LATEST ADDITIONS

Audio Video News
Harman Wants You to Hear the Truth
Michael Berk  |  Sep 01, 2011

Hopefully you've all been training your ears with Harman's nifty freeware "How to Listen" app, because the audio giant now launched a campaign that gets back to their core values - great sound, simply put - and brings on some highly visible (and highly international) spokespeople to spread the word.

Continue Reading »
Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Blu-ray Review: The Beaver
Ken Korman  |  Sep 01, 2011

Clinical depression isn’t exactly the stuff of Hollywood dreams. And in 2011, neither is Mel Gibson. His real-life drunken tirades have cost him dearly — and they make him an unlikely candidate for the necessarily sympathetic movie role of a severely depressed man who takes to talking through a beaver hand-puppet just to survive.

Continue Reading »
Music Reviews
CD Review: Beethoven’s “Fidelio”
Robert Ripps  |  Aug 31, 2011

In his monumental six-part work The Oxford History of Western Music, Richard Taruskin begins the volume devoted to the 19th century with Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, which debuted in Vienna in 1805 before its final revised version was staged there in 1814. Here we have an opus of searing intensity that signaled the arrival of Romanticism in music.

Continue Reading »
Audio Video NewsMusic Reviews
Rush Signs to . . . Roadrunner
Michael Berk  |  Aug 31, 2011

In a sign of the times for the changing music industry (and an interesting twist in the lengthy tale of the most popular band - 40 million albums sold worldwide and 11 Stateside top tens - to only make it into Rolling Stone magazine once), Canadian prog superheroes Rush have signed with U.S. metal indie Roadrunner (they'll be staying with Anthem/Universal in Canada only).

Continue Reading »
Audio Video NewsMusic Reviews
Picking Up Good Vibrations
Michael Berk  |  Aug 31, 2011

One of the most famous (and probably most bootlegged) unfinished albums in rock history is about to see the light of day in an offical release, authorized by the band, including Brian Wilson (who had in 2004 released - with Van Dyke Parks - his Continue Reading »

Ask S&V
Amplifier Damage
Scott Wilkinson  |  Aug 31, 2011
Can an audio amplifier be damaged by running it without speakers connected? For example, a surround system without the rear speakers hooked up or one channel of a stereo amp not connected.

Craig Farraway

Continue Reading »
Tech2
On Measuring and Calibration: Plasma Contrast Ratios
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Aug 31, 2011

I just finished a plasma TV review for an upcoming issue of S+V. As I was writing up its brightness and contrast ratios, I realized there could be some confusion about the numbers.

If you measure the contrast ratio of plasmas (all plasmas, not just this one) the same way you do other types of televisions - namely LCDs and projectors - they post poorer numbers than other technologies.

This isn't a performance issue as much as it's a measurement issue. And why that is . . . that's kinda interesting.

Continue Reading »
Bookshelf Speaker Reviews
Monitor Audio Gold GX50 Speaker System
Mark Fleischmann  |  Aug 30, 2011

Performance
Value
Build Quality
Price: $7,480 At A Glance: Two-way monitors with ribbon tweeters • High-quality parts including silver cabling • Three veneer and two lacquer finishes

No home theater system is complete without both a big screen and surround sound. But it’s no secret that the former is more popular than the latter. Surround’s Achilles’ heel is the audio/video receiver, with its peculiarly named features and labyrinthine menus. On the other hand, speakers are fairly straightforward. They usually have no controls aside from a few on the sub. Cable connection is red to red, black to black. Placement is key to performance but as much a matter of simple experimentation as knowledge. You don’t need to be a nuclear physicist to hear bass get louder when you shove a speaker toward a corner.

Continue Reading »
Custom Installation How-ToHome Movie Theaters
Dream Theater: From Hobby to Profession
Mike Ellsworth  |  Aug 30, 2011
Photos by Kristine Crosby

When it came time to build a home theater in the basement of our home (14.5 by 18.5 feet), my wife set the tone by requesting a traditional movie theater décor with a touch of whimsy. On the technical side, I was most concerned about the installation and soundproofing to ensure it sounded as terrific as it looked. The walls, stage, and seating platform are all filled with insulation, and the walls are covered with sound panels, made from 1-inch-thick batting, and covered with velvet fabric and then framed with wood trim boxes. Molding added the extra bit of elegance, and pillars gave the room dimension and function. Doubling as sound panels, two of the pillars have cabinet doors. One of them opens to reveal the equipment rack; the other has shelves for storage.

Continue Reading »
Curtain Call
California Streaming
Michael J. Nelson  |  Aug 30, 2011
Although I’ve lived a fairly mundane existence, there are several points of mild interest: I was once nearly killed by wasps. I have met Jesse “The Body” Ventura on a number of occasions (I preferred the wasps, for what it’s worth). And I once ate nothing but bacon for 29 straight days. No, I didn’t eat much bacon—didn’t eat much of anything at all—but yes, everything I did eat was bacon. Still, despite these moderately fascinating midlights (highlights is too strong a word), people seem inordinately intrigued by what I consider a biographical detail of little to no importance, something I’ve mentioned in this column before: that is my having had no source of regular TV (i.e., cable, satellite, or over-the-air) for more than a decade. “Why? What happened?!” they say, with the same pitying tone they might ask, “Are you ill? Have you had some sort of brain trauma?” (For the record, I can’t account for every hour I’ve been alive, but no, none that I can remember.)
Continue Reading »

Pages

X