My family recently visited the Magic Kingdom park at Disney World in Orlando. One attraction we checked out was “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress,” a revolving theater that follows a “typical” family through the decades, starting around the 1920s and winding forward to the future.
As we get ready to head into the new year, 3D "immersive audio" is the driving force behind home theater. A rundown of where things stand with the three competing formats: Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, and Auro-3D.
A consortium of flagship audio/video companies have once again teamed up to provide the most immersive, over-the-top home theater demo at CES 2014.
Using detailed engineering schematics from Antony Grimani’s firm, Performance Media Industries (PMI) they rebuilt a meeting room in the Venetian into the ultimate movie listening and viewing space. Grimani told me that his company reengineered the room omitting all of the “wrong” hotel dimensions, and coming up with the layout and design for the room’s seating, riser heath, screen size, acoustic treatments and more.
For most listeners, compressed audio is a way of life. Between purchased iTunes music, streaming from Pandora or Spotify, satellite or terrestrial radio, for practically an entire generation, the only audio they know is some smashed down version of what music is capable of sounding like, and they rarely experience the capabilities of what even CD quality audio can deliver. The new Signal Doctor by Harman looks to fix all of this, but restoring what has been lost and letting people hear what they’ve been missing.
At a time when many people aren’t willing to spend $500 for a speaker, Bang & Olufsen is coming out with the new optional advanced grill to accompany its new line of in-ceiling speakers that are being manufactured by Origin Acoustics. To be fair, pricing hasn’t been set on the new grille, but the company stated that it would cost more than the price of the lowest speaker and would probably retail for around $500 each.
To clear up any confusion for the American market, even though the grill that is included with the speakers is called the “premium grill,” the truly premium option will be the aluminum advanced grill. So, what exactly is involved in making a $500 speaker grill?
Illustration by Chris Gould; room photo by Tony Cordoza
See if this doesn't sound familiar: You don't just love movies, you love the whole moviegoing experience. When the time comes to check out a film, you drive miles out of your way to go to the best theater around-one with stadium seating, digital surround sound, and that awesome THX trailer that comes on before the movie.
January 11, 2007 - Modern A/V systems are so complex, it's easy to miss a setting and end up with an experience that is less than ideal. Setting aspect ratio is a perfect example.