I was up till 3AM again last night playing this game. A brilliant mix of humor, progression, and addictive gameplay guarantees the "just one more mission" mentality of epic late-night gaming sessions.
For most people, running a 1-meter HDMI cable to their TV is the only connection they need to make to experience a glorious 1080p picture. But mount that TV on a wall, or decide to go with projection, and you have a problem: the wires. Sure you can run HDMI cables through your walls or ceiling (or down to your basement), but sometimes that's just not easy - or possible.
As Daniel Kumin found in his recent "Something in the Air" article, sending HD signals wirelessly is not only possible, it's now practical, and even affordable.
New on the scene is DVDO's Air, one of the more interesting-looking products in this category. Curious how well it stacks up? How convenient. Me too.
If the weather, calendar, and bevy of "PLEASEGIVEMEANOSCAR" movies didn't give it away, surely the title of this article does: 2012 is pretty much history.
In the pages of Sound+Vision (both the digital and analog variety), we've covered some interesting trends, products, news, and more.
So here are some highlights and lowlights, some contrast and brightness, some tweeters and some woofers, some increasingly lame metaphors, some... well, you get the point.
I'd expected a kind of This Is Your Life thing, where partygoers would be "treated" to a recitation of five decades of milestones. But the 50th anniversary party for speaker manufacturer KEF at the British Consulate in Manhattan was anything but a long look backward.
There's a coffee cup on the remote, an icon unmistakably a cup and saucer. Maybe it's tea. It's the largest button. It's backlit. It might be taunting me.
So begins my time with the Epson MegaPlex MG-850HD Projector, a plucky little PJ that makes me question the logic of every flat panel in existence.
Star Wars headphones! Star Wars headphones! Star. Wars. Headphones. STARWARSHEADPHONES. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “OMG WTF this is the most amazing thing ever!”
Wait, it gets better. They’re only $22!
And you’re not going to believe this, but sound actually comes out of them. I KNOW. And wouldn’t it really be something if these greatestheadphonesofalltime actually sounded good too?
One of the most popular - and in truth, most valid - ways of comparing two products is to, well, directly compare two products. A battle royale, two-enter-one-leaves style of head-to-head competition where it's clear which product is the victor.
Done correctly, direct A/B comparisons are by far the most accurate ways of determining product superiority.
The problem is, they're often not done correctly. Sometimes, they can't be done correctly. In those cases, the results couldn't be further from accurate.
It seems a growing number of people - or at least a growing number of op-ed contributors - have latched onto the idea that technology is bad, scary, and limiting our lives to ones and zeros. "The Flight From Conversation" and "The 'Busy' Trap" being two notable examples. It's something that Nathan Jurgenson calls "The IRL Fetish" (thanks Brian Lam of The Wirecutter for the link).
Jurgenson breaks down the idea better than I can. What I want to do is present the other side. I want to voice my strong and eternal support for the wonder that is the modern connected life.
As I was going through some old trade show photos earlier this week, it dawned on me that a lot of the products I’d photographed and subsequently reviewed turned out to be quite different from what I’d been led to expect by the demo. Sometimes products that sounded amazing at a show didn’t sound so great when I actually got a real production sample into my home.
I'm ashamed. I must embarrassingly hand in my nerd card.
This month, for only the second time in my adult life, I purchased a computer. No longer can I haughtily proclaim "well, I build my own PCs." Gone is the geek-cred I felt enshrined me as an elitist in the elitist world of PC gaming. But it had to be done, and I'll tell you, it's awesome.
So let me save you some money, and go through the various bits of the PC I bought, so you know where to spend your money on a PC you might buy, or want to build yourself.
Has there ever been a headphone brand so controversial as Beats? It’s undeniably popular; just walk around any downtown or airport in any industrialized country and you’re almost sure to see a set. Yet audio enthusiasts—including the ones at Sound & Vision—often deride Beats’ sound quality.
I haven’t tried every audio-oriented app for Android phones, but I’ve tried a bunch. Not surprisingly, the one I like best by far costs $6.99, which for an Android app is a truly Rolls Royce price. Yet it’s also the most insane deal of all time for DIY audio measurement software.
One of the best weekends of my life involved a train trip to visit a new, out-of-state girlfriend. I barely remember my time with her, but I vividly remember what I read on the way: Vance Dickason’s Loudspeaker Design Cookbook.