LATEST ADDITIONS

Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Tom Norton  |  Dec 12, 2007

Once upon a time witches were acutely schizophrenic old hags who lived alone in the woods, fiddled around with poisoned apples and magic mirrors, and spooked lost little girls from Kansas. Wizards wore pointed hats, looked like a mouse, conjured up armies of brooms, and had major plumbing problems.

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Audio Video News
Is 3-Layer HD DVD Backward Compatible?
Mark Fleischmann  |  Dec 12, 2007
Here's the good news: The DVD Forum has approved a new triple-layer HD DVD with capacity of 51 gigabytes. Now here's the bad news: It remains uncertain whether the new disc will play on existing HD DVD hardware.
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Audio Video News
The Ultimate Picks: UltimateAVmag.com's 2007 Product of the Year Awards
 |  Dec 11, 2007  |  First Published: Dec 12, 2007

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/UAV_POTY_250.jpg" WIDTH=250 HEIGHT=281 HSPACE=6 VSPACE=4 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Drum roll, please! This is more than an award feature, and more than a list of components. We get to experience the best components in the most controlled settings, in our own reference systems. And yes, we love our job! These are the top components in each product category we've reviewed this year. We're exprienced and we're hard to please, and this is a tough list to crack. The components that made the cut here are truly the best of the best.

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Audio Video News
Hats Off to Led Zeppelin
SV Staff  |  Dec 11, 2007
Yes, from all accounts, they pulled it off last night. Exhibit A: Just look at those photos! Exhibit B: Ben Ratliff's review in The New York Times and David Fricke's review at Rolling Stone's Rock & Roll Daily. Exhibit C: The set list: ...
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Audio Video News
No TV? We'll Read a Magazine
Mark Fleischmann  |  Dec 11, 2007
Not all owners of analog television sets are planning to make the transition to digital broadcasting, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association. Twenty-two of them plan to just let their TVs go dark and find something else to do.
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Audio Video News
Blu-ray Hits $299
 |  Dec 10, 2007

The standalone Blu-ray Disc player has hit a significant milestone- Samsung's BD-P1400 is now available at $299 or less at several major retailers, including Best Buy, Amazon, and Circuit City. This makes for some fascinating comparisons with the other lower priced next-gen HD players out there. Let's take a look what your $300 or less will buy you.

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Audio Video News
Guitar Hero a Wii Bit Off
SV Staff  |  Dec 10, 2007
Wii users, stop banging on your speakers. It's not your system or your ears. Your Pearl Jam solo is suffering from a glitch in the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3 that's putting out mono sound rather than a multi-channel version advertised as Dolby...
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Custom Installation How-ToHome Movie Theaters
Professional Digital Cinema at Home
Krissy Rushing  |  Dec 10, 2007

<I>A theater in Birmingham, Michigan, straddles the line between professional digital cinema and home theater.</I>

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Bookshelf Speaker Reviews
Boston Acoustics MCS 130 Home Theater Speaker System
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Dec 10, 2007
Personalize this.

I'm a bit reluctant to say this, but my experience with Boston Acoustics goes back a long way – to the days when the Boston Acoustics A40 and A70 speakers were the giants of the bookshelf speaker world. In fact, most of the Boston A-series speakers back then were highly regarded when it came to sound quality. Build quality was so-so but decent for late-1980s vinyl-wrap box cabinets. Just about any store that carried them sold tons of Boston Acoustics' bookshelf and floorstanding speakers, and they were proud to do it, too.

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Tower Speaker Reviews
mbl Radialstrahler 116/121/111RC 5 Channel Surround Sound System
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 10, 2007
Back when surround sound meant Dolby Pro-Logic, most informed enthusiasts preferred dipole or bipole surround speakers. Since Pro-Logic was an analog matrix system that derived four channels from two, resulting in a monophonic surround channel, the idea was to create as diffuse a surround sound field as possible to avoid "localizing" the position of the speakers and to prevent the creation of a "phantom" center channel for those sitting midway between the surrounds.
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