Innehållsförteckning för January 2016 från Sound & Vision

PRICE $1,098 as reviewed SOUNDBASES AND BARS HELP the audio industry stay relevant to consumers. Maybe not everyone is interested in traditional loudspeakers and receivers, but most people have a flat-panel TV, and all but the least observant of those people have noticed that the built-in speakers produce sound that is less than coherent. Many of those consumers may not know that PSB has been producing great-sounding audio products for decades, so we have a fundamental disconnect between a brand that is (relatively) unrecognized by newbies and a product category that attracts them. What will it take to bring a PSB soundbase to the newbies? Maybe their better-informed friends who read Sound & Vision should have a word with them—especially when they’re seen pulling a big flat-panel TV box out…

PRICE $130,000 IN EARLY OCTOBER, VIZIO INVITED me to New York City to join other digital-stained A/V scribes in the official launch of the company’s new Reference series Ultra HDTVs. The featured attraction was the RS120-B3 ($130,000), loaded up with more than 8 million pixels on its 120-inchdiagonal (10-foot!) screen. The considerably more affordable, 65-inch RS65-B2 ($6,000) joined in the festivities. Before the introduction, Vizio hosted a briefing for television reviewers to explain the technology and offer tips and tools for evaluating and calibrating high dynamic range (HDR) sets. Later, a handful of reviewers were granted some brief private time with the big RS120-B3 to do our best to wring it out. Although editor-in-chief Rob Sabin and I had only a bit more than 90 minutes with the set, it…

If Disneyland once got sued because (it was alleged) Winnie the Pooh had accidentally slapped a young guest while posing for photos, it boggles the mind to contemplate all the lawsuits Jurassic World would have incurred after the devastation depicted in this film. In the 22 years and three films since Jurassic Park re-introduced living dinosaurs to the world, there has been rampant chaos, carnage, and death at every turn. Still, it seems the harsh lessons of playing God and tampering with Mother Nature have gone completely unheeded yet again. Lo and behold, another attempt at a state-of-the-art theme-park zoo of cloned dinosaurs has made its debut for the paying public: Jurassic World is now open for business, and the park is packed with 22,000 eager tourists. But this time,…

Directors Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill (Earth) return to Disneynature with the beautifully filmed documentary Monkey Kingdom, which follows a troop of macaques living in the ruins of a Sri Lankan temple. The story hones in on a female named Maya and her newborn son Kip. The lowborn Maya must work her way through the complex hierarchy of the macaques in her struggle to survive and feed her son. The film is very family-friendly in that familiar Disney way, glossing over some of the more intense incidents. The anthropomorphizing of these cute creatures is an effective tool for the storytelling, and the lighthearted, comically tinged narration by Tina Fey helps it all go over easily. For adults and kids alike, the beautiful camera work offers more than enough eye candy…

The Warner Bros. Archive Collection has remastered and released another contemporary classic from their vaults: The World According to Garp, and a welcome arrival it is. Adapted from the novel by John Irving and released back in 1982, this quirky comic drama featured star-making performances from three relative newcomers: Glenn Close, John Lithgow, and a gifted young comedian named Robin Williams. Appropriately, Lithgow and Close were both nominated for Academy Awards for their supporting performances, but it was several years too soon for Williams to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor. George Roy Hill, who directed Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, showed inspired brilliance in giving the lead role to Williams, an actor whose only prior characterizations were a…

This dazzling documentary tells the biography of celebrated Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, who, drawing with light and shadows, depicts the salt of the earth—individuals in communities of mine workers, survivors of the Rwandan Genocide, or the indigenous tribal people of his native home. All are captured in intensely striking black-and-white photographs of enormous depth and detail. Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado (Sebastião’s son) co-directed the film, bringing their great visual eyes in showing him at work and displaying the results past and recent. “Places, Strange and Quiet,” the title of one photography series book, well describes all Sebastião Salgado’s work and it’s a breathtaking journey. Contrast in the transfer is at times near perfect with deepest blacks and a gorgeous vast range of grays, allowing the full force of…

