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Ears On
Studios OK Wal-Mart Downloads
Mark Fleischmann  |  Feb 08, 2007
What's remarkable about Wal-Mart's just-unveiled Video Downloads is not that America's number one retailer is venturing into online distribution of movies and teevee. The real story is that Wal-Mart has convinced all six major motion picture studios and at least some of the networks to pour a total of 3000 titles into the fledgling service. Wal-Mart tells you how to enjoy its downloads on TV, PC, or portable player. Pricing ranges from $1.96 for a TV episode to $19.88 for a fresh movie title. Shop around and you'll find movie titles well under the maximum. For example, Rugrats Go Wild for a mere $7.50. Still, even that's not much of a bargain compared to your basic Blockbuster movie rental fee of less than $5--so much for the "always low prices" slogan. Moreover, there's no mention of HD, compatible portables do not include iPods, and Wal-Mart's web developer is guilty, guilty, guilty of a major gaffe: The service seems to have been optimized for Internet Explorer (I used version 7). In Firefox 1.5, it's an unusable mess. Any Safari or Opera users having trouble with this page? Let me know. In fairness, the service is in beta, and improvements may follow.
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Audio Video News
Studios Repeat HDTV-Crippling Demand
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 29, 2009
Hollywood is at it again. The movie studios and their trade association are lobbying the Federal Communications Commission for power to cripple the component video interface--the only one available on millions of early-generation HDTVs.
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CEDIA 2009
Sub Joins B&W CM Series
Mark Fleischmann  |  Aug 28, 2009
The latest subwoofer to hit the Bowers & Wilkins CM Series is the ASW 12 CM. Similar in design to the ASW10, it has a 12-inch Kevlar-paper-cone driver with a large three-inch voice coil to pound that driver into submission, and probably you as well. The 500-watt Class D amplifier should provide plenty of power, pummeling the driver only when needed, and resting energy-efficiently the rest of the time. The finish is gloss black, the ship date is September, and the price is $2000.
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Audio Video News
Suit Demands Cable Unbundling
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 25, 2007
A lawsuit filed in a Los Angeles federal court demands that the cable and satellite industries offer channels individually, not in tiers.
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CEDIA 2010
Sumiko Hates Dirty Records
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 25, 2010
Have you been playing dirty, dirty records? Sumiko hates that. At its booth were the Okki Nokki record cleaning machines. Judging from the bottle and brush sitting on top of each one, this must be a wet-system cleaner. The product is available in black or much hipper white for $499 without dustcover or $549 with dustcover, because it's worth another fifty bucks not to let your record cleaning machine get dirty, right? Also on display were a full panoply of compact and affordable phono preamps including something we hadn't seen before: a tube model.
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Summer Will Bring JBL ES
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 09, 2007
JBL's new ES Series will include a tower with six-inch woofers ($500/each), plus a center ($329), surround ($329/pair), bookshelf ($400/pair), larger bookshelf ($500/pair), and a couple of subs ($450 and $550). I'm still waiting to get my hands on the cute bottle-shaped CS 6100 unveiled at CEDIA in September 2006. It's on the way!
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CES 2012
Summit Moves the Sweet Spot
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 11, 2012
The coolest trick at CES was Summit Semiconductor's WiSA (Wireless Speaker & Audio) technology and the way it could literally move the sweet spot from the usual front-and-center position off to the side or to the back of the room. It was uncanny. WiSA spreads uncompressed high-res signals wirelessly among powered speakers. You're looking at the power/receiver board that makes it work. WiSA will surface first in Aperion products. The loudspeaker industry would be crazy not to jump on this, especially since it can be built into speaker systems selling for less than $1000.
Sunfire Becomes Triple Threat
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 05, 2008
With the TGM-100 Theater Grand Media Server, Sunfire has added a signal source to its excellent speaker and amp products, so now you can have a complete Sunfire system. The server sucks up DVDs and CDs and stores the content on the TGM-HD6 Theater Grand Hard Drive. Note that the latter, on the bottom, has eight slots. Available drives hold one, three, or six terabytes. Sunfire will explore the Blu-ray angle "when it makes sense."
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Bookshelf Speaker Reviews
Sunfire HRS Speaker System
Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 10, 2008
Price: $3,149 At A Glance: Brilliantly ironclad build quality • Tight, tuneful sealed sub • Carver-worthy dynamics

Little Speaker Lusts for Power

My lonely battle to establish the satellite/subwoofer set as a respectable speaker category just got a little less lonely. Bob Carver, legendary designer of amps and speakers, has joined me on the space-saving speaker front. Carver first gained fame when he founded Phase Linear in 1970. He designed what the industry then considered some of the world’s most powerful amplifiers. His current company, Sunfire, has branched out into surround processors, an extensive subwoofer line, and speakers. With the HRS line, he enters the sat/sub category with a product that—like most Carver products—shows a healthy lust for power. Take these four satellites, a barely larger center, and one of Carver’s famously potent subs, and you’ve got a sat/sub set that’ll turn heads and change minds.

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Headphone Amp/DAC ReviewsHeadphone Reviews
Supercharge Your Headphones: 3 DAC/Headphone Amps Put to the Test
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 02, 2014
Headphones aren’t just about mobile audio. They’re also a cost-effective way to get good sound into your ears even when you’re not on the go. If you have $400 to spend on a set of speakers, your options are of limited fidelity, but the same money will buy you the Sennheiser HD600, one of the most popular high-end headphone models of all time. Try getting a comparably great-sounding set of surround speakers for that price.
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