LATEST ADDITIONS

Tech2
Review: Edifier Spinnaker Desktop Speakers
Brent Butterworth  |  Aug 28, 2012

Even in a tech-packed place like the January Consumer Electronics Show, the Edifier Spinnaker stood out like a. . . well, like a pair of red rhinoceros horns at an electronics trade show. I noticed it from about 70 feet away and rushed right over to see it. These days, you see lots of crazy designs for audio systems, but the Spinnaker looked crazy-cool, not crazy-silly. I demanded a review sample right then and there.

Continue Reading »
New Products
New Gear: Klipsch Gives the Image One Headphone a Makeover and a Wireless Sibling
Michael Berk  |  Aug 28, 2012

We took a long listen to Klipsch's Image One on-ear headphone when it launched last year, and found them to be a highly competitive portable phone, especially when judged against the mic/remote-sporting on-ear competition of the time - most of which (like the Bowers &Wilkins P5) cost a lot more or (like the Beats Solo) simply didn't sound as good.

Continue Reading »
Ask S&V
Where Should I Set My Subwoofer Crossover?
Rob Sabin  |  Aug 28, 2012
i just upgraded to a bigger subwoofer, a JBL ES250P rated at 400 watts RMS and 700 watts peak power. The sub specs say it can play down to 25 Hz, which is very low, and the sub has a crossover adjustment that goes from 150 Hz to 50hz. My HSU Research speakers are rated down to 60 Hz. Should I set the subwoofer crossover at or near 60 Hz? Or all the way up to 150 Hz? I currently have my system crossed over at 100 Hz.

Bob

Continue Reading »
This Week
New Blu-rays for August 28, 2012: A Rich HD Harvest of TV Series
Josef Krebs  |  Aug 28, 2012

Boardwalk Empire: Season 2

"After you get what you want you don't want what you wanted at all." A great sense of loss runs throughout Boardwalk Empire, the Terence Winter-created, Martin Scorsese-executive produced gangster series set in Atlantic City of the Roaring Twenties.

Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The NHT SuperZero Speaker
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 28, 2012
Over-performing little speakers were always part of the high-end scene, but NHT’s SuperZero was the one that broke the mold. I recently spoke with NHT founder and president Chris Byrne to learn more about this classic speaker. The model that preceded it was, naturally enough, the Zero, but it didn’t take off, so it was redesigned with a different tweeter, a Japanese 1-inch soft dome made by Tonnegen. The woofer was a 4.5-inch treated paper cone driver, made in San Diego. The SuperZero sold for $230 per pair in 1993.
Continue Reading »
Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Chinatown
Shane Buettner  |  Aug 28, 2012
Picture
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
Chinatown is an impossibly perfect movie from the glory years of the 1970s, when great filmmakers were routinely working within the Hollywood system. Consider that Chinatown’s 1974 Oscar competition was Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II and The Conversation, and you get the idea. Robert Towne’s complex but tightly woven screenplay, set amid L.A.’s 1930s water wars, is a clinic on screenwriting. Every detail is of great consequence as the misdirection peels away and the baser, more painful truths are revealed, culminating in a haunting, unforgettable ending that starkly reveals the cynicism of the film’s title.
Continue Reading »
Subwoofer Reviews
Sunfire Atmos Subwoofer
David Vaughn  |  Aug 28, 2012
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value
Price: $2,000 At a Glance: Extremely small form factor • Powerful, tight bass response • Impeccable build quality

Bob Carver is a legend in the A/V industry, and when he formed Sunfire in the 1990s, the company’s name became closely associated with subwoofers. In 1996, the Sunfire True Subwoofer, as it was marketed, was born, and it popularized what eventually became a whole new subcategory (so to speak) of the speaker industry. The 11.5-inch cube produced a copious amount of bass from a small enclosure by utilizing specially designed drive units and a patented Tracking Downconverter (TDC) amplifier that could dynamically adjust its power supply based on the incoming signals.

Continue Reading »
The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Guild Wars 2 Audio Director James Ackley
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Aug 28, 2012

The dragons are back from the ocean's depths. Today marks the release of Guild Wars 2, the new massively multiplayer online role playing game (think World of Warcraft meets Star Wars: The Old Republic) from developer ArenaNet. S+V got a chance to chat with Guild Wars 2's audio director, James Ackley, who told us about the challenges and rewards of designing sound for an MMO.

Continue Reading »
This Week
New Music for August 28, 2012: Late Summer Doom, Gloom, and Glam
Michael Berk  |  Aug 28, 2012

Remake/Remodel

Roxy Music The Complete Studio Recordings 1972-1982
Reissue (Virgin)

Continue Reading »
TV ReviewsLCD TV Reviews
LG 55LM9600 3D LCD HDTV
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 28, 2012
2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $3,600 At A Glance: Superb detail, accurate color • Two- and 20-step calibration controls • Magic Remote tedious to use • Disappointing black level

The pick of the litter in today’s LCD HDTV designs is full LED backlighting with local dimming. Such sets first appeared in 2008, but the process of positioning clusters of LEDs behind the screen was, and is, expensive. While LCD sets with LED lighting have now become ubiquitous, most of them use edge lighting (sometimes with a limited form of dynamic dimming, sometimes without) in which a smaller number of LEDs are located at the borders of the screen. This both keeps the price down and enables slender, more stylish sets.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X