Audio Video News

Sound & Vision readers who participated in last week’s poll are not exactly falling over themselves to smarten up their homes with the sort of automated amenities Darryl Wilkinson wrote about in his recent blog, “Affordable New Home Automation Systems Put the Smart in Your Home.” Four in ten respondents...

3D was largely shrugged off in last week’s Home Theater poll. In response to the question “What’s your take on 3DTV,” more than half of respondents (61%) selected “I don’t care about 3D one way or the other” (45%) or “I couldn’t care less…” (12% for owners of active 3D TVs and 4% for owners of passive 3D TVs). Only 13% reported “loving” 3D, while 20% said they watch 3D programs occasionally. Wearing glasses is apparently not an issue for those who like 3D: Only 5% of respondents chose “3D glasses drive me crazy.” And if you're on the fence and looking for a 3D movie to check out, Oz the Great and Powerful was singled out as an exemplary example of 3D in action. Here’s a complete breakdown of the survey results...

The results of last week’s survey are in. We asked if you have a wireless music system at home and a full one third of the respondents reported having—and loving— a Sonos system, followed by one quarter who have yet to venture into wireless audio. Apple AirPlay was the second most favored wireless setup, followed by Bluetooth, which came in a distant third. The complete breakdown is as follows…

With the new Dolby Atmos surround format on the immediate horizon we wondered how many Sound & Vision readers’ are using special surround processing to derive height channels in their current home theater setups. Turns out that nearly a quarter of respondents have setups with height channels—a respectable showing considering the effort involved in installing extra speakers.

Here’s the complete breakdown of answers to the question we posed: Is Your Home Theater Configured with Height Channels?

TV—specifically 4K/Ultra HD and OLED—top the holiday shopping lists of Sound & Vision readers who responded to last week’s poll question: “What’s Your Top AV Gift Pick for 2014?” Ultra HD netted 22 percent of the votes, followed by OLED TV (15 percent), AV receiver (14 percent), and headphones (9 percent). Regular old HDTV was a distant second to OLED, gaining only 4 percent of the votes, proving once again that the S&V crowd is all about the latest and greatest technology. Here are the full results:

With Dolby Atmos looming on the horizon we asked how Sound & Vision readers do surround and learned that nine out of 10 of those who responded have either a 5.1/5.2 (59%) or 7.1/7.2 (30%) setup. The complete breakdown is below.

When it comes to buying AV gear for the household, 99 percent of the respondents to last week’s survey said they make all or most of the decisions. The results were evenly spit between those who “make most AV buying decisions…but consult my spouse/significant other” (42 percent) and those who “make all AV buying decisions…without consulting my spouse/significant other” (40 percent). Only 17 percent said they consult their significant other "before purchasing any new AV gear." Here are the complete results...