Indholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2015 i Sound + Image

The Blu-ray Disc Association continues to promise that the industry is “on track” to deliver new Blu-ray players capable of delivering 4K content by the end of 2015. The new standard has, at the time of press, still yet to be finalised, although Panasonic anticipated the specification by showing prototype players at CES. But Victor Matsuda, who is VP of Blu-ray at Sony America and also the BDA’s global promotions committee chair, has given interesting confirmation of various inclusions and exclusions that should make it through to market. The new players will play a new breed of Blu-ray Disc by more than doubling their existing data delivery rate from the current level of around 40Mbps up to 108Mbps data delivery from dual-layer discs and up to 128Mbps from triple-layer ones.…

Cambridge Audio has launched a broad tech-savvy CX series comprising six new products: the CXN network music player (pictured), CXA60 and CXA80 integrated amplifiers, a CXC dedicated CD transport and two AV receivers, the CXR120 and CXR200. The CXN network player includes core tech-from the company’s successful StreamMagic, connecting wired or wirelessly to play files via UPnP over a home network from computers and NAS drives, or direct via asynchronous USB, from optical or coaxial digital inputs, or from twin USB-A slots into which USB hard drives or sticks can be plugged. The CXN features Apple AirPlay and support for an optional aptX Bluetooth receiver. Digital and analogue outputs are provided, including XLRs, the CXN doubling as a digital pre-amp using a 32-bit volume control. More info: www.synergyaudio.com…

Despite our headline, the $7999 Viera TH-65AX900A is actually one off Panasonic’s very highest model, kept from the top only (at present) by the 85-inch AX940A. But in terms of 65-inch 4K TVs, this is the dreamboat. It’s a true premium TV at a premium price, with smart features galore and a big, big picture that seems to float on your furniture at the gentlest of tilts. All very beautiful. But does it work properly? EQUIPMENT So, this 65-inch screen has the 4K/UHD resolution of 3840 by 2160 pixels. Panasonic has packed in the latest versions of its picture enhancing technology, including ‘4K Fine Remaster Engine 2’, ‘Studio Master Colour’ and ‘Studio Master Drive’. The IPS panel is backed by local LED backlights with ‘a high number’ of dimming zones…

First, there was the personal video recorder — a digital TV receiver with the ability to lay down the digital signal onto a hard disk. The usefulness of the PVR was then enhanced with a second digital tuner. You could record two programs at once. Since PVRs are essentially computers with TV tuners attached, and since computers have been getting a great deal faster and more powerful, soon there was the ability to record two programs at the same time from each tuner, for a total of four. Australian firm Altech UEC has gone a step further with the UEC PVR9600T: three tuners, six simultaneous recordings. And designed and developed here in Australia. But do pay close attention to the model number, or you might accidentally purchase the PVR6600Q, which…

If you had shown us the specifications and abilities of these networked AV receivers only a few short years ago, we would have guessed prices at least double those that actually apply to the AV receivers in this round-up. We have, to paraphrase Harold Macmillan, never had it so good, nor so capable, so powerful or so clever at this relative entry level of home cinema. Nor are they so hard to use as some might have found them before. App control has revolutionised the AV receiver, offering touchscreen control from your comfy movie-viewing chair, able not only to control the receiver and select inputs, but to access online music sources like Spotify, networked files, internet radio and other content. The apps look good, and work smoothly after several years…

Our Editor does enjoy a bath. He likes to read in there, and listen to music. But he complains that the music has long been a problem. Wiring and wet areas don’t go well together, of course. Even if he did obtain a nice pair of waterproof speakers, the missus would NEVER let him drill any kind of hole in the tiles or ceiling for a mount; it would take another renovation to get cables run to them. So hitherto, music has merely been piped in acoustically, by leaving the door open and playing music in the bedroom. But there is no control. You need volume at least, to adjust between loud songs and quiet songs. We gather he once considered getting an RTi waterproof RF universal remote to do…

