LATEST ADDITIONS

Tech2
This Week Around the Web, June 17th Edition
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jul 06, 2011

Roger Ebert finds a cool infographic on PC people and Mac people. Mac users are hipsters, PC users are...conservatives?

Continue Reading »
Tech2
Attack of the Megasub
Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 06, 2011

While on a swing through Vancouver this week to check out the vintage audio scene, I stopped by to say hi to the guys at Vancouver Audio Speaker Clinic, an old-school speaker repair shop of the type I haven’t seen since I was a kid in the 1970s trying to resurrect the shredded speakers from my

Continue Reading »
Ask S&V
Equalizers and Tape Monitoring
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jul 06, 2011
I've had a very old equalizer for about 25 years, and I would love to use it for listening to my tapes. To do so, however, I didn't know that the receiver needs a "tape monitor" capability, which most modern receivers don't have. Are there any equalizers that do not need tape monitoring?

Lafonte

Continue Reading »
A/V Veteran
Hobbits, Rings, and 48Hz Things
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 06, 2011
Recently, I was doing some online research for my review of the new, Extended Edition The Lord of the Rings Blu-ray boxed set, which will appear in the October 2011 issue of Home Theater magazine. A search for director Peter Jackson produced a pile of information. Jackson today doesn't look as much like a slightly oversized Hobbit as he did when the show was in production (Jenny Craig got to him, or something). His earliest cinematic fascination was with gross-out horror—an interest clearly reflected in the designs for the Orcs and other nasties in Rings. There's a particularly disgusting added sequence near the end of the Extended Edition of The Return of the King that clearly shows this fixation is far from conquered. If "The Mouth of Sauron" is any indication, Sauron and his minions need a much better dental plan.
Continue Reading »
Tech2
HiFiMan HM-801 Portable-ish Music Player Review
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jul 06, 2011

HiFiMan's HM-801 ($790, head-direct.com) is the size of a Walkman - I mean literally. A cassette could fit inside it, with plenty of room leftover for the heads, playback motors, and whatever other analog hoopla those things had.

Continue Reading »
Curtain Call
Manual Labor
Michael J. Nelson  |  Jul 06, 2011
Something huge has recently transpired, something world changing. It happened almost without notice while we were all distracted by other things, but it represents a profound cultural shift. When purchasing a piece of electronic gear, it is now nearly impossible to avoid reading the damned manual.
Continue Reading »
Ask S&V
3D Obsolescence
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jul 05, 2011
I'm thinking about getting a Samsung UN46D7000 with my tax return this year. That means I'll have to upgrade my A/V receiver and HDMI cables, plus I plan to get a 3D Blu-ray player since the PS3 doesn't do 3D Blu-ray as well as a dedicated player.

The thing is, all this gear is made for 1080p at 24 frames per second, but filmmakers like James Cameron and Peter Jackson are talking about 48 and 60fps. If I buy now, am I just going to have to buy a new system again next year, or will the standard stay viable at least long enough to get some value out of the current generation of gear?

Nik

Continue Reading »
Home Theater Geeks Podcast
Podcast 71: Scott Wilkinson
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jul 05, 2011
In this special episode of Home Theater Geeks, I take viewers on a video tour of my own home theater and answer many questions from the chat room. Plus, my wife Joanna drops by at the end and we sing a little duet!

Run Time: 1:28:36

Continue Reading »
Bookshelf Speaker Reviews
NHT SuperZero 2.0 Speaker System
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 05, 2011

Performance
Value
Build Quality
Price: $879 (for updated SuperZero 2.1 system)
At A Glance: SuperZero 2.0 updates popular mini-monitor • Voiced to be more relaxed and forgiving • Sub packs 8-inch driver into 11-inch enclosure

Feel-Good Sensation

Consider the mini-monitor. It’s smaller than a monitor and bigger than a satellite.

If the mini-monitor in question is the NHT SuperZero 2.0, it doesn’t have much bass and therefore needs to be mated with a subwoofer. But in the surround arena, where subs are standard equipment, bass-shyness is not so much a weakness as a characteristic.

Continue Reading »
Game Review: Alice: Madness Returns Page 2
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Jul 05, 2011

Without a doubt, Alice: Madness Returns has the most beautiful and well-realized aesthetic of any game I've seen in ages. But, I'm begging you to never play it. Why? Because it's heartbreaking that a world rife with so many imaginative possibilities ends up feeling so empty, so dull, and so soulless.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X