LATEST ADDITIONS

Chris Chiarella  |  Aug 24, 2025
Picture
Sound
Extras

Dean DeBlois, the writer/director of the 2010 animated How to Train Your Dragon (with Chris Sanders, also partnered on Lilo & Stitch) spared no expense for his return to the tale, bringing it into the live-action realm in grand fashion. Full disclosure: This is my first exposure to the popular franchise, its success across movies, TV and even theme parks notwithstanding. Looks and feels like it’s giving Game of Thrones with a bit of Avatar thrown in, but overall it’s a fun and smartly executed take on the coming-of-age archetype.

Chris Chiarella  |  Aug 23, 2025

Sound designer Richard King won the first of his Academy Awards for his magnificent sound effects editing work on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, director Peter Weir’s thrilling period adventure set on the high seas. He’s now taken home a total of five of the shiny statues, most recently for Dune: Part Two, as well as becoming Christopher Nolan’s go-to guy (The Dark Knight, Dunkirk, Oppenheimer, etc.) and snagging a boatload of Grammys along the way, too.

Mark Henninger  |  Aug 15, 2025

Velodyne Acoustics has appointed Playback Distribution as its U.S. distributor. The partnership will debut at CEDIA 2025.

Michael Hamilton  |  Aug 15, 2025
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $1,999

AT A GLANCE
Plus

  • Input lag lower than a snake's tummy
  • Three-point, easily accessible leveling feet
  • Larger 0.65-inch (2716x1528 pixel) Texas Instruments Single DMD
  • Preset modes tailored to FPS and RPG gaming
  • 3-year/20,000-hour warranty
Minus
  • No Color (Saturation) or Tint (Hue) main controls
  • No HDMI 2.1 features such as ALLM or VRR
  • Anemic onboard 5W Mono audio
  • Compressed color gamuts dull cinematic nuances
  • Some might feel the asking price outweighs the provided amenities

THE VERDICT
BenQ's résumé for its TK710 intimates it seesaws back and forth between being defined as a gaming or entertainment projector. From the gaming perspective, it provides an excellent, class-leading big screen platform for bright, fluid images with ultra-low input latency. Its long-lasting, zero-maintenance laser illumination has ample oomph to adequately overcome moderately elevated ambient light environments.

Chris Chiarella  |  Aug 14, 2025
The hot weather’s here: Skip the beach and catch a cool wave of new SteelBooks instead. No pesky sand, seaweed or seagulls, just a refreshing splash of movies and TV, mostly in 4K and all in distinctively designed, collectible metal cases that are cooler than an icy tallboy straight out of the Yeti.
Mark Henninger  |  Aug 11, 2025

One of the show’s headline demos was Focal’s Diva Mezza Utopia, the larger, more powerful sibling to Diva Utopia. Launched July 2025 at $69,000/pair, it is sold exclusively through the Focal Powered by Naim dealer network (Audio Advice included). Focal positions Mezza as “the new hi-fi”: an ultra-connected, all-in-one, high-end system designed to deliver a full-range experience without the usual rack of separates.

Mark Henninger  |  Aug 11, 2025
Lyngdorf Audio introduced the TDAI-2210 integrated streaming amplifier at Audio Advice Live 2025 in Raleigh, NC, the next generation in the company’s True Digital Amplifier line. Rated at 2 × 210W into 4 ohms, the TDAI-2210 keeps the signal in the digital domain and incorporates RoomPerfect room correction.
Mark Henninger  |  Aug 09, 2025
New firmware moves subtitles into the image, moderates their brightness, and adapts color to the scene—aimed at preserving immersion on scope screens without the resizing used by conventional subtitle fixes.
Mark Henninger  |  Aug 09, 2025
At Audio Advice Live 2025, Masimo Consumer’s Phil Jones described Marantz’s new Grand Horizon as “musical art”—a single‑chassis, luxury wireless speaker built to deliver hi‑fi scale without the usual stack of black boxes. The target owner is clear: someone who wants serious sound and a statement object that can live in plain sight.
Mark Henninger  |  Aug 08, 2025

At Audio Advice Live 2025, North Carolina–based retailer Audio Advice showed the latest addition to its house-brand seating line: the Revelation Luxury theater chair. It follows earlier “Revolution” and “Revelation” models and adds heating, massage, and other usability tweaks aimed at feature-hungry buyers at a mid-tier price. According to Audio Advice, the Revelation Luxury is designed to deliver the feature set found in higher-priced home-theater recliners at a lower cost.

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