Congratulations to QNAP! To date there have been two main ways to store your network-based media. One way has been a kind of high-fidelity component, stylish, often with disc rippers and DACs built in, but generally astoundingly expensive and unable to be upgraded. The other way has been to use IT infrastructure-style NAS (Network Attached Storage), which holds your digital media and serves it up to other devices. Though these networking drives are more expensive than plug-in hard drives, they are relatively inexpensive compared with consumer-electronics designs. But being IT devices, they usually use a noise-producing cooling fan and rarely offer more than slight nod towards attractive or unobtrusive consumer styling. QNAP has long been big in the latter area, and in a sense the HS-251 does indeed offer infrastructure-style…

The ‘script’ typeface on the packaging of these luxury headphones is sufficiently flowing that some might read the product name as ‘Maestro’ — it is actually ‘Maestoso’, a musical direction to play ‘majestically’, taken usually to mean either stately and dignified, or more dramatically as triumphant and heroic”. Big claims for a headphone, even one at $899 with its head-shells fashioned from teak, and marking the 11th generation of Audio-Technica’s renowned ‘W’ series headphones. Teak is a fairly heavy wood, so it’s a surprise that at 430g the ATH-W1000Z do not have the weight you might anticipate in the hand, let alone on your head. Though they look large, they do not feel it, and never once felt tiresome to wear, even during long home listening sessions. The luxurious lambskin…

Federation style, dating from 1905 — the owners of this Sydney home were giving it a complete remodelling and invited Len Wallis Audio, of whom they were already customers, to add all the latest technology features that would deliver a true integrated home encompassing control of the lighting, security, audio and video entertainment plus all networking. But clearly the task had to be undertaken while maintaining the look and feel of the home’s original architecture. Could it be done? Intuitive control Of course it could! From the pictures on these pages you would never imagine the technology equipment list behind the scenes in this home, which runs to several pages of security, network control and access electronics, intercoms and CCTV, even before coming to the extensive entertainment systems. The overarching…

Our visit with Bose included a one-on-one with President Bob Maresca — as quoted in our main article. But we also asked one question every audio reviewer would want answered — why doesn’t Bose publish full specifications for its products? This originated, we had gathered previously, with Dr Amar Bose’s early experiences in buying hi-fi for himself, and finding that the specifications bore little relevance to performance. BOB MARESCA: It’s more than just that... So you know we used to, back in the 70s, buy an amplifier and it’s, you know, 100W per channel, .01% distortion... all this stuff. And when I was back at Stamford I was designing amplifiers, and I made one which was .001% distortion! It was the purest amplifier in the world! — though of course…

Were this not from Devialet, we might be inclined to dismiss the fantastic claims of the Phantom. “Phantom on its own will replace your stereo systems, speakers, docking stations and home cinema. It exceeds them at least 1000 times in terms of sound quality” reads one section of the product guide… we don’t even know what they mean by multiples of sound quality. Guess we’ll have to hear it when the first units reach Australia around May/June. But what is this product giving rise to such outrageous assertions? The Devialet Phantom is a wireless speaker. It contains a wireless receiver, internal amplification and loudspeakers. At its heart is the ‘ADH’ (Analog/Digital Hybrid) amplification as used in Devialet’s remarkable stereo amplifiers, parallelling low-wattage Class A with high-power Class D to deliver…

Here’s a strange tangle that LG Electronics has found itself in — on the one hand it rushed out an announcement of its first ‘quantum dot’ TV (above) just before CES, thereby pipping rival Samsung’s CES launch at the post. But ever since, LG has been at pains to explain why we shouldn’t get too excited about quantum dots, because OLED is the far better screen technology. The reasoning is fairly obvious — LG is streets ahead of all its rivals with large-panel OLED, in particular achieving higher yield rates (i.e. lower fail rates) that have allowed it to price everyone else out of the market. But pricing still remains high compared with large-panel LCDs, even with LG.Display’s new OLED production line (E4) now on line in the ROK. So…

