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Music Reviews
The Band: The Last Waltz, 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 17, 2017
Performance
Sound
If The Band didn’t slow down and get off the road—and get off the road soon—they were going to wind up killing themselves, to a man. “It’s a goddamn impossible way of life,” says Band leader/guitarist/chief songwriter Robbie Robertson of being stuck on the wheel of a crushing, never-ending tour cycle. That urgent “stop the road, I want to get off” mentality was one of the main driving forces behind The Band masterminding a farewell concert for the ages at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco during Thanksgiving 1976, dubbed from the get-go-then-get-gone as The Last Waltz.
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Headphone Reviews
Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature Headphones
Steve Guttenberg  |  Mar 17, 2017
Performance
Build Quality
Comfort
Value
PRICE $899

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Sumptuous build quality
Best Bowers & Wilkins headphone yet
Comes with an Apple Lightning cable
Minus
Brown is the only color

THE VERDICT
With the P9 Signature, Bowers & Wilkins enters the higher echelons of the crowded audiophile headphone market with a real contender.

Unlike nearly every other speaker company that jumped into the headphone market with a complete line, Bowers & Wilkins has released just one (or two) headphones at a time. The P5 on-ear was first out of the gate in 2010; then the C5 in-ear and P3 on-ear; the Series 2 versions of those headphones followed; next came the over-the-ear P7; more recently the wireless P5 and P7; and now the all-new flagship P9 Signature. Thanks to the slow and steady approach, the sound for all of B&W’s headphones has been consistently chocolatey-rich. The P9 Signature is similar, but the sound is more evolved.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Ghostbusters (2016)
Brandon A. DuHamel  |  Mar 17, 2017
Picture
Sound
Extras
Forget all the hyperbole about an all-female cast and man-hating: Is this Ghostbusters reboot any good simply based on merit? Yes and no. The movie retreads familiar ground and tries too hard to emulate its predecessor but has fantastic special effects. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones are a group of paranormal hunters. McCarthy and Wiig play longtime pals once estranged from each other, reunited when Wiig is fired from her position at Columbia University due to McCarthy’s publishing of a book they wrote years earlier expounding on the existence of ghosts.
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Audio Video News
Ottava Releases First MQA-Encoded CD. Yes, CD.
SV Staff  |  Mar 17, 2017
The Japanese music label Ottava today released the first MQA-encoded CD, A. Piazzolla by Strings and Oboe—recorded by Unamas Piazzolla Septet.
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Surround Sound System ReviewsTower Speaker Reviews
Phase Technology dARTS DFS-660-T Speaker System Review
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Mar 16, 2017

Performance
Build Quality
Value
PRICE $48,000 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Audyssey MultEQ XT Pro room equalization
Variable-axis soft-dome tweeters on surrounds
All speakers are biamped or triamped
Minus
Expensive
Status LEDs on amplifier are bright and can’t be dimmed
Requires professional installation

THE VERDICT
When it comes to the evolution of loudspeakers, Phase Technology has an enviable pedigree filled with innovation. The company’s newest dARTS speaker/amp package is a spectacular achievement that mitigates the effects of room acoustics and creates a highly theatrical, intensely musical experience that’s extremely rare.

One day last summer, I found myself grumbling more than usual as I stood staring at 550 pounds of speakers and amps that Phase Technology had shipped to my house. (Actually, because the gravel road I live on is very unfriendly to tractor-trailers, I had to drive to the depot, load a couple of pallets of heavy boxes into two vehicles, drive home, and then unload it all.) The gear makes up the top-of-the-line version of the company’s new, second-generation dARTS system.

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Ask S&V
Do I Need a Subwoofer to Go with My Tower Speakers?
Al Griffin  |  Mar 16, 2017
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q I know that subwoofers are recommended for use with small bookshelf or satellite speakers, but are they also needed with floorstanding tower speakers such as the GoldenEar Technology Tritons? — Frank Hendricksen / via email

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Throwback Thursday
Flashback 1986: The NFL Adopts Instant Replay
SV Staff  |  Mar 16, 2017
Thirty-one years ago this month, the NFL voted to adopt limited use of instant replay as an officiating aid. That first season saw an average of 1.6 reviews per game for a total of 374 plays, only 10 percent of which ended with a reversal of the ruling on the field.
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Audio Video News
Alexa Hack Creates Hilarious (Creepy?) Talking Skull
SV Staff  |  Mar 16, 2017
Amazon’s Alexa, the voice controlled personal assistant that made its first appearance in the Echo smart speaker a couple years ago, is now showing up in dozens of consumer electronics products, including more speakers, TVs, lamps, refrigerators—you name it.
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Audio Video News
Pink Floyd’s Live 8 Reunion Revisited with 3D Sound
SV Staff  |  Mar 15, 2017
Left to right, the team responsible for creating a 360-degree mix of Pink Floyd's historic Live 8 performance: Recording engineer Andy Jackson, Andreas Sennheiser, producer Simon Franglen, co-curator Aubrey Powell, producer Simon Rhodes, and Daniel Sennheiser

Sennheiser and Pink Floyd have partnered to produce a new immersive mix of “Comfortably Numb” and other songs from 2015’s Live 8 concert—the last time David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright played onstage with former band member Roger Waters.

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Integrated Amp Reviews
Rotel A12 Integrated Amplifier Review
Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 15, 2017

Audio Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $899

AT A GLANCE
Plus
USB inputs for PC and iOS
Premium Wolfson DAC
Bluetooth aptX
Minus
No DSD decoding
No Wi-Fi, AirPlay, or Ethernet
No streaming services

THE VERDICT
The Rotel A12 accepts direct wired input from PCs and iOS devices and gets the best out of both digital and analog sources with its great-sounding DAC and amp.

Connecting a computer to an audio system with a USB cable seems a perfectly logical idea. It’s simple, it’s direct, and it enables the computer to feed bits to the system and rely on the system’s digital-to-analog conversion. Yet this desirable feature is tantalizingly rare. AVRs and streaming amps tend to rely on wired and wireless network connections rather than on a USB port and asynchronous digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that can take over the clocking functions of the digital bit transfer and reduce the effects of jitter.

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