LATEST ADDITIONS

The Big Picture
Scott Wilkinson Hosts The Tech Guy Radio Show
Scott Wilkinson  |  Dec 12, 2011
Last weekend, I had the honor and privilege—not to mention the great pleasure—of guest hosting Leo Laporte's nationally syndicated radio show, The Tech Guy, while Leo was attending a conference called Le Web in Paris, France, and hobnobbing with the likes of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. I answered call-in questions about home theater for three hours on Saturday and again on Sunday for a listening audience of around a million! I also had a couple of very interesting guests on the show, including Oscar- and Emmy-winning composer Michael Giacchino, whose credits include Lost, Alias, Up, Star Trek, and Super 8 among many others, and film-restoration expert Grover Crisp, who's currently working on Lawrence of Arabia for theatrical and Blu-ray release.

Not only that, I answered more questions from the chat room during the commercial and news breaks, and it was all captured on high-quality video by the incredibly talented crew of TWiT, Leo's podcast network. The video of both days is available right here, so please enjoy this double dose of home theater geeky goodness!

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Ask S&V
Best Screen Size for Optoma HD20
 |  Dec 12, 2011
My room is 13x17, and my seating distance is 13 feet in the long direction. What size screen would be best to use with an Optoma HD20 projector? Since the HD20 is a beginner-level projector, is it better to use a small screen? Does that help control the black level?

Jayalakshmipandurangaricemill Panduranga

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The Big Picture
Scott's Picks
Scott Wilkinson  |  Dec 09, 2011
With so many products among our reviews that merit Top Picks status, I'd like to share with you my personal favorites from 2011. Of course, all of our Top Picks are worthy of your serious consideration, but these are the ones I'd buy if I was shopping for home-theater products in the entry-level, midrange, and high-end price ranges.
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Test Tool Reviews
Bite-Sized Ear Protection: dBLogic SPL Meter
Michael Berk  |  Dec 09, 2011

Volume-limiting earbud outfit dBLogic introduced an interesting little product this past year: a miniature SPL meter ($49.95, dblogic.com), suitable for hanging on a keychain.

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How We Test
How We Test: Audio
Mark J. Peterson  |  Dec 09, 2011
We often get letters at Home Theater asking about our lab tests for audio products and why we perform them. In the simplist terms, our lab trials serve two key functions. The first is to warn you, the consumer, about any false or misleading claims that manufacturers might make about the performance of their products. The second is to add objective insights to the reviewer’s subjective observations about the sound of a product, and most important, create verifiable criteria on which to compare similar products. Our goal is to provide the most pertinent audio technical information and present the data in a consistent manner over time that allows for easy comparison, even over a wide range of model sizes and prices and over the span of many years. Here’s how we condense a day’s worth of measurement data into a few salient points in what we call the Audio Measurement Box.
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Headphone Reviews
Review: Sync by 50 SMS-WS Wireless Headphones
Brent Butterworth  |  Dec 09, 2011

When we heard about the Sync by 50 headphones from SMS Audio, our hearts soared. We hoped that company founder and hip-hop star 50 Cent — or Fiddy, or Fif, or Cent, or Curtis, or whatever the hip-hop cognoscenti are calling him this week — would tap his fabled entrepreneurial skills and no-nonsense business attitude to create the world’s first hip-hop headphones that don’t at least kinda suck.

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Tech2
Kindle vs. Kindle
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Dec 08, 2011

I'm a big fan of the Kindle Fire. It's the iPad's equal in every meaningful measure, plus it sports a more convenient form factor. Check out my review and this week's iPad/tablet face off.

But there's one thing I won't use it for: reading. Chances are, you won't want to either. So if you're thinking about getting one to use as an eReader, allow me a few words to talk you out of it.

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Portable Player Reviews
iPad: The High-Rez Digital Transport for the Rest of Us?
Michael Berk  |  Dec 08, 2011

Does the iPad have a role to play for audiophiles, or for the new breed of iDevice-inspired audio enthusiasts? It's hard to beat the touchscreen interface for music listening - it provides a tactile browsing experience that hands-down beats the UIs on most high-zoot audiophile servers. On the desktop there are plenty of audiophile file players that load audio into RAM for supposedly improved fidelity - but the iPad offers all-solid-state audio storage to begin with, freeing your bits from jitter-inducing hard-drive-access. But is iOS - and the circuitry within - up to snuff?

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Custom Installation How-ToSpeaker SetupSpeaker Tech
How To Install In-Wall Speakers
HT Staff  |  Dec 08, 2011
If you’re reasonably handy and not afraid to cut into drywall in your home, installing in-wall speakers can be a fairly simple affair. You’ll need to assemble the basic tools, including a drywall saw, a stud finder, an electrical snake or fiberglass push rods to run the wires, a tape measure, a drill with a long bit wide enough to pass your speaker wire, and a screwdriver, most typically a No. 2 Phillips.
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HDTV Buying TipsHDTV SetupHDTV Tech
How To Choose: Flat-Panel HDTVs
Thomas J. Norton,  |  Dec 08, 2011
Flat-panel HDTVs have undergone rapid changes in technology and pricing. There are now two types of 3D systems for you to decide between, screen sizes have continued to inch up, prices have come down, and the battle between LCD and plasma for image-quality supremacy has heated up, with the latest generation of top-line LED models challenging plasma’s long-held position at the top of the enthusiast heap.
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