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Audio Video News
NY Luxury Technology Show Opens Tomorrow
SV Staff  |  Mar 22, 2016
The Luxury Technology Show, the first of three such events, opens tomorrow in New York City at the Metropolitan Pavilion.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Vizio Launches App-Controlled, 4K/HDR TVs
Bob Ankosko  |  Mar 22, 2016
Today marks the official launch of Vizio’s four-model P-Series lineup of high-dynamic range-enabled HDTVs at prices ranging from $1,000 for a 50-inch model to $3,800 for a 75-inch model. But that’s just part of the story.
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Grace NotesAudio Video News
Sony Shows Off Concept N: Headphone-less Headphones
Leslie Shapiro  |  Mar 21, 2016
Sony’s Future Lab made some waves at South By Southwest by debuting an entirely new concept in personal listening. The Concept N device doesn’t go on or over the ears at all - instead, it hangs comfortably around the user’s neck with multi-directional drivers aiming up towards the listener, allowing outside sounds to still be audible. Extremely directional speakers direct the sound to the listener’s ears while preventing other people from hearing the sound very clearly. In a slightly noisy environment, other people around the listener can’t hear what is being played over the device.

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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Origin Acoustics Launches Landscape Audio
SV Staff  |  Mar 21, 2016
Spring is in the air and it’s time to start prepping those landscape beds for new flowers, shrubs…and maybe a few outdoor speakers.

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Audio Video News
4K Streaming Trial Opens Door to Future Events
SV Staff  |  Mar 21, 2016
Recent success with streaming trials of live 4K sporting events, including the first live North American soccer broadcast in 4K by Univision Deportes on February 10, will lead to more live 4K streaming events through the summer, according to Sony. The game/test event, which took place at Marlins Park in Miami, was streamed live to audiences in Florida, New York, and California via late model Sony HDR-capable 4K Ultra HD TVs, which have NeuLion’s 4K streaming platform integrated.
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Projector Reviews
Sony VPL-VW665ES 3D SXRD 4K Projector Review
Kris Deering  |  Mar 21, 2016
2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $14,999

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Native 4K imaging chips
HDR10 compatible
Minus
Lacks full HDMI v2.0a capabilities
Less than perfect focus uniformity
Careful setup needed for best results

THE VERDICT
Sony’s mid-cycle refresh of the VPL-VW600ES offers decent bumps in dynamic contrast, brightness, and features. While it still lacks some key future-proofing and has a few niggling issues, its compelling native 4K imagery is some of the best we’ve seen from front projectors on the market today.

Here we are now a full four years beyond Sony’s debut of the VPL-VW1000ES, the first consumer-level native 4K projector. And yet the bounty of 4K content that was promised at that time is really now just coming to fruition with an assortment of streaming options and a new Blu-ray format springing forth. In late 2015, Sony did what I’d call a mid-cycle refresh on one of our previous Top Picks, the VPL-VW600ES (May 2014; review at soundandvision.com), adding a few new features like HDR capabilities and improved contrast and brightness. But is the VPL-VW665ES the projector to buy as we head into the land of Ultra HD and all its promises?

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Headphone ReviewsTech2
Audeze Sine Planar-Magnetic Headphone Review
Lauren Dragan  |  Mar 19, 2016  |  First Published: Mar 18, 2016
Over the last few years, Audeze, known for their acclaimed LCD series headphones, have expanded their lineups of entry level enthusiast-grade headphones. In 2015, they released the EL-8, a line of portable planar-magnetic over-ear headphones. This year at CES, Audeze announced the launch of not only their most affordable, but most wearable offering yet: the Sine; lightweight, closed-backed, on-ear, planar magnetic headphones. Additionally, the Sine are available with Cipher: a lightning cable with remote, mic, and, oh yeah... an integrated amp, DSP and DAC. Needless to say, I needed to get these on my noggin as soon as possible.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The End of the Tour
Josef Krebs  |  Mar 18, 2016
Picture
Sound
Extras
The End of the Tour is like My Dinner with Andre but without the dinner or Andre. Yes, it does consist of one long conversation, but unlike Wallace Shaun and Andre Gregory’s fine feast of fascinating, erudite, intellectual spouting, with ideas crashing one upon another, the characters here are remarkable in their compelling ordinariness and awkwardness. It tells of a five-day interview of celebrated novelist David Foster Wallace by rookie Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky on a road book tour following the 1996 publication of Wallace’s groundbreaking novel, Infinite Jest, which wowed a generation with its brilliant virtuosity.
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3D Blu-ray Movie ReviewsBlu-ray Movie Reviews
Minions
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 18, 2016
Picture
3D-ness
Sound
Extras
We first met the Minions in the Despicable Me films. They were the henchmen of Gru, desperate to be seen as The Greatest Villain of All Time. But the Minions movie begins at the dawn of time when these funny, goggle-wearing creatures, babbling in their unique humina-humina-humina language, emerge from the primordial sea. They’re immediately driven to seek out the greatest villain they can find. But no sooner do they find one than they bumble into eliminating him.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Mr. Holmes
Josef Krebs  |  Mar 18, 2016
Picture
Sound
Extras
“Human nature was a mystery that logic alone could not illuminate.” In this tale of memory, fiction, and flashbacked facts, Sir Ian McKellen completely transforms into an aging Sherlock Holmes, a real-life person who’s been misrepresented in Dr. Watson’s books and turned into a romanticized creation. Living in retirement for 33 years following a failure that still haunts him, Holmes, who is rapidly losing his memory, is trying to recall the details of the case that derailed him in the hope of writing an account to correct the “myriad misconceptions created by the imaginative license” Watson had embellished his recounting of the investigations with.
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