Innehållsförteckning för May 2016 från Sound & Vision

I’m sometimes amazed at what I learn, or am reminded of, as we put to bed each issue of Sound & Vision. With the bird’s-eye view that comes with crossing t’s and dotting i’s on six to eight product reviews, written by staffers with their own eyes, ears, and perspectives, I get to see themes and patterns that might go unnoticed reading just any individual piece. One such revelation came as I went to finalize our review of the XTZ Cinema speaker system. Normally, our reviewers submit their raw copy with the Plus, Minus, and Verdict comments in place, and with their suggestions for star ratings and whether to award or deny Top Pick status. In the case of the XTZs, a well-built monitor system out of Sweden, our contributing…

Your PC isn’t the only connected device to be targeted by malware malefactors. Symantec security researcher Candid Wueest experimented on her smart TV, running the Android OS, and found it easy to infect with ransomware. Smart TVs running Tizen, WebOS, or Firefox OS may be no safer. Your TV is most likely to get an infection through a USB port, browsing an infected Website, or downloading an infected app. An attacker on the same network path might get the Wi-Fi password or hijack DNS requests. Not all smart TVs use SSL encryption, and some of those that do use it don’t exactingly verify the certificate— so something as seemingly safe as a software update may infect the TV. For more details see Wueest’s blog post at symantec.com/connect/blogs/how-my-tv-got-infectedransomware-and-what-you-can-learnit.…

Cassettes. Really? I am sorry. Only certain people will be allowed to read this column. To ensure that you are qualified, you must first correctly answer this question: What is the relationship between cassettes and pencils? If you can answer that, feel free to read on. If you can’t, please turn the page. Pencils, of course, are used to take up the slack in the tape inside a cassette. You know that because, as a former cassette user, you performed that small chore countless times. Alternatively, you jammed your little finger into one of the reel sockets. Among other cassette chores: endlessly pushing the fast-forward and rewind buttons until you found the start of a song; struggling to hear the music over the roar of the tape hiss; getting a…

Son of Oppo PRICE $699 PLANAR MAGNETIC HEADphones have potential advantages over conventional dynamic headphones. Their flat diaphragms have magnets evenly spread across them, driving the entire surface, as opposed to a single coil driving the center of a diaphragm. The result can be greater resolution and phase coherence. But that potential performance edge comes at a price. So headphone fans rejoiced when Oppo—which won positive reviews for its $1,099 PM-1—introduced the PM-2, with some of the same features, at a more affordable price of $699, followed by the even more affordable PM-3 ($399). I’ve been spending much of the past year or so listening to the PM-2. The PM-2 dispenses with the PM-1’s showmanship, including the fancy wooden storage case, but keeps a few critical features. Chief among them…

Attention, cord cutters: Broadband isn’t the only alternative to cable and satellite operators. Digital side channels are multiplying the choices available via plain old antenna television thanks to the digitizing of the broadcast standard. The Wichita Eagle (of Kansas) reports that the addition of side channels has raised the city’s available channels from a dozen to 42, adding lots of movie, TV, and specialty content including local sports and public affairs. The side channels benefit broadcasters by targeting ads to each channel’s content and demographic mix. Even low-power stations like KCTU are getting into the act, with eight side channels, and “each one of them is a revenue stream for us,” the station manager told the newspaper.…

Norman C. Pickering, inventor of the Pickering phono cartridge, has passed away at age 99. Before Pickering rethought phono technology, pickups were ungainly structures with crude steel styli. Just at the moment when records moved from shellac to vinyl, Pickering invented a smaller pickup—eventually a cartridge— that used lighter and tougher stylus materials like sapphire and diamond. First used for recording and broadcast, Pickering’s cartridges eventually had a profound impact on mass-market and high-end audio that continues even today, and the current vinyl revival will extend his influence indefinitely. He also played in the horn section of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, was a cofounder of the Audio Engineering Society, developed ultrasound eye diagnostic equipment for hospitals, and researched the acoustic properties of musical instruments in an effort to improve their…

Sony PS-HX500 USB Turntable PRICE $599 DETRACTORS LOVE TO SAY THAT the current resurgence of vinyl is nothing but a bunch of bearded hipsters with Crosley Cruisers, trying to look cool in their mid-century bachelor pads. There is, however, one surefire way to tell the difference between a fad and a real movement, and that’s when the big boys stop snickering from the sidelines and decide to start playing along. Most of the big consumer electronics companies dropped out of the turntable business decades ago, but suddenly in the last year we have seen ambitious new turntable introductions from big players like Onkyo, Pioneer, Technics, and now Sony. Most of these new offerings look like they could have come straight from the manufacturers’ 1989 catalogs, but Sony’s latest vinyl spinner,…

