LATEST ADDITIONS

Ears On
Rack Attack V: Toshiba Surround Tricks
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 12, 2007
The last blog detailed the Pioneer BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player's surround properties. What about the Toshiba HD-A2? Dolby's Craig Eggers kindly explained that the player does feature both lossless Dolby TrueHD and lossy Dolby Digital Plus decoding and playback. They are exported through the HDMI jacks as PCM, not as a bitstream, so decoding cannot be done in a surround receiver even if it does have a decoder. But the PCM should still sound good. If you were thinking of using analog jacks to feed surround to an HDMI-less legacy receiver, you're out of luck. The HD-A2 does not have a full set of surround analog outs (just a stereo pair) so it can't export the signal that way. But the translated-to-PCM signal is re-encoded as DTS and sent through the optical output, which also of course handles regular Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1. On the DTS side, the news is not as good. The Toshiba site cites "Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS support for up to 5.1 channels (DTS HD support for DTS core only)." So full 7.1-channel goodness is not available for Dolby's two new babies. And DTS's two new babies are reduced to the resolution of old-style DTS.
Continue Reading »
Audio Video News
Joe Zawinul: 1932-2007
SV Staff  |  Sep 11, 2007
Very sad. This year is shaping up to be a rough one for titans of the arts. I'm almost afraid to wake up every morning. Head over to The New York Times for its obit. Meanwhile, that color image above is a highlight from the cover of Forecast:...
Continue Reading »
Custom Installation How-ToHome Movie Theaters
Star Trek Home Theater
Gary and Kim Sekulow  |  Sep 11, 2007
This major re-do of a theater features actual props from the Star Trek Series and Movies. Recently featured on VH-1 The Fabulous Life, this home theater is out of this world.
Continue Reading »
Custom Installation How-ToHome Movie Theaters
Complete Control
Krissy Rushing  |  Sep 11, 2007

<I>With a wholehouse Crestron automation system that controls everything from security to the dedicated theater, this home takes control to another level. </I>

Continue Reading »
Music Reviews
CD Review: Rilo Kiley
Billy Altman  |  Sep 10, 2007

Continue Reading »
Fred Manteghian Blog
Will Cash Be King?
Fred Manteghian  |  Sep 10, 2007

Michelle Kessler who covers technology for USA Today has a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-09-09-electroni... target="new">great little (short) read</a> on price sensitivity in today's electronics marketplace. It's not how high of a mountain you shout from after all. It's how far the people listening are willing to tilt back to hear you.

Continue Reading »
So Much To See, So Little Time
Tom Norton  |  Sep 10, 2007

CEDIA 2007 supplied more than its share of surprises. There were more interesting new, free-standing speakers there than I expected, though nowhere near what CES brings to town. The quantity of new electronics was intimidating, as usual, and that will keep us busy for the next few months as we check out the most promising candidates.

Continue Reading »
Accelling
Tom Norton  |  Sep 10, 2007

A company called Accell (www.accellcables.com) offers a variety of video switching and splitting options and cables. Their products include the tiny UltraAV, one-in, two-out HDMI splitter for $129, and the UltraAV HDMI two-in, one-out HDMI switcher that's smaller than its included remote control. Both are powered by external, wall-wart supplies. We plan on checking both of them out soon.

Continue Reading »
Snell Center
Tom Norton  |  Sep 10, 2007

The new Snell CR70 center speaker ($1750) was so inconspicuously displayed that I nearly missed it. It is said to be a good sonic match for the Snell CR70 floorstanders ($6500/pair). New center channel speakers&mdash;hopefully proper three-way designs like this one&mdash;are expected next year for other Snell models.

Continue Reading »
Then On To Cremona
Tom Norton  |  Sep 10, 2007

Sonus faber's new Cremona M floor-standing speaker (about $12,000/pr) was on static display, but it was obvious that it maintains that Italian manufacturer's reputation for elegant design. It is said to closely mirror the sonics of the more expensive Cremona Elipsa ($20,000/pr), which seriously impressed this writer at last January's CES. A new Cremona center channel is in the works, as well, though it will not be available until some time in 2008.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X