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Other Tech
How To: DIY Audio Measurement Page 3
Brent Butterworth  |  Feb 09, 2011  |  0 comments

Do you trust your ears? I don't. By that I mean I don't trust my ears. Frankly, though, I don't trust anybody's. I've heard laymen enthuse about systems that had little more to offer than a few notes of booming bass. I've heard audio veterans trash impeccably engineered speakers - and praise speakers that showed glaring technical flaws.

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Other Tech
How To: DIY Audio Measurement Page 4
Brent Butterworth  |  Feb 09, 2011  |  0 comments

Do you trust your ears? I don't. By that I mean I don't trust my ears. Frankly, though, I don't trust anybody's. I've heard laymen enthuse about systems that had little more to offer than a few notes of booming bass. I've heard audio veterans trash impeccably engineered speakers - and praise speakers that showed glaring technical flaws.

Continue Reading »
Other Tech
How To: DIY Audio Measurement
Brent Butterworth  |  Feb 09, 2011  |  0 comments

Do you trust your ears? I don’t. By that I mean I don’t trust my ears. Frankly, though, I don’t trust anybody’s. I’ve heard laymen enthuse about systems that had little more to offer than a few notes of booming bass. I’ve heard audio veterans trash impeccably engineered speakers — and praise speakers that showed glaring technical flaws.

Continue Reading »
Premiere Design
Marten Coltrane 2 Speaker
Scott Wilkinson  |  Feb 09, 2011  |  1 comments
Last week, I profiled the first power amp from Marten, which was introduced at CES in January. This Swedish maker is otherwise known for its high-end speakers, including the new Coltrane 2 that was also unveiled this year in Vegas.
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Home Theater Geeks Podcast
Podcast 53: Steve Guttenberg
Scott Wilkinson  |  Feb 09, 2011  |  6 comments
Audio reviewer Steve Guttenberg, aka The Audiophiliac (not the actor!), explains why he thinks non-audiophiles don't really listen to music any more, the resurgence of vinyl LPs, high-res music downloads, 2-channel vs. multichannel music, bringing young people into the audiophile fold, what good sound sounds like, the difficulty of acoustic treatment, the value of headphones, and answers to chat-room questions.

Run Time: 52:07

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Audio Video News
3DAA Rethinks Surround
Mark Fleischmann  |  Feb 09, 2011  |  0 comments
Look out, Dolby and DTS. The 3D Audio Alliance, a consortium put together by SRS Labs, is developing a new "object oriented" surround standard that would rethink surround sound as it's currently constituted.

The 3DAA standard would focus not on channels but on objects within the soundfield, specifying their location and movement. The playback system -- whether stereo, 5.1, or 11.1 -- would then deploy the objects as well as possible within their inherent limitations.

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Other Tech
How To Rip Your Music (Part 2)
Daniel Kumin  |  Feb 08, 2011  |  0 comments

Where do you start when converting a music collection to data files for home (and portable) playback? In the January 2011 issue, we defined key terms and explored the pros and cons of both lossy (data-compressed) and lossless (uncompressed) music-file formats. Now we'll put that knowledge to use. With space at a premium in these columns, instead of debating all the options I'll just tell you what I do and why, and hope that you can work out your best strategy from there.

Formal Fit

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Audio Video NewsThe Big Picture
Good News for Plasma
Scott Wilkinson  |  Feb 08, 2011  |  3 comments
Whenever anyone starts proclaiming that plasma is a dying technology, I put my hands over my ears and start singing, "La, la, la, I can't hear you!" Sure, LCD TVs have come a long way in terms of black levels and motion detail thanks to LED illumination and frame interpolation, but these are work-arounds for problems that most plasmas never had in the first place—and they often come with their own odious artifacts, such as frame interpolation's "soap-opera effect." So it was with great glee that I read a report in This Week In Consumer Electronics about a study from market-research firm DisplaySearch, which found that shipments of plasma panels to TV manufacturers in 2010 were way up from the previous year.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Paranormal Activity 2—Paramount
Kris Deering  |  Feb 08, 2011  |  0 comments
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Extras: 3.5/5
Just as Dan and Kristi welcome a newborn baby into their home, a demonic presence begins terrorizing them, tearing apart their perfect world and turning it into an inescapable nightmare. Security cameras capture the torment, making every minute horrifyingly real.
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Premiere Design
SSE Reference Fixed Frame Acoustically Transparent Projection Screens
Scott Wilkinson  |  Feb 08, 2011  |  0 comments
In a joint venture between US-based Seymour AV and UK-based Screen Excellence, the aptly named Seymour-Screen Excellence (SSE) recently announced its new Reference Fixed Frame (RF) acoustically transparent projection screens. Initially available are two materials—Enlightor 2 and Enlightor 4K.
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