Trinnov Audio is preparing the release of the Altitude32, termed a “home theatre preamp/ optimizer”, bringing together rival formats Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D to achieve universal spatially-accurate 3D audio playback in what the company modestly calls “the most advanced, innovative, powerful and scalable 3D AV preamplifier ever manufactured”. “3D room remapping is the big Trinnov feature that sets it apart”, says David Moseley of Wavetrain, which distributes Trinnov Audio in Australia. “DTS, Auro and Atmos all differ with their speaker layouts. Only Trinnov can change the object position based on the actual layout of the room.” The Altitude32 is highly versatile, with 118 digital and analogue inputs and 80 audio outputs, best-in-class room optimisation, multiple subwoofer management, and 32-channel processing of 24-bit/192kHz discrete audio without downsampling and with a resolution…

A smart TV is, of course, a computer. It is optimised to receive digital TV stations and present them for your enjoyment. But that does not change its nature. A computer needs an operating system. For the most part these operating systems have been proprietary ones evolved over the years from more basic origins by individual TV manufacturers. But a different approach is to tweak a low-cost off-the-shelf OS, and use that. Hisense has adopted that method with some of its Ultra High Definition Smart TVs, using Android as its OS. Here we’re looking at Hisense’s 65K680UAD UHD TV. EQUIPMENT As the model number suggests, this is a 65-inch model, or 163.9cm (diagonal) in Australian. That makes for a very big TV screen. The resolution is, of course, 3840 by…

As we’ve seen with our 4K television reviews, the premium models offering the higher resolution of 4K are still at a premium price, and of course that’s been even more the case when it comes to home theatre projectors. But Sony is getting there. The VPL-VW300ES is listed on Sony’s website as its “cost-effective 4K Home Cinema projector”. Whether $10,999 is ‘cost effective’ is a very personal matter for each of us. Nonetheless, considering that the first Sony 4K projector (just two years ago) was $25,999, and our current Projector of the Year, Sony’s VW500ES, is $13,999, the trend is indeed encouraging. EQUIPMENT The Sony VPL-VW300ES is a large unit, weighing 14kg and dark in colour. As ‘4K’ definitions have settled in, some are separating the strict meaning of UHD…

As regular readers will have gleaned from our recent Awards, where this Beyonwiz won a Highly Commended gong, there is a new wave of video recorders coming onto the market which offer significantly expanded functionality over what has become the standard offering (usually twin tuners with a 500GB internal hard drive). Part of this is through networking, which the best PVRs have done for a while. Part of it is smartness, accessing the internet for ever-expanding online content — again an area which the best recorders have been gradually expanding. But the latest personal video recorders are now adding to core functionality with additional tuners, so you can record more channels simultaneously without worrying about overlaps or double bookings. Some rivals are offering four tuners or even more; this Beyonwiz…

Those who read our Awards issue will already know that we are highly impressed with Denon’s entry-level networking home theatre receiver, the AVR-X1100W — we awarded it AV Receiver of the Year Under $1000. It really doesn’t seem all that ‘entry level’ when it comes to network stuff. Nor, for that matter, with the home theatre stuff. And that’s is pretty impressive for a receiver costing well under a grand. Our awards issue included only a brief summary of its merits, so our full opinion of follows here. EQUIPMENT The network stuff extends rather a long way. For some reason, TVs have been building in wireless networking for years now, while most AV receivers have been stuck with Ethernet-only networking. Well the two antennas at the rear corners of this…

Dolby Atmos has rolled out in some of this year’s higher-end AV receivers, but it’s likely to be next year or even the year after before it arrives in entry-level models. But Onkyo’s TX-NR636 AV receiver offers a way in right now, at relatively modest cost. EQUIPMENT To be sure, the TX-NR636 supports Dolby Atmos sound, though with its seven amplification channels it can do so in its most basic form of 5.1.2 — that’s a standard 5.1-channel surround system with two additional speaker channels for height. Standard implementations of Atmos are 5.1.2, 5.1.4 and 7.1.2 (the last digit indicates the number of height speakers). There are no pre-amp outputs on the Onkyo to enable expansion to 5.1.4 or 7.1.2. Of course, the sixth and seventh amplifier channels aren’t locked…

