Lately in this blog, I've been concentrating on speakers with astronomical prices, which is loads of fun. But it's certainly possible to enjoy exceptional sound without spending six or seven figures. Take, for example, the new top-dog Klimt series from Austrian speaker manufacturer <A href="http://www.viennaacoustics.at">Vienna Acoustics</A>.
A few Vizio panels have made their way in front of the S&V staff and the usual verdict is that they produce "solid" performance when you factor in the low cost. Apparently their formula is an effective one, allowing them to ship 21.6%...
Audyssey's
DSX surround listening mode, which adds both width and height channels, is arriving in the form of product this month with the Denon AVR-4310CI.
<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/passengers.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>After a plane crash, a young therapist, Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway), is assigned to counsel the flight's five survivors. When she begins to uncover conflicting accounts of the accident, she chalks it up to traumatic stress disorder—until the survivors start vanishing one by one.
Home theater equipment manufacturer Denon just announced several new products for the coming year, including a whopping 9 A/V receivers and a pair of Blu-ray Disc players.
Every new receiver, from the $349 retail-channel AVR-590 to the $1,999...
A Porsche 911 C4 with a $20,000 (in 1990) sound system would generally fetch a decent sum on eBay, but this particular ride is a piece of rock and roll history. Before the release of Metallica's self-titled record (most commonly referred to as...
Price: $799 At A Glance: Superb user experience • Widgets! • Big storage with ability to scale higher • Works only with CableCARD • Not compatible with PPV or On-Demand • Can’t order pizza
Pimping Your HD Cable Ride
DISH Network and DIRECTV have poached a lot of cable customers using the allure of their premium HD DVRs. Bigger storage, more robust features, a slick user interface, no cable company to deal with—it’s an easy sell most of the time. But what if you can’t or won’t do the dish and still want an enlightened HD DVR experience from digital cable? Digeo’s answer is the Moxi HD DVR. At its core, the Moxi is a high-end HD DVR that has a 500-gigabyte hard drive with a 75-hour HD capacity and the ability to add a ton of additional storage. On paper, the Moxi would be a compelling device even if this was all there was to it. But its DVR functionality is only the beginning. The Moxi is also a media hub that aggregates content from your home network and the Internet without bringing a full-blown media PC into your living room. Yep. Those newfangled widgets are inside. Let’s take a look.
Price: $1,200 At A Glance: Compact satellites with Omnipolar driver array • Eight-inch cube sub with dual 6.5-inch passive radiators • Suitable for small rooms
In a Reflective Mood
It is rare for a carton to put a smile on my face. A lot of cartons trample through my modest living and working space. They are a necessary evil in my work as a reviewer that’s redeemed only by their contents. But the carton that housed the Mirage MX satellite/subwoofer set made me grin when I picked it up in my doorway. It weighed all of 20 pounds, portending a review process without physical rigors. I deposited it in my bedroom along with the other treasures that live there—my books, my LPs, my bags of speaker cable, my collection of styrofoam popcorn and plastic bubble packing, not to mention my bed—and forgot about it until the time came for its debut in the listening room.
The MPAA is a touchy subject for a lot of folks. Nothing sparks internet debate quite like the mention of their name (unless of course you're talking about the RIAA). In this video, they demonstrate how it's possible to make "high quality" movie...