Thomas J. Norton

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CEDIA 2016
Alcons Demos Pro-for-Home Theater Setup
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 16, 2016  |  0 comments
Alcons is a company new to me, but they went all out in a Pro-for-Home, home theater setup. The speakers were a complex assemblage, with pro mid and high frequency drivers, the latter claimed to be an extremely rugged ribbon...
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Alien Quadrilogy
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 11, 2004  |  0 comments

<I><B>Alien: Director's Cut</B></I>
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<I>Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto. Directed by Ridley Scott. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic). 5.1 Dolby Digital, DTS (English), Mono (Spanish). 116 minutes. 1979.</I>
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Picture ***1/2
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Sound **1/2
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Film ****

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A/V Veteran
All About That Bass: Subwoofer Secrets 2017
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 21, 2017  |  3 comments
I was midway through a long delayed reorganization, riffling through piles of as yet to be filed home- and work-related stuff. As anyone can tell you, when you start to clear out documents and publications you haven’t seen in years you’re constantly tempted to stop and re-read much of it, which inevitably brings the entire process to a screeching halt.

Rather than keep entire audio-video magazines beyond about three years (the growth of the Internet is making even that a dubious practice), I tend to tear out articles that might be of value in the future. That was how I came across an article I hadn’t seen in 22 years. Titled “Subwoofer Secrets” (the inspiration for the name of this blog) and penned by the late Tom Nousaine, it had been published in the January 1995 issue of Stereo Review, the latter a distant godfather of Sound & Vision.

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A/V Veteran
All I Want For Christmas
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 24, 2008  |  7 comments

A small but vocal segment of the video business, and of video enthusiasts, believes that HD on a disc&#151;that is, Blu-ray&#151;is merely a stopgap. Soon, they are certain, we will all get our HD movie fix via Internet downloads.

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A/V Veteran
An Elite to Top Them All?
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 09, 2011  |  3 comments
The trademarked Elite name is still used by its owner, Pioneer, for a variety of products. But the company dropped its video-display business over two years ago. At that time, the Elite Kuro plasmas were widely considered, by us and many others, to be the best HDTVs available. Though they are no longer made, many observers still consider those last Pioneer Kuros better than any flat panel HDTV you can buy today.
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A/V Veteran
An Inside Look at Sony’s Latest TV Technology
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 07, 2018  |  3 comments
Last week Sound & Vision editor Al Griffin wrote on this site about Sony’s recent New York event. The subject was the launching of the company’s new Master Series flagship televisions, the new A9F OLEDs (in 55- and 65-inch sizes) and Z9F LCDs (65- and 75-inches). The event was held in a venue that in its past life was an exclusive dinner theater from 1938 to 1951, fell into disrepair in the following decades, and was remodeled in 2013. Since then it has been contracted to Sony, renamed Sony Hall, and used for a variety of theatrical and business events.
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A/V Veteran
Analog vs. Digital Connections
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 28, 2011  |  0 comments
When I read Stephen Beney's questions regarding the best way to connect his Oppo BDP-95 player to his Denon AVR-4308CI receiver and Scott Wilkinson's reply, I thought Scott's advice was good. But there are some other points I want to make about how to hook up that player for the best audio results—points that could apply to any universal disc player with claims of superior audio quality.
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A/V Veteran
Animation: The Sequel
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 03, 2023  |  6 comments
I've written about animated films before, but there are always new ones to discover, as well as older titles to revisit. To beat a live horse yet again (Maximus in Tangled, for example, not Maximus in Gladiator) I continue to be disappointed that adult friends, when visiting for a movie night, reject out of hand any suggested animated titles. Some, I suspect, haven't seen an animated movie since they were 12, an age at which they abandoned anything they considered to be childish diversions beneath their newfound sophistication. But just as live action films can offer things that animated titles cannot, the reverse is certainly true. Here are six more of my favorite animated movies.
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3D Blu-ray Movie ReviewsBlu-ray Movie Reviews
Ant-Man
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 15, 2016  |  0 comments
Picture
3D-Ness
Sound
Extras
Ant-Man begins in 1989 as genius inventor and industrialist Hank Pym achieves a major success in a revolutionary shrinking technology that can reduce a man to the size of an ant while increasing his strength a hundredfold or more. But he hides his accomplishment and resigns from his company to keep the development from falling into the wrong hands. As we jump to the present, his protégé, Darren Cross, is now the head of the company and close to the success that Pym secretly achieved in 1989.
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Power Amplifier Reviews
Anthem Statement D1 Preamp-Processor & Statement P5 Power Amplifier
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 22, 2005  |  0 comments

In today's hotly contested home theater market, the big consumer-electronics manufacturers are grabbing an increasingly important slice of the pie. Their new, big-boned receivers&mdash;with prices to match&mdash;approach (or sometimes exceed) the performance of most separates. The competition is fierce, with those mega-corporations using their marketing clout, engineering expertise, and production efficiency to built better products, but smaller companies can still compete. They're fighting back with separate pre-pros and power amps that trade on their traditional strength: sound quality.

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