LATEST ADDITIONS

Surround Sound System ReviewsSubwoofer ReviewsTower Speaker Reviews
Bowers & Wilkins 683 S2 Speaker System
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 28, 2014

683 S2 Speaker System
Performance
Build Quality
Value
ASW 610XP Subwoofer
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value
PRICE $4,300 (as reviewed)

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Soundstaging
Presence and immediacy
Tight bass (with subwoofer)
Minus
Top end a bit restrained
Limited subwoofer output
Pedestrian styling

THE VERDICT
It took some effort to get their best in my room, but these relatively affordable B&Ws ultimately came through with a big, immediate, and generous sound.

Bowers & Wilkins, aka B&W, has been in the loudspeaker game since the mid-1960s. I reviewed the company’s original 600 series for Stereophile Guide to Home Theater over six years ago, and I was impressed—even though I was listening to those speakers immediately after evaluating Revel’s high-end Ultima2 system. At less than 15 percent of the Revels’ price, the B&Ws couldn’t, of course, equal them. But they weren’t anywhere near embarrassed by the comparison. Now we have the 600 S2 models in house, ready to do battle. The Revels are no longer here, of course, so the 600 S2s will have to speak for themselves. We’re ready to see if they can.

Continue Reading »
Remotely Possible
Exciting News! We Pulled the Plug On Your Smart Home Hub
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 27, 2014
On Friday of last week (Oct 24 or “Devolve Friday” as it’s now known), visitors to the Revolv website were treated with the following headline: ”We want to share some exciting news with you. Revolv is now a Nest company.” Wow! Considering that Nest — the maker of the hugely popular Nest Learning Thermostat and the less-popular Nest Protect smoke/CO alarm — has one of the biggest corporate sugar daddies in the world (i.e., Google), that’s incredibly exciting news. As I stated in a recent review of the Revolv Hub Home Automation Controller: “The Revolv Hub is a powerhouse that looks to be relatively future-proof from a hardware standpoint. A great choice for a newbie.” With the crazy amount of money Google/Nest could throw at it, Revolv could evolve into the epitome of a smart home system hub.

Moving down the Revolv home page, however, readers soon discovered that the exciting news is actually...

Continue Reading »
Bluetooth Speaker ReviewsGrace Notes
Yantouch Diamond+ Light + Music
Leslie Shapiro  |  Oct 27, 2014
Typically at Sound &Vision, we review serious products, for serious listeners, tending to shy away from gimmicks. Every once in a while, however, a product shows up on our doorstep that looks like it might be a toy, but deserves a closer look. The Yantouch Diamond+ Bluetooth speaker with an amazing light display is one such product.

Continue Reading »
Audio Video News
RIP: Cream Bassist, Rock Icon Jack Bruce
SV Staff  |  Oct 27, 2014
Jack Bruce lead vocalist and bassist of the influential Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Cream died Saturday at his home in England. He was 71.

Continue Reading »
Headphone Reviews
Woo Audio WA6 Headphone Amplifier
Mark Fleischmann  |  Oct 24, 2014

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $699 ($899 as reviewed)

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Warm, tubey sound
Headphone impedance switch
New York born and bred
Minus
No DAC
Too polite for some headphones

THE VERDICT
Woo Audio’s WA6 is a Class A headphone amp whose glowing tubes are voiced to warm up any headphones.

The glow of vacuum tubes has fascinated me all my life. When I was a kid, my parents bought a Magnavox console TV with a built-in phonograph and AM/FM radio, the early-1960s equivalent of a home theater system with all the trimmings. It stood on 18-inch legs, and I loved to crawl under it, lying on my back to stare up into the orange glow of the tubes. My first few audio systems were solid state, but a cadre of die-hard audiophiliacs never really gave up on tubes. Now they’ve also wiggled back into my life and onto my desk, where the Woo Audio WA6 headphone amplifier sits, with three glowing obelisks keeping the retro audio flame alive.

Continue Reading »
Editor's EyeTrack One
Welcome to the Revolution
Rob Sabin  |  Oct 24, 2014
If This Is Hell, Count Me In

I got a good belly laugh as I was proofreading our Perfect Focus section for the November print issue. I’d just finished putting together our Letters section, in which I’d responded to a reader inquiry about Dolby Atmos with one of my usual geeky diatribes. Then I turned to Perfect Focus and saw...

Continue Reading »
New Products
More October 2014 New Gear
Bob Ankosko  |  Oct 24, 2014
A kick-ass, ultra-wide soundbar, add-on ambient lighting for TVs, a new Slingbox, and more.
Continue Reading »
Audio Video News
Marantz Announces Auro-3D Firmware Upgrade
SV Staff  |  Oct 24, 2014
Marantz has announced that a fee-based firmware upgrade for the new Auro-3D surround-sound format will be available for its SR7009 receiver (shown, $1,999) and the AV7702 preamp/processor ($1,999) in early December. Both models have built-in Dolby Atmos surround sound processing.
Continue Reading »
Ask S&V
Which Receivers Provide Separate Crossover Adjustments For Each Speaker Type?
Al Griffin  |  Oct 23, 2014
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q Are there any AV receivers available that provide crossover frequencies assignable by speaker type in a surround sound system? Say, 60 Hz for the fronts, 80 Hz for the center, and 100 Hz for the rears? —Jason BF

Continue Reading »
A/V Veteran
Rocky Mountain High-Fi
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 22, 2014
The annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest was held in early October in the Marriott Hotel at the Denver Tech Center. For at least the past 10 years this has been the biggest of the many audio shows now jostling for position around the U.S. Depending on who you ask, the Newport Beach (CA) show, held in June, is nipping at its heels but isn’t quite there yet.

Manufacturers (not to mention the press) must be tearing what’s left of their hair out trying to support all these shows, which now include RMAF, Newport, (northern) California, Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., and Toronto. Let me know if I’ve missed one! And this doesn’t even include the trade-only CES (and, for some, CEDIA EXPO). For small manufacturers this is a major expense, and many of them only attend one or two. If they support two, it’s most likely they’ll include RMAF and CES).

Unlike many present-day audiophiles I keep one foot in the audio/video world of home theater and surround sound and the other in the 2-channel world of high-end audio. I regret that multichannel, even for music alone, remains anathema to many audio fans. As for film sound, for many that’s clearly the spawn of the devil...

Continue Reading »

Pages

X