AT A GLANCE Plus
Three bands with automatic switching for greater dedicated bandwidth to individual devices
Fast, reliable streaming throughout home network
Two USB ports make hard drives accessible within home and remotely
Minus
Dashboard makes it hard to customize some settings
Automated band switching and QoS remove options to change settings to suit your needs
No backup or media management software
THE VERDICT
A speedy, reliable router that’s great if you accept its automatic settings.
As I’ve taken to streaming as much 4K video as I can from Netflix and Amazon, it was important to get the fastest router. Perhaps there’s something psychological about the candy-apple red glossy exterior that reminds me of a cross between a drag racer and a spaceship, or perhaps it was its impressive specs, but either way, I was inspired to try out D-Link’s DIR890L/R top-of-the-line tri-band router.
Dolby Atmos, for you members of the unwashed and uninformed masses (yeah, you know who you are), enables film sound designers to treat individual sonic elements as virtual “objects” that can be placed and moved almost anywhere within the three-dimensional space of a movie theater. Two things are important about its adaptation for home theater. First, the soundfield—in its original, discretely encoded version, not an extrapolated one—is no longer limited to a two-dimensional plane circling around your ears.
InRoom Bronze LR-H Speaker System Performance Build Quality Value
InWall Bronze/4 SlimSub Performance Build Quality Value
PRICE $11,050
AT A GLANCE Plus
Dolby Atmos enabled
Natural, open character
Superb match with InWall Bronze/4 SlimSub
Minus
Atmos operation limits use in cabinets or behind a screen
THE VERDICT
Awesome for Atmos and awesome at most everything else.
Nine out of 11.4 people (approximately) reading this report are thinking, “Who the hell is Triad?” (Hopefully, fewer folks are asking, “What the hell is Atmos?” If you’re one of them, hang in there. I’ll get to Atmos in a bit.) To answer the original question, Triad is a Swiss Army Knife-like manufacturer of custom-installed speakers. That is, regardless of the particular application, Triad has a blade—er, speaker—designed and built for it (in the U.S. of A., by the way). You need in-room, in-ceiling, or in-wall speakers? Check. Invisible in-wall speakers? Ditto. OK, what kind of subwoofer do you want? The standard in-room or an in-wall design? Yes and yes. (Yawn.) Why not try something a little less common, like one of Triad’s on-wall, in-cabinet, or in-ceiling subwoofers? Then there’s Triad’s esoteric and rather sinister-looking FlexSub, which includes an expandable, flexible tube that channels the bass output from the hidden subwoofer cabinet to a remotely located grate or grille.
In what may be the latest sign of a struggling giant, Sony is shutting down its online Sony Store on August 28. Earlier this year, the company closed all but one of its retail locations, leaving its flagship New York City store intact.
Q I’m shopping for an outdoor speaker to use on my back patio and was leaning toward Sonos. Here are my questions: Can I stream audio to Sonos speakers via Bluetooth from my iPhone? Also, are Sonos speakers able to both play tracks from my computer’s iTunes library and stream them from Apple Music? —Jim Flynn
Cost-conscious home theater enthusiasts still waiting patiently for a projector with a bright image and decent blacks for under a thousand bucks could be celebrating this summer with the release of Epson's latest 1080p entries.
In a recent Signals blog (“Saving Hi-Res Audio”) Ken Pohlmann spotlighted the near-rabid sniping in the audiophile community and the public at large about whether hi-res audio delivers real, discernible benefits. Ken suggested that if the music industry wants hi-res to succeed, they should drop the significant premium now attached to hi-res downloads and charge the same as for any other music file, then reap the benefit of people buying more music because they like engaging with high-quality content.
Pioneer has packed five-channel discrete amplification, Ultra HD passthrough with HDCP 2 support, and Bluetooth/aptX connectivity into its new budget AV receiver, the VSX-530-K, which carries a suggested retail price of $280.