Paul Barton (left), PSB's founder and chief speaker designer, discusses some of the psychoacoustic research and technology that went into his company's first-ever headphones, which also include active noise cancelling. And Greg Stidsen (right), NAD's director of technology and product development, talks about his company's new Viso 1 all-in-one, all-digital stereo speaker package, which Barton helped design.
SpectraCal co-founder and CTO Derek Smith talks about the evolution of CalMan, SpectraCal's video-calibration software intended for enthusiasts, the process of calibration, automated calibration, the new eeColor image processor that adjusts a display's color for different amounts of room light, 3D calibration, 4K, expanded color gamuts, answers to chat-room questions, and more.
Philip Clements, inventor of the H-PAS (Hybrid Pressure Acceleration System) speaker-loading technology used in his own speakers as well as models from Atlantic Technology, explains how H-PAS combines bass-reflex, acoustic-suspension, and transmission-line techniques to offer many advantages, including extended bass response, lower distortion, and greater dynamic range.
Fresh from his presentation of the Richard Heyser Memorial Lecture at the 131st AES Convention, Stereophile editor John Atkinson talks about some of the points he made in that address, including the fundamental differences between objective measurements and subjective listening, mental maps and the nature of reality, blind testing, how some types of audio products that measure poorly are often praised by listeners, answers to chat-room questions, and more.
Drew Major, co-founder of Novell and Move Networks and now CTO of EchoStar Advanced Technologies, gets geeky about the underlying technology of video streaming, wired versus wireless connections, his invention of adaptive-rate video streaming, meetings with Steve Jobs, the future of IPTV and his conviction that it will eventually supplant broadcast TV, answers to chat-room questions, and more.
Home Theater editor Rob Sabin and I answer questions from the chat room, including the new Sharp Elite flat panel, cheap versus expensive HDMI cables, home-theater-in-a-box systems, 4K, how much to spend on a home-theater system, projectors versus direct-view TVs, LED LCD TVs, rear-projection TVs, THX versus Dolby and DTS, and much more.
Barb Gonzalez, aka the Simple Tech Guru, talks about Logitech's recent announcement that it will no longer produce the Revue with Google TV as well as other aspects of the Google TV service, including the impending update, Sony's implementation, and LG's rumored involvement. She also reveals her initial impressions of the new Roku 2 streamer, answers chat-room questions, and more.
Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, CTO of Panasonic North America, talks about the importance of online apps in TVs and other consumer electronics products for content delivery and social interaction (including Skype, which he used on a Panasonic Viera VT30 during the podcast), the success of 3D in its first two years, issues surrounding 4K, the importance of mobile content, ultra-premium flat panels, answers to chat-room questions, and more.
Michael Lavorgna, editor of our sibling site AudioStream.com, describes his listening room and discusses a variety of topics related to high-quality computer audio, including lossless FLAC compression versus uncompressed WAV, the difference between DACs, sample-rate conversion, DSD DACs, high-resolution music download sites, answers to chat-room questions, and more.
Stacey Spears and Don Munsil, creators of the HD Benchmark setup and test Blu-ray, discuss the importance of test patterns for consumers, video compression and processing, 3D, online content delivery, and more.