Thiel Audio normally displays at the Venetian Hotel, the venue for specialty audio. But this year they elected to have a booth on the main floor of the Convention center. It was obviously not a spot for an effective, active demo, but the new, 4-way Thiel 40.3, at $35,000/pair, is a big step up in price for the company...
AT A GLANCE Plus
Tight, crisp bass
Detailed, dynamic sound
Price
Minus
Looks suffer with grilles removed
Needs a subwoofer for bass-heavy films
Vintage style might not appeal to all
THE VERDICT
It might not be at its best in a large room without a subwoofer or two, but the dynamic, open, and detailed sound of the KLH Model 3s can otherwise equal or exceed the performance of many far more expensive loudspeakers.
In the early 1950s Edgar Villchur, Henry Kloss, Malcolm S. Low, and Josef Anton Hofmann founded the Acoustic Research and Development Corporation. Of the four founders, Henry Kloss may be the name best recognized by audiophiles with a bit of mileage on their wheels. Kloss later left AR (along with Low and Hoffman) and founded KLH. Kloss later founded two other loudspeaker companies, Advent and Cambridge Audio.
In a daylong event last week, THX Ltd. and LG Electronics brought a number of journalists to its San Mateo, California headquarters. The main feature was the showing of the documentary Camera Man: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff from independent filmmaker Craig McCall, but THX also took the opportunity to bring us up to date on its THX certification program, including its work with LG on the latter's LCD and plasma sets.
The subject of the Titanic disaster makes for endless commentary. The ship went down in 1912, but once it was precisely located on the ocean floor in the 1980s the story of its demise has inspired an orgy of new coverage. The star attraction of that coverage, of course, was, and remains, the 1997 James Cameron film, Titanic. But it wasn't the first, or only, film on the subject. There was the 1958 black and white British film A Night to Remember, based on the Walter Lord book of the same name.
I’ve long been a fan of the Titanic saga, well before the 1997 film. I loved that one, but mainly for the stunning effects and James Horner’s magnificent score, not the badly written soap opera that took up over half of its running time. This week it returned to my attention, partly because in a few days the 107th anniversary of the disaster will arrive (April 15, though no one typically commemorates such an odd number) and partly because last week I re-watched a story of the Titanic on Blu-ray as one of the sources I used for a product review.
The latter however, wasn’t James Cameron’s flawed but still compelling epic. Instead, Titanic: Blood & Steel is a 12-part mini-series, released in 2012 (the 100th anniversary of the sinking, about the building of the ship. It doesn’t address the sinking at all. In fact, it ends just as the ship steams out of Belfast, where she was built (A ship is always a she, and as the narrative makes clear, she’s a ship, not a boat!)
N<I>arrated by Kenneth Branagh. Series producer: Tim Haines. Producer: Jasper James. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Surround. Two discs. 230 minutes. 1999. BBC Video (distributed by CBS). CBS Fox Video 2000040. NR. $34.98.</I>
When I reviewed Toshiba's TW40X81, the smallest (40-inch) RPTV in Toshiba's first full line of HDTV-ready sets, I raved about its picture quality (SGHT, March/April 2000). I was so taken with it, in fact, that I bought the review sample. I still use it, but a lot of video displays have bobbed under the bridge since then, and Toshiba is now two generations beyond that earlier design. The company's smallest rear-projection set is now the 42-inch-diagonal 42H81. But the 50H81, at 50 diagonal inches, is only slightly more expensive, and has the advantage of a significantly larger picture in a still (relatively) manageable cabinet. Like all HDTV-ready sets, it can display hi-def broadcasts, but only with an optional, outboard HD tuner.