“Five years—that’s all we’ve got.” That ominous prognostication, put forth by David Bowie ostensibly about an Earth heading toward imminent destruction in the opening track to 1972’s incendiary game-changer The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, also serves as a fitting epigraph for both the core title and scope of this massive box set, the first in what will likely prove to be a series that will go well beyond merely making the grade. Rhino, under the Parlophone umbrella, is rolling out a series of Bowie boxes that will represent most, if not all, key phases of the artist’s mercurial and groundbreaking career, and what better way to kick it off than by spotlighting the first halfdecade one David Robert Jones inhabited as the character…

E-mail them to HTLetters@sorc.com. Please note: Questions about the features and functions of a particular product are best directed to the manufacturer. Questions about what product you should buy are best directed to a dealer who knows all the details of your system, your preferences, and your personal habits. All submissions are considered the exclusive property of Sound & Vision magazine and TEN: The Enthusiast Network. We reserve the right to edit letters for brevity. Due to the volume of mail that we receive, we regret that we cannot respond to every letter. Why Were You a Snot? I’ve been meaning for a while to write in about what is meant by resolution and the false claim that 4K TVs have twice the resolution of 2K TVs, so I was…

PRICE $395 THE DECISION TO FEATURE Serene Audio’s Talisman in our Premiere Design section (November) was a no-brainer. We’ve seen lots of unusual speakers over the years but nothing quite like the squiggly lines of Sia Rezaei’s imaginative design. You might hate it, but I find it inspiring. And it’s a desktop speaker that’s only 8 inches tall. I don’t know about you, but I spend way too many hours pecking away in front of a computer, usually with Pandora playing in the background through a pair of cheap (no excuses, I know) computer speakers. The promise of great sound from visually striking desktop speakers appeals to me, so I asked Rezaei to send me a set of Talismans. As I removed the speakers from their custom-fitted bamboo carton, I…

TV shopping has become vastly more complicated over the past decade. Buyer confusion used to revolve around issues of 720p versus 1080p, LCD versus plasma, edge-lit versus full-array, 3D or not 3D, and “What’s a smart TV?” All manageable problems, in retrospect. The arrival of 4K/Ultra HDTV has introduced a whole new set of complications for shoppers to confront before they take the plunge. Many of the sets we’ve seen in 2015 sport curved screens, emerging display technologies, and the capabilities to handle the growing range of UHDTV sources, whether streamed or stored on forthcoming physical media. And those sources themselves sport a range of advanced features, not all of which can be handled by even the latest TVs. Confused? Frightened? Put off? Don’t be. All you need to know…

PRICE $1,499 HOW PROUD ARE THE ENGLISH of the English? Pretty damn. It’s why Bentley chose Naim for their “in-cabin” sound systems. (They don’t even call it automotive sound. How cool is that?) I asked that an appropriately equipped Bentley be sent along for comparison to Naim’s one-piece Mu-so music system, but alas, no review samples were currently available (or so I was told). That’s OK, I’ll just sit in my easy chair and use a calf’s-leather-scented plug-in air freshener to re-create the ambiance while I listen to the Mu-so. Pardon Me, Would You Have Any Grey Poupon? If you’re an established audiophile, you’ll doubtless recognize the British company Naim as a longtime purveyor of high-end two-channel products. Philosophically, Naim has always traveled the minimalist path, marching to a different…

A Room with a View is one of the most romantic films of all time—a funny, leisurely, unabashed, but also ironic celebration of “beauty, joy, love,” (as its youthful hero shouts from a flimsy treetop in the Italian countryside). Based on E.M. Forster’s novel, it remains the most successful film by Merchant Ivory, the enterprise consisting of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, and screenwriter Ruth Prawler Jhabvala. I’d found (and still find) many of their other movies dull, so what jelled with this one? The infectiously gorgeous setting—Florence, its surroundings, and the estates of southeastern England—must have played some role. The actors are as fine an ensemble as any assembled (besides the three listed below, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Rupert Graves). The ravishing soundtrack, mainly…

