stations have launched NEXTGEN TV service in Chicago, bringing more programming options and other enhancements to viewers who have a NEXTGEN-compatible TV or set-top box and antenna to receive TV over the air.
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Editor's Eye
The Big Picture
Mark Henninger  |  Feb 06, 2024  |  3 comments
What a difference a year makes. In early 2023, I was thinking about ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors in the living room, but saw evidence that TVs would compete in the 100-inch size category. Now it’s a year later, and 100-inch TVs are multiplying like rabbits while prices continue to drop.
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Audio Video News
AuKing Ordered to Pay $500,000 for Making Deceptive Projector-Brightness Claims
Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 05, 2024  |  1 comments
For the past few years, Epson has been on a crusade to call out brands that grossly overstate brightness specs in the advertising and product literature they use to promote the projectors they sell. AuKing is the latest brand to receive a public shaming for making deceptive claims regarding the brightness of the cheap projectors it sells on Amazon.
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Signals
Ballet Mécanique: Back To The Future
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Feb 05, 2024  |  3 comments
It may surprise you to learn that yesterday was not the past, and tomorrow will not be the future. In fact, it is the opposite. Yesterday will be the future, and tomorrow was the past. I would not make such a bold claim unless I have proof. And I have proof.

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Ultra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Moonage Daydream
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 02, 2024  |  0 comments
Picture
Sound
Extras

Call him the Thin White Chameleon. As pioneering as the late, great David Bowie was as a multitalented artist who came of creative age during the initial wave of the rock era, what comes across most prominently in Moonage Daydream — a provocative documentary helmed by multi-hyphenate director/producer Brett Morgen — is his deeply philosophical nature as a man constantly questioning norms, pushing social mores and cultural boundaries, and seeking cosmic truths.

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Audio Video News
Best Gear of Late 2023/Early 2024
Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 01, 2024  |  4 comments
In the waning weeks of 2023, our last few Top Picks included small and large sets of speakers from two well-known but very different brands and two superb TVs — a quantum-dot OLED and a mini-LED Google TV, both reasonably priced. As we kicked off the New Year, the hits kept coming with an audiophile-caliber streaming amp combo, a state-of-the-art AV preamp/processor that leaves little to the imagination, and a high-performing yet affordable streaming amp. Let’s take a closer look...
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SmartStream
Prime Video Now Charging Extra for Ad-Free Viewing
Barb Gonzalez  |  Jan 31, 2024  |  8 comments
On January 29th, Amazon started running ads with its video-on-demand Prime Video streaming service. As announced in September 2023, Prime subscribers must pay an extra $3 a month to watch ad-free.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
There’s a New Flagship AVR in Town: Marantz
Bob Ankosko  |  Jan 31, 2024  |  3 comments
Marantz just put a cherry on the top of its AV receiver lineup with the Cinema 30, a new flagship model loaded up with the bells and whistles enthusiasts love and the same classy look introduced with 2022’s Top Pick-rated Cinema 50.
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Surround Processor Reviews
Marantz AV10 15.4-Channel AV Preamp/Processor Review
Mark Henninger  |  Jan 31, 2024  |  2 comments

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $7,000

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Balanced outputs for all channels
Supports four subwoofers
Audyssey MultEQ XT32 with Directional Bass
Dirac Live Bass Control
Easy on-screen setup
Minus
Antiquated front panel interface
Dirac features cost extra

THE VERDICT
An engineering marvel from Marantz with just about everything you could ask for in an AV processor. Just add an amp and speakers for total immersion.

The AV preamp and surround processor is the less well-known sibling of the AV receiver. The main difference being that processors don’t have built-in amplification. This is a reasonable approach because as a rule amplifiers last a rather long time, and don’t come obsoleted by things like new immersive sound formats or updates to HDMI standards. Going the AV separate route also lets you tailor the amplification to the speaker system whereas AV receivers are forced to split the difference between whatever speakers are connected to it and hope for the best.

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