LATEST ADDITIONS

Steve Guttenberg  |  Oct 22, 2007
A bigger bang.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit up front that I have a thing for big speakers. Not because they can play louder, reproduce much wider dynamics, and make more bass than smaller speakers—it's that the big ones are just more fun to listen to. Yes, a lot of them come with big price tags, and Klipsch's full-size Reference RF-83 Home Theater definitely sounds pricey. Its formidable transparency and resolution are a big part of that; you hear subtleties that other speakers gloss over. When I turn up the volume, the sound's character doesn't change, and there's no sense of increasing distortion or strain; the sound simply grows louder. No small speaker I've used, and certainly no in-wall speaker I've heard (no matter how advanced or expensive), has matched the big References' ease under pressure. The six-piece Klipsch Reference RF-83 system sells for $6,394, a slam-dunk bargain, at least by high-end standards. Stereophile magazine reviews interconnect cables with a price tag higher than that.

Mark Fleischmann  |  Oct 22, 2007
In the beginning, there was Napster, and it was good, albeit illegal. Over the years the file-sharing pioneer went legit and became a subscription service. Now Napster is looking to improve its game by untethering its 770,000 subscribers from its proprietary software. Soon Napsterites will be able to access a library of five million tracks from any net-connected computer without downloading the Napster application itself. Welcome to Napster 4.0.
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 21, 2007

The Revel Ultima series has survived for an unusually long time in the competitive loudspeaker market. I reviewed a Revel Ultima home theater package built around the stand-mounted <A HREF="http://ultimateavmag.com/speakersystems/44/">Ultima Gem</A> way back in 1998. When a line of speakers can remain a fixture in the audio world for so long, largely unchanged, it's a reflection on its solid performance out of the gate.

Mark Fleischmann  |  Oct 19, 2007
"Digital copy" is the name of a feature about to make its debut on Fox's DVD release of Live Free or Die Hard. The disc will include a version that can be bumped to a computer or Windows PlaysForSure compatible portables.
Jeff Perlah  |  Oct 18, 2007
The Last Sucker
The Last Sucker 13th Planet/Megaforce
Music •••• Sound •••½
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Parke Puterbaugh  |  Oct 18, 2007

SV Staff  |  Oct 18, 2007
Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson (holding down the middle position and leaning on the center channel in the accompanying photo) dropped by the S&V offices yesterday for a 2-hour surround-sound listening session with yours truly (at right)...
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 18, 2007

DisplaySearch is a company that produces technology assessments, surveys, studies, and analyses of the current state of video display technology. Every year for the past four years they organize a two-day HDTV event. This year's, the DisplaySearch 5th Annual HDTV Conference, was held at the Hilton hotel at Universal City, CA.

Mark Fleischmann  |  Oct 18, 2007
Say goodbye to outmoded TVs that stand in the way of progress. Best Buy is taking out the garbage, becoming the first big electronics chain to banish analog TVs from its stores. You go, mega-retailer!
SV Staff  |  Oct 17, 2007
It was a lesson in perspective this week in Baja California, Mexico, where Sharp Electronics officially cut the ribbon on a $300 million LCD manufacturing plant in Rosarito. While American journalists were busy scribbling notes about screen sizes...

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