A/V Veteran

It’s fall, and a young man’s fancy (and we hope a woman’s as well) turns to thoughts of evenings by a roaring fire listening to music or watching a movie or two on that new flat screen UHD TV (hopefully not mounted above said fireplace!). There have been so many interesting posts to the S&V website recently that I can’t resist the temptation to offer a few thoughts on some of them. Some commenters to these individual posts have beaten me to the punch, but I’ll press on.

Paradigm Concept – I’ll soon be finishing up a review of the Paradigm Prestige 95F loudspeaker for our sister publication Stereophile. No sneak peeks here, but it has certainly grabbed my attention.

So I was intrigued when I read about the prototype Paradigm Concept 4F. It will also be shown (as a static display only, according to current plans) at the upcoming CEDIA EXPO 2015 in Dallas on October 15-17. With four internally-powered woofers and a tech-heavy midrange and tweeter (the later with a beryllium dome instead of the aluminum dome in the Prestige line), it’s stuffed with cutting edge thinking.

Might this hint at a replacement for the current top-of-the-line Paradigm Signature series? Possibly, but if this model comes to market precisely as shown in the prototype, it’s likely to significantly exceed the $9,500/pair price of the current, top-of-the-line Signature S8. If it hints at a full range of Concept models, it’s likely that some or all of them will not have self-powered woofers but rely on the usual external amplification. That could significantly decrease their prices.

In any case we hope to learn more about Paradigm’s plans for this speaker as soon as possible, either as a stand-alone flagship or as a complete new series. But I hope we’re talking about a merely expensive speaker and/or a range of speakers, rather than “Oh my God!”

Next Digital Broadcast Standard – There are a lot of reasons to work toward a new standard, particularly with 4K Ultra HD and its expended resolution, color, and dynamic range. But while several parties are working on various aspects of such a standard, competing interests for the huge licensing fees that might result may very well slow down the process. Samsung and LG are working separately, and they aren’t exactly kissin’ cousins. Ditto, on the audio side, for Dolby and MPEG. We will have a standard eventually, but I’d be surprised to see it by 2017.

I hope that the compromises that will be required to settle on a single standard don’t turn broadcast Ultra HD into an empty shell no better than the high quality we have now with 1080p—and possibly worse. I’m particularly concerned about the work being done on the audio side, because “Bandwidth efficient” is clearly code wording for “heavily compressed.”

Sharp to Launch 8K – No surprise here. Japanese manufacturers have long jumped head first into the new and exciting, sometimes with success and at other times not so much. They often launch cutting edge products in Japan first to see if they’ll fly before going international with them. (It’s significant to note here, however, Sharp continues to make and market TVs in Japan. But in some overseas markets, including the U.S., Sharp TVs, going forward, will now be Chinese products whose only connection with Sharp Japan is licensing of the Sharp name. No more “Ohhh My’s” from Mr. Sulu.)

But why 8K now? We’ve barely entered the 4K era, and many aspects of that technology (wider color and higher dynamic range) and its delivery (downloads and UHD Blu-ray) have yet to be widely implemented. And the benefits of higher than even 1080p resolution have yet to be convincingly demonstrated in a home-sized Ultra HD set. The wider color and high dynamic range aspects of the UHD transition hold far greater promise, and we don’t need 8K to implement those.

Movies on Netflix – Watch them before they expire? The Blu-rays on my shelf won’t ever expire short of laser rot (a widely discussed “issue” in the LaserDisc era but raised not even a peep with DVDs and Blu-rays). I can watch my discs whenever I want, either from beginning to end or just favorite scenes. I often enjoy the latter with movies I’ve previously watched. It’s not unusual to find scenes, or even extended sequences, that are far more compelling and re-watchable than the films they’re trapped in.

The studios can control the Internet availability of their titles, but short of discontinuing a given Blu-ray title’s availability (which won’t affect buyers who already own it) they can’t reach onto my shelf and pluck it away. Downloading and streaming definitely have their place (I’ve used them myself for marginal material I don’t want to acquire, or material that’s never appeared on disc) but they’re ephemeral and can dropped whenever the provider feels it’s in their interest to do so.

Sony Hi-Res Audio for the Car Can’t wait to go tooling down the road listening to the subtleties of Hi-Res audio in an ambient noise environment of 75dB!