Stanley Kubrick’s legendary depiction of a slave uprising in ancient Rome has long since entered the annals of cinema history, so there’s little else to say about this beloved movie. Produced long before the advent of digital filmmaking, it is an ambitious masterpiece, an incredibly lavish undertaking with scenes that assemble thousands of extras while driving home the story of one man making all the difference in the world. As long as I can remember, Spartacus has been Universal’s ugly duckling, not once receiving the home video treatment a movie of this caliber deserves—despite several attempts—forced instead to languish with unanimously disappointing transfers. But the gods are smiling upon us at last, because someone at the studio decided it was time to give the film its due. The new 4K…

As directed by Russell Crowe from the book of the same name by Andrew Anastasios and Dr. Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios, The Water Diviner is part (anti-) war story, part romance, part history lesson, and part travelogue. Four years after the Battle of Gallipoli in which he lost his three sons, Joshua Connor (Crowe) is driven by the suicide of his wife to leave his Outback farm to go to the battlefield in search of their remains. On the way, waiting to get a permit from the occupying English forces, he stays in a hotel in Istanbul run by a beautiful war widow who, along with her young son, helps him to understand their country, culture, and customs, and he soon finds himself protectively drawn to them and to Turkey. With this…

A year before The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper, Brian Wilson had completed “Good Vibrations,” the first pop song with orchestral backing and the most expensive single ever produced. By then, its genius composer had begun his descent into madness, which, by the 1970s, would find him bedridden for several years before being placed under the care of Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti). Astonishingly accurate to its finest detail, Love & Mercy, which flashes between Wilson, “Rock Star” prodigy of the mid-’60s (Paul Dano) and “Rock Bottom” burnout of the late ’80s (John Cusak), is compelling on historical, musical, and emotional levels. According to the illuminating, full-length commentary by director Bill Pohlad and co-writer Oren Moverman, Wilson is such an “analog guy” that the movie was shot on film stock, much…

When I picked up Pioneer’s SE-MASTER1 headphone at CEDIA Expo in October, I knew it was special. Substantial yet lightweight and exceptionally well crafted with scrupulous attention to detail, right down to the contoured ear cushions and engraved serial number. (Sorry, S/N 00001 is already spoken for.) If you were to crack open the ear cups, you’d find the same commitment to excellence in the form of a highly refined ceramic-coated aluminum diaphragm surrounded by a ribbed ring, designed to reduce distortion, all framed in a sturdy aluminum alloy to minimize resonance. Each open-back headphone is hand-built by a master craftsman at Pioneer’s Tohoku Plant in Japan—the same place where high-end TAD speakers are made. The headphone’s core components—a pair of 2-inch drivers, each comprising 13 carefully aligned parts—is a…

15 Minutes with B&O Tonmeister Geoff Martin I’ve met enough top speaker designers over the years to know that they’re all obsessive. And I mean that in a good way. To design a great speaker, you have to be obsessive. You have to be prepared to spend countless hours in the lab and in listening rooms evaluating and tweaking every conceivable variable to isolate that elusive mix of art and science that yields a speaker capable of fooling listeners into thinking they’re experiencing a live performance. A tall order, to be sure. Geoff Martin is not a designer, but as Bang & Olufsen’s tonmeister, he plays a critical role in the development of every speaker the Danish company makes. What’s a tonmeister? Read on. S&V: For those who are not…

PRICE $3,000 AMAZINGLY, YOU CAN BUY A pretty damn good AVR these days that’s Dolby Atmos–enabled for under $500, so why spend more if you don’t have to? Well, there are many reasons: better-quality DAC chips, enhanced features (such as multiple zones for both audio and video), and more channels of audio and associated amplification. You can also usually count on these upgrades when you move into the realm of the preamp/processor (also known as a surround processor), though with pre/pros, you’re left on your own for the amplification. It’s kind of like an impromptu college party that advertises BYOB—except, it’s BYOA: Bring Your Own Amp(s)! Unlike the AVR market, however, your options are somewhat limited when shopping for a pre/pro, especially in the $1,000-to-$5,000 price range. There are three…

