LATEST ADDITIONS

Track One
R.I.P. - Ray Manzarek of The Doors
Mike Mettler  |  May 20, 2013

The Doors' keyboard whiz Ray Manzarek died in Rosenheim, Germany on May 20, age 74.

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Surround Sound System ReviewsBookshelf Speaker ReviewsSubwoofer Reviews
Phase Technology V52 Speaker System
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 20, 2013

V52 Speaker System
Performance
Build Quality
Value
Power FL-10 Subwoofer
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value
Price: $1,880 At A Glance: Innately musical monitors • Bipole/dipole surrounds • Powerful subwoofer

Phase Technology is one of the great American loudspeaker makers. The man behind that achievement was Bill Hecht, a genuine first-generation audio pioneer. This review can’t begin without noting his passing last fall at age 89, the end of a life devoted to bringing movies and music into both the public and private realms.

Hecht began his career as an expert in Cinemascope Stereophonic Sound, installing systems at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and other pleasure palaces. His company United Speaker Systems (USS) launched in 1955 as he hand-built speakers, including drive units, in his garage. USS got a boost when Avery Fisher offered a commission to build the first Fisher loudspeakers. Hecht earned several patents, most notably for developing the soft-dome tweeter. He also patented a self-damping woofer voice coil, a manufacturing process for flat piston drivers, silicon-injected drivers for resonance damping, and a basketless midrange/woofer mounting system.

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Audio Video News
Panasonic ZT Series Plasma HDTVs Now Available at Best Buy’s Magnolia
HT Staff  |  May 20, 2013
Panasonic today announced that its flagship ZT60 Series of plasma HDTVs will be available exclusively through approximately 400 Magnolia locations inside Best Buy until July 31. The series offers two screen sizes: The 60-inch TC-P60ZT60 (shown, $3,500) and the 65-inch TC-P65ZT60 ($5,000).
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New Products
GoldenEar launches HT-centric in-wall/in-ceiling speakers
Brent Butterworth  |  May 19, 2013

If there's anyone who writes about audio who hasn't raved about GoldenEar Technology speakers, we don't know 'em.

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Out Of The Blu
Witness WWII from Space, Superman: Unbound and Open Road
Chris Chiarella  |  May 18, 2013
It's World War II as you've never seen it before, while The Man of Steel pays us Earthlings an early visit and a drifter runs the risk of developing roots.
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Headphone Reviews
Sol Republic Master Tracks Headphones
Steve Guttenberg  |  May 17, 2013
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $200 At a Glance: Excellent isolation from the world outside • Bass so solid, you won’t miss your subwoofer • Modular construction

I’ve reviewed more than a hundred headphones, but the Sol Republic Master Tracks is the first to require some “assembly.” No worries; Slip the headband through the ear cups’ slots, plug in the cable, and you’re done. The whole operation takes about a minute.

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Headphone Reviews
Review: SOL Republic Master Tracks
Leslie Shapiro  |  May 17, 2013

Two years ago, not a soul had heard of SOL Republic. Last summer, that all changed as everyone watching the Summer Olympics frantically googled to see what brand of headphones were seemingly permanently attached to swimmer Michael Phelps' head whenever he was out of the water. Overnight, SOL Republic went from "what's that?" to "must have." Can their latest design keep up with the hype?

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Editor's Eye
Value Electronics HDTV Shootout: And Then There Were Three...
Rob Sabin  |  May 17, 2013
Last weekend I attended the annual Flat-Panel HDTV Shootout held each year by Value Electronics, a small independent retailer in the New York City suburb of Scarsdale. This was the 9th year for the event, one that proprietor Robert Zohn started way back when as a marketing tool, but also out of obvious sheer love for the technology. In recent years it’s grown into quite the industry event. Zohn brings in arguably the most skilled and respected calibrators in the world to tune each of the sets to its absolute optimum image, a team which this year included Kevin Miller of ISFTV and Tweak TV, DeWayne “D-Nice” Davis of A/V Fidelity, and David Mackenzie of the U.K. website HDTVtest. The two-day affair was attended by a mix of industry types and press (including the renown Dr. Larry Weber, a brilliant and gregarious leprechaun of a man who many regard as the father of plasma TV), along with Value’s most passionate customers. For those who can’t be in attendance, it’s simulcast on the web and available for later viewing so videophiles everywhere can live vicariously through the attendees.
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New Products
Digital Vudu Revisited
Bob Ankosko  |  May 16, 2013
If you want to create digital copies of Blu-ray and DVD gems you own so you can watch your favorite flicks wherever you happen to be, you won’t have to schlep into Walmart with a bag of discs anymore (“UltraViolet: Building a Movie Library in the Cloud,” October 2012). Walmart is expanding its Disc-to-Digital service so discs you own can be registered for digital conversion on your home PC. Once the discs are authenticated and you’ve paid to acquire the digital copies, movie files are stored in the cloud.
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Grace Notes
Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness
Leslie Shapiro  |  May 16, 2013

 

In addition to innumerable television episodes, Paramount has produced no fewer than 12 Star Trek feature films. The canon is vast, and the core characters and their relationships are familiar to many moviegoers. The dilemma is this: How to make a film that satisfies both hardcore Trekkies as well as more casually invested international movie audiences. Does this latest installment boldly reinvigorate the franchise, or merely recycle it?

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