A/V Veteran

Can you guess how thick it is?

The video world woke up last Friday to the news reports that Pioneer Electronics, long a leader in consumer video display technology, was getting out of the video display business. At first, the reports did not come from Pioneer itself, but rather from news agencies (first in Japan, later overseas) that put two and two together and concluded that they really did equal four.

For years I ignored YouTube because I thought it was filled with cat videos and not much else. When I finally discovered its endless range of absorbing content last year, however, I posted a blog on it. But YouTube's depth of information on almost any topic is so vast that an occasional revisit is worthwhile. Video quality, then and now, ranges from very good to nearly unwatchable, but thankfully most of it is at least good enough for acceptable viewing.

We don't like to think about it, or perhaps we've never thought to, but from parts to finished products our AV products come largely from China. Yes, there are other players, but China with its cheap labor dominates the AV space.

Anyone who has had more than a day’s exposure to home theater knows that the heart of any system is the A/V receiver or similar device(s). This doesn’t necessarily mean basic sound quality per se (more on that below). But it’s at the center of the system where everything comes together—the sources at its inputs and the speakers and room at its outputs. The A/V electronics can make or break any system with regard to its ultimate capabilities— its convenience in use, the number of channels it offers, its ergonomics, its features, and much more. It’s also the component that’s most likely to be overtaken by new developments, putting it behind the times even if it’s still functional. It might last a decade or more and still produce satisfying sound, but if things keep moving as fast they have in the recent past there could well be new features that eventually render it functionally obsolete. At least one manufacturer, NAD, builds its AVRs with removable modules for later upgrades, but even so there might be future developments beyond its reach. There’s no such thing as absolute future-proofing (if there were, the company offering it might well go out of business!).

But before you consider any of these things you’ll need to decide between a A/V receiver (AVR) or a preamp-processor (pre-pro)...

I had a dream last night. I was wandering around lower Manhattan (New York). I think I was trying to find my way, but as dreams go I’m not exactly sure where to. I was apparently using a map on my tablet, but the tablet was an old CRT the size of the integrated CRT monitor/computer on the first iMac. I wandered into a bookstore, apparently in search of a more usable map, but all I recall seeing was a copy of Widescreen Review and a children’s version of the New York Times, the latter’s cover filled with full color comics (definitively proving, I suppose, that we do dream in color, though the hues were so odd that they must have been captured in two-strip Technicolor). I had left my “tablet” outside (perhaps the bookstore was a tablet-free zone) and when I went back outside it was still there but the screen had been smashed. In a New York minute. Then I woke up.

This was all likely inspired by my recent trip to New York to attend the Vizio launch of its new Reference series Ultra HDTVs...