LATEST ADDITIONS

Shane Buettner Blog
Extended Surround Sound: To Boldly Go Beyond 5.1?
Shane Buettner  |  Dec 15, 2010
Extended surround sound is nothing new. The staple surround sound configuration for movie theaters and home theaters is digitally delivered, discrete 5.1-channel surround sound. But in both arenas there have also been numerous pushes to move beyond that paradigm. In the DVD era we were given a number of options for expanding our surround sound experience toward the back of the room, from the base 5.1-channel paradigm to 6.1- and 7.1-channels. Although only select DVD titles were encoded with extended surround, within a few years virtually every AV receiver and surround processor in existence offered tool sets that would decode these soundtracks- or any 5.1-channel soundtrack- to 6.1- or 7.1-channels on playback. And just about any AVR you look at today will include seven channels of amplification.
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AV Receiver Reviews
Denon AVR-2311CI A/V Receiver
Mark Fleischmann  |  Dec 15, 2010
Price: $899 At A Glance: 3D and HDMI 1.4a • Audyssey MultEQ, Dynamic EQ, Dynamic Volume • DPLIIz height enhancement with seven channels • Built-in digital HD Radio tuner

Installer’s Pet

It’s not every day that I get to review a product from a 100-year-old brand name. But Denon is indeed celebrating its centenary in 2010.

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Ask S&V
UPS, MEMC, HTG
Scott Wilkinson  |  Dec 15, 2010
Power to the People
I'm buying a new HDTV for my girlfriend for Christmas, but her neighborhood has more then a few power outages a year. What kind of protection do you recommend?

Ron

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Devil (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Dec 15, 2010
A group of five strangers are stranded in an elevator high above Philadelphia. When the lights go out, something bad is bound to happen and in one particular case, someone dies. The building's security guards call the police and Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) comes to investigate the murder but is the Devil the culprit?

This is the first in a series of thrillers dubbed "The Night Chronicles" produced by M. Night Shyamalen based upon his stories. Overall, this is a middling affair that feels more like a TV episode than a feature film and I didn't find the story scary or very thrilling. Then again, I've said the same thing about most of Shyamalen's films since The Sixth Sense.

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Audio Video News
Avatar Stays Exclusive Till 2012
Mark Fleischmann  |  Dec 15, 2010
Panasonic will retain its special arrangement with Avatar, providing the much sought after 3D Blu-ray title to purchasers of its products through February 2012.

James Cameron's masterwork has done much to convince consumers that 3DTV is a worthy investment. And folks can enjoy it at home if they buy a Panasonic 3DTV or Blu-ray player on which to view it. But those who use non-Panasonic gear are still out in the cold for another year. Of course Panasonic provided a lot of production support during the making of the hit movie, so if anyone is going to have a special relationship with Avatar and its producers, it's going to be Panasonic.

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Headphone Amp/DAC Reviews
Review Round Up: iPod Docks
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Dec 14, 2010

What is there left to say about iPods and iPhones that hasn't already been said? These are truly iconic products that exemplify what modern music listening is all about. If the compact disc launched digital audio, then the iPod raised the sails and navigated that boat to every faraway place in the world.

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Audio Video NewsThe Big Picture
New 3D Programming from Discovery, Imax, Sony
Scott Wilkinson  |  Dec 14, 2010
Sony, Imax, and the Discovery Channel have announced new 3D programming for 2011, with three new series, two specials, and the broadcast debut of Open Season in 3D, the first feature-length animated movie from Sony Pictures Animation. The specials include Imax's Space Station narrated by Tom Cruise and a 3D episode of Discovery's Ghost Lab.
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Premiere Design
Audeze LCD-2 Headphones
Scott Wilkinson  |  Dec 14, 2010
When Steve Guttenberg, occasional Stereophile contributor and author of the excellent Audiophiliac blog on cnet.com, told me about the LCD-2 headphones from Las Vegas-based Audeze, I was intrigued. Could these cans rival the incredible Stax SR-007 MKII I reviewed last August?
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Audio Video News
Digitally Stored Music Vanishes
Mark Fleischmann  |  Dec 14, 2010
The music industry is quietly grappling with a digital audio storage crisis that threatens to sweep away many of the musical achievements of the past few decades. The lack of usable masters or other elements is also throwing a spanner into the works of lucrative remasterings and reissues.
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Premiere Design
Kaleidescape Modular Disc Vault
Scott Wilkinson  |  Dec 13, 2010
Last May, I profiled the new M-Class Blu-ray movie server from Kaleidescape, which lets you rip Blu-rays to a server's hard disk and stream their high-def content to any M-Class player connected to your home's Ethernet network. There was only one problem—the physical disc had to be inserted in an M500 player in order to satisfy Blu-ray's copy-protection requirements, which defeats the purpose of a movie server. Today, the company announces a solution to that problem—the Modular Disc Vault.
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