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Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 20, 2006

In mid-2005 the average selling price of a 50" plasma display began its yearlong plunge from over $5,000 to a June 2006 average of just above $3,000. The number of sets sold at the new prices more than tripled, even accounting for the traditionally hot fall (2005) selling season.

Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 13, 2019
Announced in a pre-show blog on the eve of CEDIA Expo 2019, GoldenEar's Bookshelf Reference X (BRX), scheduled for release in early 2020 at an expected retail price of $699 each, has made an impressive splash.
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jun 10, 2014
Rummaging through my piles of lost papers the other day, I came across the following pearls of wisdom. Nothing on the paper indicated where it came from, or to whom it should be attributed. It has the ironic angle of the late Stereophile founder J. Gordon Holt, but may well have come from elsewhere. In any case, here it is for your delectation. I’ll add my own comments in a future blog entry, but leave this to speak for itself for now:
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 05, 2020
We have no confirmed data to show how the current coronavirus pandemic might affect the consumer electronics market. Even experts paid to research such things can only guess, but there’s little doubt it’s effect will be significant.
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 31, 2022
Spring is traditionally prime time for the audio industry to dust off the cobwebs and bring out their best and latest gear at a hi-fi show for the public to see, hear, and touch. But the pandemic of the past two years wreaked havoc on the show front.
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 22, 2006

It was the most ambitious do-it-yourself carpentry work I've done in five years, ever since I covered the windows in my home theater studio to shut out the light and minimize extraneous outside sounds. The latest project involved building a false wall directly in front of an existing wall, not only to conveniently hang an expected ongoing parade of flat panel displays coming in for review, but also to facilitate a planned series of on-wall speaker reviews. There's no question that on-wall speakers are a significant trend, and one that we can't continue to ignore here at <I>Ultimate AV</I>. As for in-walls, well, that's a project for the future.

Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 28, 2006  |  Published: Dec 29, 2006

Stop me if you've heard this one. Wild animal breaks out of a New York zoo to return to the wild. Other animal friends follow to bring him back. They travel by boat to a strange, jungle environment.

Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 20, 2013
I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore. Follow the yellow brick road. And your little dog, too! I’m melting! Ding dong the witch is dead. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

The Wizard of Oz has likely contributed as much to the American lexicon as anything prior to Star Trek. (Just kidding— though “I’m giving ‘er all she’s got, Capt’n, He’s dead, Jim, Engage, Fascinating, Make it so, and I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer” do have their loyal fans.) The movie wasn’t a huge hit when it first opened in 1939, but it made up for it years later, particularly starting in the 1950s when it became an annual TV event.

Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 07, 2004

The Dreadnaught (reviewed in our Oct-ober 2000 issue) was the first power amplifier from Theta Digital, a company previously known for its D/A converters, CD and DVD transports, and surround processors. But it wasn't to be the last. The Dreadnaught II is now a member of a growing family of Theta amplifiers&mdash;the premier multichannel design in a line that also includes high-end monoblocks.

Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 11, 2011
The new Thiel floorstanding SCS4T (about $3700/pair), mentioned again further down in this report, is a modest speaker by Thiel standards. The single coaxial driver has the advantage of coincidence. That is, the tweeter is mounted coaxially with the woofer, so the two drive units do not produce comb filtering dips in the speaker's response at off axis angles. Coaxial drivers are also used in more upmarket models from Thiel, and also by KEF and Tannoy, but otherwise are relatively rare.

Yes, I heard more dramatically impressive sound at the show, but the Thiel room, one of the first I visited, sounded so honest and right that for me it represented the sort of value that most of the higher-end products could not manage. Of course, a pair of Thiel subwoofers were helping it along in the deep bass!

And unlike nearly all of the speakers heard at the Venetian, the SCS4T is ready for home theater. The older, stand-mount SCS4 (about $2400/pair, available in singles) should be a good match. It uses the same coaxial driver and can be used as a matching center channel, even mounted on its side (a trick that other non-coaxial 2-way speakers cannot do without sonic consequences.

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