LATEST ADDITIONS

Headphone Reviews
Onkyo ES-HF300 Headphone
Steve Guttenberg  |  Oct 24, 2013

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $179

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Clean styling
Neutral and highly accurate sound
Looks more expensive than it is
Minus
Could have more headband padding

THE VERDICT
Onkyo’s debut outing in the headphone market is near perfect.

We are living in a golden age for headphones. New models and even types of headphones are announced, and a month or two later, there’s another deluge. The waves of entry-level, midrange, and high-end models never let up. But even in the midst of headphone mania, Onkyo’s ES-HF300 distinguishes itself on a number of counts. I’m happy to see that rather than take the shiny plastic design route, the ES-HF300 sports brushed, black anodized aluminum construction, and it looks thoroughly modern and yet classic.

Continue Reading »
3D Blu-ray Movie ReviewsBlu-ray Movie Reviews
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Corey Gunnestad  |  Oct 24, 2013
Picture
3D-ness
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
In the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel, the titular children are lost in the woods and find a house made of candy. Starving, they devour the architecture with little regard for the occupant inside. The wicked witch who lives there lures them in and tries to eat them for supper. Any homeowner would sympathize. But they overpower the old crone and throw her into her own oven and burn her to death.
Continue Reading »
Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Identity Thief
Corey Gunnestad  |  Oct 24, 2013
Picture
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
In the opening scene of Identity Thief, financial analyst Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) receives a phone call from the Fraud Protection Department at Indenti-Vault Credit Monitoring Service. A woman named Janine informs him that someone has tried to steal his identity. Fortunately, they prevented it in time, but to circumvent future problems, she offers him a free total protection plan that will safeguard his credit against theft or fraud.
Continue Reading »
Ask S&V
Nixing "Made in China" for North American-made Audio Gear
Al Griffin  |  Oct 24, 2013
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com.

Q I am looking to buy an amplifier and speakers manufactured someplace other than China. Can you recommend some options? My budget is $2,000 total for both amp and speakers (tower or bookshelf). —Gopal Venkat / via email

I cut the political content from your question because I don’t feel that this column is the best forum to discuss those issues. That said, I’m happy to help you find gear in your price range that’s made someplace other than China.

Continue Reading »
Blu-ray Movie ReviewsThis Week
This Week in Movies & TV, October 22, 2013: Pure Talent—19 Movies in 3 Gift Sets
Josef Krebs  |  Oct 23, 2013
Three super collections on Blu-ray—John Cassavetes: Five Films, The Vincent Price Collection, Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection
Continue Reading »
The S&V Interview
Bass Maestro Tony Levin
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 23, 2013
How low can you go? If you’re Tony Levin, vaunted bassist and Chapman Stick pluckmaster known for adventurous, innovative low-end work with heavy hitters like Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, it’s also a question of how far. Even with such a storied pedigree, Levin, 67, has always been one to constantly seek new challenges, and he’s met that creative hunger head on with his current collaboration, Levin Minnemann Rudess, a progressive trio that also consists of drummer Marco Minnemann (Steven Wilson, UKZ) and keyboardist extraordinaire Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment).
Continue Reading »
Audio Video News
Poll Results: Soundbars Have Their Place....Just Not in My AV Setup
SV Staff  |  Oct 23, 2013
Soundbars may be one of the top selling categories in consumer electronics today, offering a simple and inexpensive path to (faux) surround sound, but many hardcore enthusiasts who read Sound & Vision wouldn’t dream of using one for their main AV setup, according to the findings of our soundbar poll. We asked “do you own a soundbar" and offered several yes/no choices, but the vote wasn’t as overwhelming against soundbars as you might think. Although half of the respondents “would never consider a soundbar,” four in ten acknowledged using one for different reasons. Here’s the breakdown…
Continue Reading »
Music ReviewsThis Week
This Week in Music, October 22, 2013: Woody Guthrie, “American Radical Patriot”
Ken Richardson  |  Oct 22, 2013
Also: Van Morrison’s Moondance in 5.1 on Blu-ray, Santana’s third album on audiophile vinyl, and ’80s tunes revamped by The Big Bright. Plus, let’s see…oh, yeah, Katy Perry.

Continue Reading »
Remotely Possible
Cheap Home Automation or Just Cheap Crap?
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 22, 2013
Maybe I’m still suffering the aftereffects of installation overstimulation at CEDIA last month, but it seems that everywhere I turn someone’s talking up home automation. Yesterday, for example, Control4 issued a press release touting – and rightly so – the many benefits of integrating home security systems with home automation systems. While that’s definitely awesome, the more interesting buzz that I’ve noticed lately isn’t about Home Automation, where the cost of the hardware, installation, and programming is often discussed in terms of a percentage of the cost of the home it’s installed in. No, the chatter du jour is about home automation “for the rest of us” (to borrow a term from Apple that originally had nothing to do with price, nor does it now). Once again, there’s a push to bring home automation to the masses – or at least to the smaller masses who would be willing to spend a couple hundred bucks for it.

But what kind of home automation can you get for $200 or maybe, if you’re willing to splurge, $300?

Continue Reading »
Music Reviews
Two Ways to Digital
Bob Ankosko  |  Oct 22, 2013
Hands on with Walmart’s Vudu In-Home Disc to Digital Service and Disney’s Digital Copy+

Walmart’s Vudu To Go app (Digital Vudu Revisited), a follow-up to the Disc to Digital service launched last year that lets you unlock digital copies of DVD and Blu-ray movies you buy or purchase digital rights to discs you already own, is now up and running (in beta form as of this writing). Unlike the original service, which required you to bring discs to Walmart (UltraViolet: Building a Movie Library in the Cloud,), the app lets you convert discs from a Mac or Windows-based PC in your home and store them in the cloud so they can be accessed for streaming or downloading on multiple devices.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X