Al Griffin

Q The foam surround on my Velodyne f-1200 subwoofer has disintegrated. I wanted to have it repaired with a rubber surround, but the guy at the speaker repair shop advised against that. Is there any benefit to using foam instead of a rubber surround when repairing a subwoofer driver? —Pete Gibson / via e-mail

Although 3D TV has grabbed its share of headlines over the past year, it appears that many consumers are still wary of the format. To cite one example, more than 70% of respondents in a recent survey sponsored by the cable TV industry said they wouldn’t consider buying a 3D TV in the next 12 months. Wouldn’t consider it! To these folks, plain old 2D movies at home look just fine, thanks. Watching 3D is something that you do while sitting in a squishy movie theater seat holding a bin of buttered popcorn and a 54-ounce Coke.

As anyone who saw Avatar in 3D at a theater (especially an IMAX theater) can attest, it set a high bar for depth-enhanced cinema. And for people like me fortunate enough to have had access to a 3D TV in 2010, each of the meager disc offerings squeezed out by the studios inevitably stood in comparison with that benchmark experience. With few exceptions, all fell well short of my Avatar-fueled expectations.

Housed in a billet-like slab of aluminum, the HRT microStreamer’s clean, utilitarian design tips you off right away that it means business. In this case, that biz is performing the same basic tasks as the Dragonfly, including decoding files with up to 96 kHz/24-bit resolution. And at a mere 2.5 inches, it checks in for work in a similarly compact form factor.