Before he opens the door to this home cinema, the owner uses the Control4 app on his smartphone to select a specific lighting scene inside. Visitors enter to walls of Matrix-style digital rain, parting at the front to reveal a perspective image with silhouettes of the owner’s own family. A spectacular bar area outside the room shines under the illumination of purple LEDs — but wait, when we walked through a minute ago, hadn’t that bar been red? “He gets his greatest pleasure seeing the reaction of other people when they walk in here” says Kirt Duryea of Instinct Electrical, the company responsible for the installation of lighting, automation and AV equipment throughout this whole home on Sydney’s North Shore. “He’s the most advanced client we’ve ever worked with in…

1964: Dr Bose launched his company with a staff of three, spending their days developing power-regulating systems for government agencies including the military — pictured is a power inverter that converted DC voltage from a military vehicle to household voltage of 110V AC. 1966: While working on power regulation by day, the Bose team explored acoustics and speaker design by night, releasing their first consumer product in 1966. The 2201 speaker wired 22 small speakers into each of two eighth-sphere corner speakers, using room reflection and EQ as key elements to create a room-filling sound. But the tricky positioning contributed to minimal sales success. 1968: Bose bounced back with the 901 (top right), with even more emphasis on reflected sound — eight drivers in each speaker fired at the wall…

It’s astonishing how quickly the leading edge can become commonplace. The first Ultra High Definition (4K) TVs first appeared only in sizes rivalling those of projection screens, and with prices that recalled the very early years of plasma televisions. Last year the prices fell substantially and smaller sizes appeared. Now, in 2014/5, LG is offering five separate ranges, at sizes from 49 inches to 84, including curved screens, a sub-$2000 non-3D entry-level model, and with still more variants shown at CES last month (See News). The 65UB950T is the larger of two models in the middle range, and is presently available for an RRP of $4399. It is a 100Hz model, rather than the 200Hz of the top-of-the-line models, but it shares LG’s WebOS control system and includes support for…

Humax gave us the first sign that personal video recorders were getting something of an evolutionary upgrade when the company’s 4tune was finally delivered for review last year. Humax referred to it as a ‘Home Entertainment Server’, referencing the fact that it does a whole lot more than merely record your favourite television shows in the manner of a PVR. It can also stream live TV and recordings to iPads and other smart devices. It can store, serve or stream video files using your home network. You can set recordings from wherever you may be using Humax’s myhumax website or using the various Humax apps available. But cool as these smart functions were, they built on the abilities of previous PVRs which have been gathering such smarts with each annual…

Personal video recorders are getting smarter and smarter, along with the televisions to which they feed their signals. Almost every TV company has its own whizz-bang control system — LG has webOS, Panasonic showed sets at CES running Firefox, and Samsung has introduced something slightly unpleasantly called ‘Tizen’. But there has also been a more general move to use the versatile Android operating system as a user interface — it’s familiar to many people from their phones and tablets, and of course there are thousands if not millions of apps that can be accessed to deliver entended functionality. That’s the path Topfield has taken with this well-priced TF-T6211 PVR, and it proved pleasingly effective. EQUIPMENT The TF-T6211 uses version 4.2 of Android, named ‘Jelly Bean’. As a PVR it is…

Here’s another receiver that won a top accolade in our recent 2015 awards — the Marantz NR1605 is our AV Receiver of the Year $1000-$2000. In fact it’s right down at the lower end of that price break, so still distinctly entry-level in its price, but not so much in its abilities. And the first thing to note is, of course, its size. Marantz calls it ‘slimline’, but it’s not so much thin as a short-arse — conventional receivers are perhaps 15cm high; this is a mere 10.5cm. That may not sound too much, but it makes the NR1605 look more like a hi-fi amp and less like a great hulking box that will dominate your lounge and frighten your family. These things can count. So why are other receivers…

