LATEST ADDITIONS

New Products
New Audio Gear Galore
SV Staff  |  May 14, 2013

A lot of new audio stuff launched today, so let's get right to it:

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Campaign
Corey Gunnestad  |  May 14, 2013
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If it weren’t for the 2012 presidential election and the recent public shaming of Anthony Weiner and David Petraeus, we might have a difficult time finding any credibility in the outrageous humor of The Campaign. Scandals, corruption, lies, and character assassination: It isn’t just for breakfast anymore. It’s become part of our daily diet. Just watch CNN, for Pete’s sake.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Ted
Corey Gunnestad  |  May 14, 2013
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One magical night, a lonely young boy named John makes a special wish that his teddy bear will come to life and be his best friend. And on that special night, the fates decide to grant him his wish. The next morning, John introduces Teddy to his absolutely freaked-out parents. Flash-forward 25 years, and John has grown up into a strapping young man who looks astonishingly like Mark Wahlberg. Best friend, Teddy, now just called plain Ted, has grown up, too, but only in maturity…or lack thereof. John and Ted now spend their afternoons getting high in front of the tube and talking trash about women.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A League Of Their Own
Chris Chiarella  |  May 14, 2013
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With each passing year, we seem to be witnessing the further shrinkage of the gender gap, and so movies like A League of Their Own are ever-more fascinating. It shares with modern movie audiences the little-known true tale of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created to help keep the national pastime alive while the menfolk were off fighting World War II. The idea was met with much resistance at the time, and so the girls face challenges off the field as well as on.
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This Week
This Week in Movies & TV, May 14, 2013: Eastern Thoughts Go West
Josef Krebs  |  May 14, 2013

Cloud Atlas

Written and directed by Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski (The Matrix trilogy) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Cloud Atlas takes you on a mind-boggling odyssey through many ages and places that come together to make up the six-story tapestry of lives and previous lives, allowing many of the best actors in Hollywood and England to play multipl

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This Week
This Week in Music, May 14, 2013: Vampire Weekend’s sonic getaway
Ken Richardson  |  May 14, 2013

Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City

New release (XL; tour dates)
Photo by Alex John Beck

“Much of the overall sound and approach to the album was [the outcome of] being able to record the drums to tape on an old Ampex machine at Vox Recording Studios. That put us in a different world. There’s a quality that happens with tape; it lets you really crunch and compress the drums, and they don’t get harsh or painful. It has to do with the transients hitting the tape; something changes. Once the drums have been passed through tape to Pro Tools, you can really mangle them and go crazy with them.”

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Audio Video News
Poll Results: Control Apps Gaining Popularity but Traditional Remotes Still Preferred
HT Staff  |  May 14, 2013
The results of last week’s survey are in. We asked if you use your smartphone or tablet to control A/V gear and nearly two-thirds of the 838 respondents said no, although...
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Headphone Reviews
Review: Alpha Design Labs ADL H118
Michael Berk  |  May 14, 2013

When Furutech launched their consumer-oriented Alpha Design Labs line in 2011 with the GT40 USB DAC/phono stage, it was clear that the company - which has long had a solid reputation among old-school audiophiles as a manufacturer of interconnects, power supply components, and connectors - was making a serious commitment t

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Headphone Reviews
Review: Onkyo ES-HF300 Headphones
Leslie Shapiro  |  May 13, 2013
Onkyo is a well-respected, well-established name in the hi-fi industry. When they announced the release of the ES-HF300 headphone, it was surprising to realize that this is their first foray into headphones. While known more for their receivers and hardware, they have produced speakers in the past. It's amazing they shied away from the market for this long. If first impressions mean anything, the ES-HF300 is, well, impressive.
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AV Receiver Reviews
Sony STR-DA5800ES A/V Receiver
Darryl Wilkinson  |  May 13, 2013

Audio Performance
Video Performance
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Price: $2,100 At A Glance: Free iOS and Android remote control apps • Built-in Control4 home automation controller • Four Easy Automation multi-parameter programmable scenes

A chimera is a mythical animal consisting of parts from various other animals. In Greek mythology, for example, a Chimera (with a capital C) was an unpleasant, fire-breathing creature that had a serpent’s tail, a goat’s body, and a lion’s head. (Insert standard joke about previous spouse/significant other, mother-in-law, editors, etc.) Although it’s not an official definition in the A/V world, I consider a component that’s been soldered together using parts from different components to be a chimera, too. The active soundbar with its amalgamation of amps, speakers, processor, and etc. is a good example of such an electronic creature. The deviant TV/VCR/DVD Franken-combo, on the other hand, is an example of how things can go terribly wrong.

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