Fred Manteghian

CES 2009
Youngest Member of the Press Corp
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments

Aaron is a reporter for the Scholastic Kids Press Corps. I immediately asked him about what he thought about how Chelsea Clinton dissed the nine-year-old reporter from the Scholastic News in Iowa last week, and he and his Mom (right) were surprised it took so long for anyone to ask.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
Wireless Neosonik
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments

Demonstrating their wireless 7.2 channel speaker / amplification system, Neosonik's system uses a proprietary 5 GHz wireless system to transmit signals digitally to each speaker. A central controller will accept an HDMI input and then transmit audio digitally to each speaker. Each speaker in turn has digital amplification for each driver. I asked about the video portion of the HDMI signal that had been routed to the controller. They've a device that transmits that signal digitally as well to a small receiver connected to your display.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
The Management and Staff of Camp SourceInterlink
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  1 comments

From left to right: Luke "I am your father" Jervis, Amber Bell, Scott Wilkinson, Rosemarie Torcivia, Jon Iverson, Shane Buettner, Fred Manteghian, Jon Banner, Angela Speziale and Wes Phillips.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
A Room With A View
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments

Jon Banner took this wonderful picture with my Panasonic Lumix TZ3 camera. Those are Ultimateavmag's Product of the Year Awards lined up on the table in the SourceInterlink suite at the Venetian. Outside the window is a long view of Las Vegas.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
Product of the Year Award, Kevin Voecks of Revel
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments

Designer Kevin Voecks accepts the Ultimate AV magazine's 2007 Speaker System of the Year award for Revel's Ultima2 Studio2 system. This $36,000 system <a href="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/news/1207poty/" target="new"> (click here to see a full list of this year's award recipients) </a> earned high praise indeed from Tom Norton in his review when he referred to it as the best sound he has ever heard in his home theater.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
TVs with Laser Beams On Them– Is That Too Much To Ask For?
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  2 comments

Last night, Mitsubishi took the Moon nightclub on the roof of the Palms Casino and turned it into a discothque to premier their long in development laser TV. Using fanfare fitting the unveiling of a major work of art (which in a way, it was), Mitsubishi lit up three of their rear projector laser engine TVs. They were at least 65" in diagonal, though we weren't told an exact size. Each was also about as thin as the thinnest DLP or LCD rear project TVs.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
Dang, Life IS Good!
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 07, 2008  |  0 comments

LG's 60PG70 plasma looked pretty amazing. I can't say if it's in Pioneer Kuro territory, but with a 30,000:1 claimed contrast ratio, there was little to fault. I asked one of LG's booth specialists to bring up the ISFccc calibration menu and he was able to do so without pressing 5432+Enter on the remote (sorry – inside joke for former CRT calibrators).

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
TI KO LCD
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 07, 2008  |  0 comments

LCD panel manufacturers are touting the effectiveness of 120 Hz refresh rates for dragging their little darlings out of the drug-induced haze that is LCD smear. I've seen JVC, SyntaxBrillian's Olivia and Sharp LCDs with the technology and it clearly works and works well.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
Which Part of "Organize" Don't the Show Organizers Get!
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 07, 2008  |  2 comments

Not to complain too loudly, because in the old days we had typewriters, but whoever is responsible for making sure the 4th estate can do their job should be fired. The press room is full of hardwired Dell laptops (I mean, I'm a Windows guy and even <I>I</I> won't use a Dell, for Lord's sake) and there are precious few empty tables for people who brung their own. On top of that, there's no "supported," a.k.a. working, wireless connections. Granted, wireless introduces problems too, but hardwired Dells and brown shirts walking around making sure you don't unplug the Ethernet cable and put it into your laptop isn't helping anyone get their job done.

Continue Reading >
CES 2009
"Roger, Niner Niner, I've got you on my radar!"
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 07, 2008  |  0 comments

The Sherwood Newcastle R-972 won't be out until April '08, but I sat down for a demo of their new receiver. What sets it apart from other 4 HMDI in (1 out) AVRs is their Trinnov Optimizer. The fuzzy shot above shows green speakers along the peripheral of the coincentric circles that describe the speaker placement positions used during soundtrack mastering. The smaller red speaker positions show where people normally put them. By generating tones, I was told, the Sherwood receiver will figure out where you've placed speakers in your room, and compensate for it. I asked if you'd get that great on-screen display with the R-972's implementation, but alas, no. However, you can interface your laptop to the receiver and work with the setup that way.

Continue Reading >

Pages

X