PRICE $1,470 as reviewed AS LONGTIME S&V READERS have doubtless come to understand, I believe that cheap, as Gordon Gekko definitely did not say, is good. Any $10,000 pair of loudspeakers makes me vaguely uneasy, while a $50,000 pair leaves me ready to join the Che Guevara Brigade and start lining up oligarchs. So the arrival of a new family of cheap—err, highvalue— serious loudspeakers from Elac U.S., designed by tech’lebrity engineer Andrew Jones, caused a certain amount of excitement hereabouts. (For more on Elac and Jones, see “Man on a Mission” in our “Perfect Focus” department, October 2015 or at soundandvision.com.) Briefly, then: Elac is a 90-year-old German radio/audio/appliance manufacturer with roots in sonar and early radar—about which, given the historical period, the less said probably the better. The company…

BLU-RAY 3D Avengers: Age of Ultron Sequels can be a tough nut. Age of Ultron is of course the follow-up to 2012’s The Avengers, but along the way, there were four other Marvel Universe movies that apparently need to be acknowledged here, coupled with the laborious task of tying in TV series and setting up movies yet to come. Throw in too many characters and some extraneous subplots, and the result is a sequel more exhausting than entertaining. When a vital artifact from The Avengers is finally retrieved, billionaire genius Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) uses it to create his greatest weapon yet: artificial intelligence that can ultimately protect the entire planet. Seemingly endless and utterly pointless “folly of man” debates ensue—Stark has already released the evil genie named Ultron…

DOLBY ATMOS Fourteenth-century prince Vlad Dracula ushers off on a religious crusade to battle his enemies, leaving the love of his life in his gothic castle. Before he returns victoriously, the evil Turks send word to his bride that he has died in battle. Beset with grief, she commits suicide, and upon seeing her lifeless body, Dracula denounces the church in a fit of rage and becomes an undead man whose eternal existence requires him to feed off the blood of other living creatures. Four hundred years later, a London real-estate broker visits Dracula in Transylvania. When Dracula happens upon a picture of the agent’s fiancée and notices her striking resemblance to his deceased bride, he must travel to London to gaze upon her beauty for himself and rediscover true…

Egyptian history is astonishingly long by modern standards. The pharaoh Tutankhamun lived roughly 13 centuries after the pyramids were built, and another 13 centuries would pass before Cleopatra friended an asp. The plot of this two-disc, 4.5-hour miniseries is centered on the limited facts we know about Tut. He was the son of Akhenaten, whose worship of the sun god Aton and rejection of Egypt’s traditional deities nearly tore the country apart. Tut became pharaoh around age nine and eventually restored the old gods and stabilized the kingdom. But by the time of his death at a young 19, he had failed to produce an heir by his wife and half-sister Ankhesenamun. Tut’s powerful advisors, the Vizier Ay and General Horemheb, were also historical figures. Both would follow Tut, one…

Author Walter Farley’s sweet, timeless tale of a young boy and his special bond with a spirited horse was brought to cinematic life with irresistible visual and sonic beauty, more appreciable than ever on Criterion’s fantastic new Blu-ray. Our boy, Alec (Kelly Reno, what a find), is washed ashore on a remote island after a shipwreck, and the only other survivor is a magnificent Arabian stallion. Their time alone together is a prolonged marvel of wordless storytelling, while the post-rescue second half is quite a different animal, as a grizzled old trainer (a wonderfully cast Mickey Rooney) agrees to prepare the horse to race. It’s a thrilling adventure for kids, but without the sap that might otherwise send the adults fleeing. The Black Stallion was transferred from the original 35mm…

In an era when Glee was everywhere, moviegoers understandably didn’t flock to see the seemingly similar Pitch Perfect on the big screen, but Blu-ray/DVD and TV showings ultimately brought the charming comedy the audience it deserved. Three years later, the mettlesome young songstresses from Barden University are back, eager to win an international competition with the help of a new recruit. Returning co-star/producer Elizabeth Banks also makes a triumphant directorial debut with Pitch Perfect 2, seamlessly maintaining the ongoing franchise’s breezily mean-spirited humor while staging many memorable new cover versions of eclectic pop tunes. The Blu-ray is worthy of heartfelt praise as well. Colors are remarkably bold in the too-perfect Pitch Perfect world, with generous details appreciable everywhere we’d expect within the 1.85:1 frame. Even billowy theatrical smoke is naturally…