Moon by Simaudio Neo 230HAD Amp/DAC PRICE $1,500 LIKE THE REST OF US, HEADphones have dreams and aspirations. They know they have to start out small with whatever phone, computer, or AVR comes to hand. But they dream of something better—of an amp and DAC tailored just for their needs. In short, they long for their dream home. If you’ve invested in a good pair of headphones, wouldn’t it be cruel to make your cans sleep on a sofabed in a basement when they deserve more headroom, more purity, the freedom to be the best they can be? The Moon by Simaudio Neo 230HAD just might be the dream home they’re hoping for. The More Affordable Neo Moon by Simaudio is the brand name of a Quebec-based company founded in…

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2045 3D LCD Projector PRICE $850 I’LL BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT IT: I have become very jaded in my view of home theater projectors. Looking at my history with Sound & Vision (and previously Home Theater), I have always had the privilege of reviewing the upper crop of projectors; rarely do I get to evaluate more value-tier options. This wasn’t always the case, though. There was a time in my life when most of the projectors I used personally or reviewed for other publications were priced for a consumer on a much tighter budget. And so today, I’m intrigued to take a look at a more budget-conscious model. Enter the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2045, a three-LCD 1080p 3D projector that, while low in cost…

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. The High Cost of Hi-Res With great enthusiasm, I read Mike Mettler’s review of Rush’s Fly by Night, A Farewell to Kings, and Signals on Blu-ray DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD (S&V, December 2015). As a…

Soul Stirrers PRICE $250 I REALLY WASN’T EXPECTING this. While I liked KEF’s original M500 headphone when it arrived in 2013, I can’t say I was ever smitten by the sound. But the new M400 was quite the opposite: I loved it from the get-go and immediately connected with it. The newer model is a smidgen less expensive, and it features a cleaner design and deftly executed, mostly aluminum construction, deliciously ample ear pads, and a rich tonal balance. The M500 and M400 both share similar memory-foam ear pads and a 40mm driver that features a copper-clad aluminum voice coil, but the bass venting of the driver is different on the M400, which accounts for most of the difference in sound quality. The M400 was designed in England, with proprietary…

Sixty-nine percent of viewers surveyed by the very respectable Pew Research Center in December reported having watched at least some of this political season’s presidential debates. That’s up considerably from the 43 percent who did so in 2007. Older folks make up a slightly larger share of the audience, with 72 percent of those over 30 watching debates versus 58 percent of those under 30. Two-thirds describe the debates as interesting, though only 48 percent call them informative, suggesting that there’s a little critical thinking going on out there. Fifty-one percent call them “fun to watch.” Rumors that viewers also enjoy thumbscrews, iron maidens, and other medieval torture techniques were unconfirmed at press time. See more about the survey results at people-press.org/2015/12/14/debates-help-fuelstrong-interest-in-2016-campaign.…

Are You Ready for Video Nirvana? One of the more unexpected non-events of this past International Consumer Electronics Show was the soft and lackluster launch of Ultra High Definition Blu-ray (UHD BD) players. While the industry had been expecting hardware capable of spinning new 4K discs to feed the millions of 4K TVs that have been sold, the fanfare at CES was surprisingly ho-hum. In fact, only three companies—Samsung, Panasonic, and Philips under the P&F brand—showed hardware, with the Panasonic model not even (currently) destined for release in the States. LG announced a wait-and-see attitude, and post CES, Sony stated it would have a player by Q1 2017. Prior to CES, I posted a poll on soundandvision.com titled “Will You Buy an Ultra HD Blu-ray Player?” that received nearly 2,200…

Vizio smart TVs include a Smart Interactivity tracking technology that analyzes what you watch or record, determines date, time, and channel, and connects viewing patterns to your IP address. The company says this “non-personal identifiable information” is shared with partners “to permit these companies to make, for example, better-informed decisions regarding content production, programming, and advertising.” It is covered in the privacy policy, and yes, you can opt out. See instructions at vizio.com/smartinteractivity.…

What is Hi-Res Audio? Hi-Res Audio (HRA) music files offer the highest digital sound quality while retaining the typical benefits of digital audio, such as portability and accessibility. HRA delivers discernible sonic benefits over compressed digital audio formats and can exceed the quality of Compact Discs. What audible benefits does Hi-Res Audio provide? Hi-Res Audio tracks, when developed from an appropriately high-quality digital or analog master recording, can render noticeable improvements in sonic detail, dynamics, instrument and vocal timbre, and soundstaging/imaging compared with MP3s, CDs or streamed Internet music. Since hi-res music tracks can be a precise duplicate of an original hi-res digital master or better capture the inherent quality of an analog master, Hi-Res Audio allows music to be heard as the artists originally intended. Why should consumers care…

