LATEST ADDITIONS

SmartStream
Sling TV: Get Premium Channels Free on Weekends
Barb Gonzalez  |  Jun 22, 2022
Sling TV is offering free weekends for premium channels and deals to attract new subscribers. Each weekend from Friday, June 24th through the end of August 2022, will be "Freeview Weekends" where all Sling TV subscribers can watch premium channels without signing up or paying for them.
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Music and Soundtrack Features
Moving Pictures: Rush's 1981 Masterpiece Gets its Due in Atmos
Mike Mettler  |  Jun 21, 2022
Rush’s February 1981 masterpiece Moving Pictures ushered in a previously uncharted era that brought prog rock closer to the heart of the masses. And now, 41 years later, this landmark album gets its further due, thanks to a truly comprehensive multidisc box set and a fully immersive Dolby Atmos mix.
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Signals
Obegränsad: That's a Mouthful
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jun 20, 2022
I like Swedish meatballs and I cannot lie. Moreover, I would seldom say a discouraging word about cinnamon rolls. Therefore, when IKEA announced that it will be serving up a turntable, my appetite was immediately whetted.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Matrix Resurrections
Brandon A. DuHamel  |  Jun 17, 2022
Picture
Sound
Extras
In The Matrix: Resurrections, Neo (Keanu Reeves) is a developer responsible for the most popular game trilogy, one that ponders what would happen if AI took over the world and we didn't realize it. In his everyday life, listless and disconnected, Neo is seeing a therapist called the Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) who has been prescribing him blue pills so he can get his head right. Turns out that Neo is back in the Matrix and he doesn't know it, but he can feel it. Thankfully, people are trying to rescue him. They also stumble across something new in the Matrix, called "modals," where incidents from Neo's past are being replayed over and over, but the outcomes are slightly different each time.
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Spatial Audio File
Ground Control to Spatial Audio
Mike Mettler  |  Jun 17, 2022

As the lead track for this week’s Spatial Audio File is very much a cosmic experience by its very nature, it served as a nice parallel for how truly great Atmos mixes can put you in a different listening space altogether—one that’s fully enveloping and takes you on a journey outside of your normal, day-to-day environmental confines. Frankly, any time music can take you somewhere you usually aren’t is something that’s a-ok in my book.

As per my usual SAF M.O., each of these five tracks has been quite thoroughly test-driven aurally via personal deep-dive listening sessions on both my home system and headphones alike. It’s hardly difficult to tell by now that I quite enjoy engaging with the very best offerings of Made for Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos tracks found within the ever-enlarging Apple Music library in any listening experience locale I can.

That said, this week’s five-spot of cosmically cool and universally immersive tracks are. . .

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Projection Screen Reviews
Elite Screens Kestrel Tab-Tension 2 CLR 3 Series Screen Review
Al Griffin  |  Jun 16, 2022

Performance
Setup
Value
PRICE $2,320

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Screen fully retracts when not in use
IR and RF remote controls
Very good value
Minus
Slight slackness at screen’s bottom edges when extended

THE VERDICT
The Elite Screens Kestrel is a well-made, reasonably-priced, and easy-to-set-up option for those who want their projection screen to disappear when it’s not in use.

Plenty of custom solutions have been developed to house ultra-short throw (UST) projectors, a category designed to beam bright, living-room friendly images from a position just a few inches away from the bottom edge of the projection screen. The main ones are furniture-grade cabinets with an interior compartment for stowing away the projector so it remains out of sight both in use and when powered off.

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Audio Video News
DTS Play-Fi Gets a Home Theater Upgrade
Joe Palenchar  |  Jun 16, 2022
DTS Play-Fi technology, known primarily for home-wide wireless multiroom-audio distribution, is getting a variety of upgrades that could make it a bigger player in wireless home theater.
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Editor's Eye
The Evolution of Bass
Al Griffin  |  Jun 15, 2022
In recent months we experienced the happy convergence of having three formidable THX Certified subwoofers in house for testing, including M&K’s beastly X15+, all of which tied in perfectly with technical editor Thomas J. Norton’s overview of the latest version of Audyssey’s room EQ processing, MultEQ-X
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A/V Veteran
Never Underestimate the Impact of Room Acoustics on Sound Quality
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jun 14, 2022
Looking to improve the sound of your system? Before you start switching out gear, assess the acoustics of your room. You may be surprised by what you find.
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Signals
Remembering a Remarkable Man
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jun 13, 2022
I’d like to tell you about Thomas Yuen, former chairman and CEO of SRS Labs, who died earlier this year at the age of 70. I didn’t know him well, but he made a tremendous impression on me.
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