LATEST ADDITIONS

Darryl Wilkinson  |  Nov 20, 2012

Soundbar System
Performance
Build Quality
Value
 
ForceField 3 Subwoofer
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value
Price: $2,000 At A Glance: 3D sonic-image optimization technology • Passive LCR design • Aerospace-grade extruded-aluminum cabinet

Women. They’re the problem. They’re the ones who have ruined home theater for all the manly men out there whose only vice was reclining in front of a set of towering speakers that dominated the room like a pair of long-faced Easter Island monoliths—speakers so masculine, they used testosterone instead of ferrofluid to cool the voice coils and were topped with skeleton-ugly horn tweeters so efficient Joshua could have used them to bring down the walls of Jericho the first day (before lunch!). For additional aural excitement, in a front corner of the room, openly begging for attention and not girlishly hiding behind a couch or doing double duty as a plant stand, would be a massive subwoofer with a magnet assembly so powerful that localized rooftop occurrences of the aurora borealis would happen from time to time. Techs from the local hospital would often bring patients to the house and use the subwoofer for testing when the lab’s MRI machine needed repair. But no more. The man cave has been emasculated and replaced by the female grotto, complete with bowls of potpourri and seating geometries that would make Euclid weep with grief. The coup de grâce, however, the fatal blow to any home theater’s manhood, is the now near-obligatory soundbar. Long and falsely phallic, it mocks the real men in the room as it preens itself under the flat-panel HDTV.

Josef Krebs  |  Nov 20, 2012

Tarantino XX: 8-Film Collection

Tarantino XX contains eight films chosen by writer-director Quentin Tarantino to illustrate the first 20 years of his career from 1992-2009 - pretty much his entire auteur oeuvre - that has brought joy to lovers of cinema and inspiration to filmmakers everywhere.

John Sciacca  |  Nov 20, 2012
For want of a smart control, the table was cluttered with remotes. For want of the right remote, the A/V receiver was turned to the wrong input. For lack of the right input, the audio and video signals were lost. For failure of the A/V signal, the movie could not be watched. For lack of the movie, the party was ruined.
Gary Dell'Abate  |  Nov 20, 2012

I'm trying to get my holiday shopping done early this year. I have my wife, my kids, and the gang at work to shop for, so I need to make sure everyone gets exactly what they need. My 18-year-old is probably the easiest. He's the one away at college (I wrote about him in November), so for him, I'll get the Slingbox 500 ($300).

Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 20, 2012

TV manufacturing is a tough business. You’re making a perfectly good black-and-white TV and then someone comes along with a color TV. So you need to make color TVs. Then TVs become digital. Then they become high-def. Then they become flat. Then they become big. Then they become 3D. Then they become really big. Then they become 4K. It just never ends.

Geoffrey Morrison  |  Nov 20, 2012

There are those for whom a plasma TV won’t do. Maybe they’ve only seen plasma TVs in the store and think that LCDs look better. Maybe they have ?a really bright room. Sales numbers show that the majority of consumers choose LCDs.

Daniel Kumin  |  Nov 20, 2012

Here are two words I never thought I’d use together in a sentence: audiophile soundbar. Yet MartinLogan’s new Motion Vision model indisputably qualifies.

Brent Butterworth  |  Nov 20, 2012

The dirty little secret about on-wall speakers is that many aren’t tuned for on-wall use. Most come with a foot that allows them to be used atop a table or stand.

Daniel Kumin  |  Nov 20, 2012

Most A/V receivers with any pretensions toward high performance — and most audio and video products in general, for that matter — are designed and marketed for hardcore hobbyists, not average consumers. What’s the difference? The hobbyist revels in scores of setup options, dozens of surround modes, and fistfuls of video-processing choices.

John Sciacca  |  Nov 20, 2012

Casa means “home” or “house” in Spanish and Italian. So a casa full of tunes — or housewide audio — is a pretty sweet thing. Of course, housewide audio is nothing new, but accomplishing it in the past has meant a rack full of sources, amplifiers, and control gear, with wiring spider-webbed out to various rooms, control pads, and speakers.

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