A/V Veteran

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HDTV Buying TipsA/V Veteran
Shopping for a New TV? Here Are a Few Tips
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jun 27, 2023  | 
One of the key highlights of the CES trade show held every year in early January is a preview of the coming year's new TVs. These models don’t typically become available for sale until the spring, meaning most of the TVs you see “on sale” in the three or four months following CES are actually last year's models that need to be cleared out to make room for the new ones. And some of that old stock remains available into the early summer — as in now.
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Back to the Future
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jun 13, 2023  | 
Among the many time-sinks to be found on YouTube are predictions of the future, particularly those made years or even decades ago and anticipating what life today would be like. It's fascinating to revisit the 1950s vision of the "home of tomorrow."
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Peter Panned
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 30, 2023  | 
Peter Pan & Wendy is Disney's latest attempt to re-make one of its classic animated films as live action. It's been done before. Many times...
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A/V Veteran
Survey Suggests Media Rooms More Popular than Dedicated Theaters
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 16, 2023  | 
Home theater encompasses a range of possibilities. For most enthusiasts it's a DIY affair. For others, it's a matter of hiring a custom installation pro to do the job.
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A/V Veteran
Made in China
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 25, 2023  | 
We don't like to think about it, or perhaps we've never thought to, but from parts to finished products our AV products come largely from China. Yes, there are other players, but China with its cheap labor dominates the AV space.
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Making the Connection
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 11, 2023  | 
Perhaps no subject in the home audio world is more contentious than cables. You can get them cheap in a big box hardware store (or at least speaker cables and perhaps interconnects) or pay obscene amounts of money for them. What gives?
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Audio Grins
Tom Norton  |  Mar 28, 2023  | 
Cartoon by Charles Rodrigues.

In a flash of inspiration last week I decided it was time to sort through the mass of paperwork squirrelled away in my office. That’s when I discovered a long-forgotten folder labeled “Humor”…

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A/V Veteran
Hear Here
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 14, 2023  | 
Most Audiophiles have a pretty fair idea of how the human hearing system works, but there are always new readers who take "obvious" things for granted. I myself also recently learned a few of the finer points while perusing websites on the subject. Here's what I learned...
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A/V Veteran
Lost in YouTube
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 28, 2023  | 
For years I ignored YouTube because I thought it was filled with cat videos and not much else. When I finally discovered its endless range of absorbing content last year, however, I posted a blog on it. But YouTube's depth of information on almost any topic is so vast that an occasional revisit is worthwhile. Video quality, then and now, ranges from very good to nearly unwatchable, but thankfully most of it is at least good enough for acceptable viewing.
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AV Receiver SetupSpeaker SetupA/V Veteran
How to Use an AV Receiver to Add Surround to a 2-Channel Setup
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 14, 2023  | 
There's a surprisingly wide range of preferences among audio-video fans. I'll categorize them here into two broad groups: classic 2-channel audiophiles and home theater fans. Not that these groups don't overlap. They often do. But there are listeners in each group who don't intersect with the other. For fans of 2-channel music who are open to adding surround sound as long as it doesn't hamper their enjoyment of listening to stereo recordings, there's a fairly easy way to make that happen.
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Two for a View
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 31, 2023  | 
When I have visitors over to watch a movie, the choice of which film to watch is always a challenge. Typically, none of my regular guests care for either science fiction or animation, and those genres make up perhaps half of my collection. But that evening's selection, Chariots of Fire, was a title I hadn't watched in years.
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Ghosts of CESs Past
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 17, 2023  | 
I didn't attend the recent CES in Las Vegas. I haven't gone since 2017. CES can be exceptionally expensive these days; the hotels and restaurants dramatically increased their prices some years ago. I once heard a possible reason why: CES attendees, it was said, didn't gamble enough to keep the lower hotel rates profitable. The obvious solution: jack up the hotel rates, both for room and food!

The disruptions of the past three years have been hard on the biggest trade shows...

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A/V Veteran
’Tis the Season for Christmas Movies
Tom Norton  |  Dec 21, 2022  | 
Christmas! Chestnuts roasting on an open fire (hopefully in a fireplace). Jack Frost nipping at your nose. And lots of Christmas movies. Here are a few of my favorites.
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A/V Veteran
Exploring the Early Days of Home Hi-Fi
Tom Norton  |  Dec 07, 2022  | 
A few years ago a friend acquired a heavy, bound volume of all of Audio magazine's 1960 issues. Riffling through the issues was fascinating as writers dealt with the introduction of the stereo LP and the associated equipment needed to create 2-channel stereophonic sound, which represented a significant leap over the single-channel mono format. Let’s see what else those early days of home hi-fi reveal.
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A/V Veteran
Zulu on Blu-Ray
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 22, 2022  | 
At the height of European colonial ambitions in Africa, two of Great Britain's key colonies there were Cape Town, at Africa's southern tip and, north of there, Natal. The latter abutted Zululand. The Zulus, a powerful warrior nation, was created from local tribes conquered earlier in the century by the iconic Zulu chief, Shaka. )...This superb 1964 film Zulu...depicts ...the battle of Rorke's Drift...It can still be viewed via streaming, but instead I seriously recommend the 50th anniversary Blu-ray release (in the red jacket shown above). The stereo audio on this disc is satisfactory though underwhelming. But its widescreen videos is exceptional...
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