For the past few years, the trend in speaker design has been to make models that blend into the environment - from super-flat on-wall speakers to paintable in-walls that disappear entirely. But the Energy RC-Mini speakers ($200 to $250 each) scream that loudspeakers can be beautiful!
CLEAR SHOT You'll be able to capture detail that most other camcorders never see when you shoot footage with Canon's HV10. Everything is recorded in the 1080i high-def format thanks to a 1,920 x 1,080-pixel CMOS image sensor, said to be quicker on the draw and more power-efficient than typical CCD sensors. It probably gets more dates, too.
Entertainment in the car has come a long way since the first "fitted" AM radios of 1930. And even back then, a few killjoys wanted to ban in-dash radios for fear of distracting the driver. Thankfully, logic and the love of music prevailed - and with each evolution in mobile entertainment over the past 50 years, drivers and passengers have benefited.
We took a long listen to Klipsch's Image One on-ear headphone when it launched last year, and found them to be a highly competitive portable phone, especially when judged against the mic/remote-sporting on-ear competition of the time - most of which (like the Bowers &Wilkins P5) cost a lot more or (like the Beats Solo) simply didn't sound as good.
With a big 65-inch HD screen, the Brillian 6580iFB HDTV ($7,999) already has a lot going on, but there's more in the box to justify its hefty price tag. First of all, it's one of the new high-rez 1080p TVs. LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) technology keeps the pixels small and the space between them smaller, so images always look sharp and clear.
Always looking for new ways to make good on their promise to let users stream all the music on earth in any room, Sonos today announces a new player - the Play:3 - and a new naming scheme for their product line.
Green Design Prefer your TV not in view when not in use? Green Design's Series 2 media armoire can keep it out of sight, but the beautifully finished solid cherrywood cabinet may catch your eye anyway. The top part can hold most 36-inch direct-view TVs, and the lower shelves are adjustable for the height of your gear.
Whatever your personal-portable pleasure, you can hide it away with the latest in Father's Day fashions (clockwise from above): ScotteVest's Hidden Cargo Pants ($80) have 11 pockets to help you mobilize with ease. They're 100% cotton and designed for everyday use.
Samsung’s product preview event, held on Wednesday 3/20 at NYC’s American Museum of Finance (who knew such a place existed?) was notable on two counts. First, the company announced a price for its 85-inch UN85S9 Ultra HD TV — the cover star of Sound&Vision’s April/May print issue. Second, it had another cover star, SI swimsuit model Kate Upton (fully clothed), along with Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning on hand to say how much they dig the company’s 2013 Smart Hub interface.
KALEID-O-SET In the modern TV world of huge screens and off-the-scale resolution, color matters more than ever. The palette in Mitsubishi's 57-inch 1080p set is run by a 6-Primary Color System, which creates the "subtractive" colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow) directly instead of mixing red, green, and blue.
PanasonicIt's a tough call: do you want a hard-drive video recorder so you can save TV shows without disc clutter, or a DVD recorder so you can keep your recordings forever? Panasonic's DMR-E80H gives you both options in a single package.
TRICKS FOR THE TRADE Denon threw that conspicuous "CI" into this receiver's product number to let you know it has some special tricks for custom installers. Trick 1: Source renaming, so your front panel doesn't just have to say "DVD" - call your player "Philips 721" or even "Ralph" if you want.