It doesn’t seem that long ago that Yamaha introduced its premium line of Aventage products, but time flies by and it turns out that we’re now up to Series V. We’ll be looking at the top-of-the-line Aventage RX-A3040 in full next issue, but here we’ve gathered together the entry-level RX-A740, and the RX-A1040 which is at the precise midpoint of the range. EQUIPMENT Both are 7.1-channel models (they have dual subwoofer outputs but these are duplicates not differentiated .2 outputs), with seven power amplifiers and nine sets of output terminals. The extra outputs provide flexibility so that you can have a couple of different speaker configurations wired up and simply switch between them rather than yanking cables. Among these different options is the ability to bi-amp the front stereo pair,…

Richter Acoustics is an Australian loudspeaker maker established almost 30 years ago. Its flagship series has long been its Legend range, now up to its fifth version with significant revisions all round, and this is an impressive 5.1-channel package using, in all, four separate but complementary models from the Legend group to deliver impressive results. EQUIPMENT This system consisted of the second-from-the-top stereo Wizard speakers ($1699 per pair), intended for duty as the front stereo pair, the Griffin centre-channel speaker ($499), the Merlin bookshelf-sized speakers ($799) for surround, and the Thor subwoofer ($1299). Individually they would come to $4296, but as a package they cost $3999. The Wizards are floorstanders. Richter calls them ‘quasi’ three-way, which is its term for 2.5 way. That is, of the two 130mm drivers, one…

Back before our awards issue last year, we rounded up a bunch of relatively low cost devices capable of streaming digital media to your home entertainment system. One was the then top-of-the-line unit from Minix, the Neo X7. But almost straight away an even higher model arrives with one feature that makes it very special indeed: 4K video output. Visually and feature-wise (aside from 4K output), the Minix Neo X8-H is pretty much indistinguishable from the Neo X7. It has three USB sockets, SD card slot, USB OTG (On The Go) socket, Ethernet, microphone input and headphone output; it has and dual-band WiFi, and it can do all the computery things you’d expect of a hot Android box (quad-core 2GHz processor, 2GB of system memory, 16GB of built in storage).…

There seems to have been a change at Bose in recent years. Those who review audio equipment have traditionally been a little hesitant around the company simply because there has long been a certain level of obsfucation when it comes to information on its research and products — ask a technical question and the answer might be that it “came to Dr Bose in a dream” or some such response, rather than hard facts or specifications. Their product demonstrations, even those made to journalists, might involve showing off a fake system which, once its performance has been heard, is then whipped away to reveal a far smaller system making the sound. Clever sleight of hand, but journalists do not like being fooled. Add to this Bose’s reputation for protection of…

After decades of seemingly unstoppable growth, the global market for TVs unexpectedly peaked in 2011. Despite the ever-growing screen sizes and falling prices, TV sales actually fell for each of the next two years. The pause triggered a mad scramble as companies addicted to growth tried desperately to find the magic formula to keep consumers buying. The first ‘killer feature’ to emerge as manufacturers strove to keep the registers ringing was 3D, and it’s pretty obvious now that 3D wasn’t what the world wanted. It didn’t have the right (glasses-free) technology and couldn’t deliver a stream of compelling content. The 3D fad disappeared from the marketing push at remarkable speed. Have those basic lessons been learned? It doesn’t seem so. The major (and minor) manufacturers are still looking to push…

2013-2014 — Entertainment One Creator: Bryan Fuller Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Caroline Dhavernas, Laurence Fishburne, Scott Thompson, Aaron Abrams, Gillian Anderson, Hettienne Park TV series based on films have been appearing increasingly of late. ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ is an expanded retelling of the movie; ‘Fargo’ is inspired by and slightly related to its movie. ‘Bates Motel’ is an impressive prequel to ‘Psycho’ — with young Norman and his mother Norma still separate people. And here we have a series based on the universe created by Thomas Harris, the author of ‘Red Dragon’, ‘Silence of the Lambs’, and ‘Hannibal’. I say ‘universe’ because the characters are heightened beyond what would seem possible in the real world. They are like Jedi in their various fields, but rather than The Force,…