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Projector Reviews
Review: 3M Streaming Projector Powered by Roku
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Nov 05, 2012

This is a fascinating hybrid of a product: a portable projector with built-in, Roku-powered, media streaming.

There are web streamers, and there are projectors, but this is the first time I've seen them combined into one, easy-to-use product.

Fascinating is one thing. Worthwhile? That's a different question. . .

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Ears On
Demos: ELP in 5.1
Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 02, 2012
This just may be the first in a series of blogs on music that finds its way into demos I'm constantly staging for loudspeaker and a/v receiver reviews. Hence the subtitle: Demos. Music is the reason I became an audio critic in the first place. In fact, I was a published music critic long before I became a technology critic, starting in 1979, writing for Spin and Trouser Press and editing the Trouser Press Collectors' Magazine. Tech criticism turned out to be a better way of earning a living but I still see it as an outgrowth of my identity as a music (and movie) critic. As I note in my book: "We master technology so that art can take precedence over technology."

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Power Amplifier Reviews
Anthem Statement M1 Amplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 02, 2012
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $3,500 At A Glance: Enormous power output • Remarkably compact • Class D

Class D amplification has a narcotic-like hold on the audio electronics industry. These switching-mode designs mesmerize with a dazzling array of advantages: high efficiency, high power output, low weight, compact dimensions, and depending on implementation, enormous cost savings.

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Signals
The Billion-Dollar Mashup: Disney Buys Lucasfilm
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 02, 2012

There is one thing that Disney does better than anyone: monetize intellectual property. It isn’t easy to build an empire on the back of a rodent (trust me, I’ve tried) but Walt pulled it off. Now, with its newest acquisition, Disney is ready to expand beyond its earthly properties.

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Tech2
Google Play: Less Lessness?
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Nov 01, 2012

Hot on the heels of Apple’s latest iPad (and lukewarm on the heels of Amazon’s new Kindle Fires), Google announced new Nexus tablets in unsurprising sizes and price points.

As I’ve said before, hardware is largely irrelevant to the tablet market. Greater resolution or processing speed doesn’t help you get more content to download.

To that end, Google announced new licensing deals to bring more content to Play — and I have a chart to prove it.

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This Week
Weekend Blu-ray Update: Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection
Josef Krebs  |  Nov 01, 2012

Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection

The 15 films from 1942-1976 gathered here - Saboteur (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Trouble with Harry (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), The Birds (

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Audio Video News
Coming Attractions
HT Staff  |  Nov 01, 2012
Sennheiser IE 800 Earphones
When a company that’s been making headphones since 1945 announces that its latest earphones deliver “detailed lifelike sound” with a super-wide frequency range of 5 hertz to 46 kilohertz, your ears perk up. The heart of Sennheiser’s IE 800 “ear canal phones” is a miniature, 0.28-inch wide-range driver that’s said to eliminate slight jumps and delays in music repro- duction that occur with the multidriver configuration used in some high-end earphones. Other sound-enhancing features include a venting system that reduces distortion (notice the tiny silver ports) and an absorber that prevents high-frequency resonances from masking quiet sounds in the midrange.

For Any Ear: Sennheiser provides a selection of oval and round silicone adapters to ensure a perfect fit. Price: $787.
Sennheiser • (860) 434-9190 • sennheiserusa.com

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AV Receiver Reviews
Denon AVR-1913 A/V Receiver
Dennis Burger  |  Nov 01, 2012
Audio Performance
Video Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $580 At A Glance: Incredibly intuitive Setup Assistant • Apple AirPlay • Assignable power amps • Network/Internet streaming

As much as the phrase “plug and play” has saturated the electronics world to the point of near-ubiquity, it’s not a label we’ve ever seen applied to the giant mess of inputs, outputs, and speaker connections that define the A/V receiver. That’s not to say that Denon is labeling the AVR-1913 as such, but you could make the case. Or, if not plug and play, perhaps plug and poke and plug and poke and plug and poke and play. (The comedic value would at least outweigh any drawbacks in marketability.)

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Smokey and the Bandit
Chris Chiarella  |  Nov 01, 2012
Picture
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
The second-highest-grossing movie of 1977 (behind only a certain science-fantasy film of some renown) and one of the biggest hits in the esteemed history of Universal Studios, Smokey and the Bandit combined frequent car chases, vast amounts of beer, and copious nose-thumbing at The Man to create a wildly popular piece of entertainment. Like most movies of the era, it lacks the slickness of modern fare and relies more heavily on the charm of its star, Burt Reynolds, as legendary trucker Bo “Bandit” Darville. He takes a big bet to deliver 400 cases of Coors beer across five states in only 28 hours, an extremely difficult and highly illegal challenge.
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Sweepstakes
AudioQuest DragonFly USB Digital-Audio Converter and Sydney Interconnect Sweepstakes
Jon Iverson  |  Oct 31, 2012  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2012
Register to win an AudioQuest DragonFly USB Digital-Audio Converter and Sydney Interconnect (MSRP $478) we are giving away.

DragonFly is an affordable and easy-to-use device that delivers far superior sound by bypassing the poor quality sound card that is built into your computer. DragonFly is a sleek, flash drive sized Digital-Audio Converter that connects to a USB jack on a Mac or Windows PC, turning any computer into a true high- fidelity music source.

[This Sweepstakes is now closed.]

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