Yamaha Aventage RX-A2050 A/V Receiver PRICE $1,600 IS NINE THE NEW SEVEN? I’M talking about amp channels. Not long ago, nine-channel receivers were rare and supported relatively exotic surround modes that few people used. But Dolby Atmos bids to change the status quo by adding two to four height channels. A seven-channel receiver can support two height channels. A nine-channel receiver can support four height channels, which opens up possibilities for elevated panning in the top of the surround bubble, front to back and diagonally as well as side to side. In addition to that distinction between 5.1.2 and 5.1.4, there are other variations, such as two front-heights with two back-surrounds (7.1.2). If nine is the new seven in amp channels, then what is the new $1,000 price point—meaning, the…

Astell & Kern AK Jr Music Player PRICE $499 VISIT THE APPLE WEBSITE AND scan the banner across the top: Mac, iPad, iPhone, Watch, TV, Music, Support. Where’s the iPod? You’ll have to hit Music and scroll down a bit for the link to the iPod page. There you’ll find the surviving touch, nano, and shuffle players, but no high-capacity hard-drive-based models or even the iconic click wheel. Apple (and to be fair, Apple isn’t alone) recognizes that most people now use phones for on-the-go listening. But a few hardy souls, including Astell & Kern, still market music players that are a cut above the no-name junk that comes up when you search “music player” on Amazon. Making its debut at the bottom of the A&K line, at an affordable…

When the calendar turned to 1980, it was time for Bruce Springsteen to grow up. “How people connect and relate to one another, or don’t—I want to be a part of that, not just looking at it from the outside,” Bruce says at the outset of the new documentary on the Blu-ray Disc that lies at the very center of The Ties That Bind – The River Collection box set. And that statement is, in essence, the manifesto for the direction taken by The Boss and his merry E Street Bandmates on The River, which found the brash ’n’ brazen New Jersey singer/songwriter staring down the dawn of a new decade with a cautious combination of equal parts hope and trepidation. The River could have easily taken a wrong turn…

Even if you’ve never heard his name, you know his work. For nearly half a century, Morris Kessler has been quietly designing and building world-class power amplifiers, not only for SAE—the iconic brand he founded in 1967—but for his other company ATI and a number of respected brands including Dynaco, Aragon, Crestron, Adcom, Integra Research, and B&K, to name a few. But that’s not all Kessler is known for. SAE introduced the first graphic equalizer, first digital read-out tuner, and first phonograph pop-and-click filter. Kessler is also credited with designing the first high-power fiveand seven-channel amplifiers. All done without great fanfare. As Brian Barr, current president of SAE put it, “Morris is the antithesis of an egomaniac.” It was love at first sight when we laid eyes (and ears) on…

Center Suggestions I’m wondering if my Klipsch RC-7 center speaker is damaged. When I watch movies with 5.1 soundtracks, voices sometimes sound strange, as if the actor is speaking with a lisp. I seem to hear it most with movies streamed from Netflix, and occasionally on cable movie channels like HBO. Do you know of any test DVDs or other material I can use to evaluate my system and speaker setup? Craig A. Childress / Lake Charles, LA You can find a few calibration DVDs with audio tests for under $10 at Amazon.com, including Disney Wow: World of Wonder and Digital Video Essentials. If you own a Blu-ray player, you can find Blu-ray versions, along with the AIX Audio Calibration Blu-ray ($24.99 at oppodigital.com). Each of these discs provides test…

I MET SINGER-SONGWRITER Amber Rubarth when she was recording her first Chesky Records album, Sessions From the 17th Ward, back in 2012. I instantly fell in love with her music and the sound of her voice, but more than that, I was amazed by how relaxed she was making an entire album in just two days. Most of the tunes were hers, and they were consistently good, but her covers of Tom Waits’ “Hold On” and Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” blew me away. No wonder legendary record producer Phil Ramone said Rubarth was “part of the new old-soul generation.” Chesky’s high-resolution recording methodology is anything but conventional. Rather than use separate microphones to pick up the sound of Rubarth’s vocal and each instrument, producer David Chesky and engineer…

The good news is that Comcast’s new streaming service, Stream TV, does not count its video streams toward the subscriber’s data cap. The bad news, according to consumer watchdog Public Knowledge, is that this may violate FCC net neutrality regulations by favoring Comcast’s streaming operation over other popular services such as Netflix or Hulu. Declares the group’s senior staff attorney John Bergmayer: “Comcast is attempting to frame its self-serving, discriminatory actions in a way designed to slip through real or imagined loopholes or exceptions to both the Open Internet rules or its merger commitments, but none of these attempts work.” Comcast retorts that Stream TV “is an in-home IP-cable service delivered over Comcast’s cable network, not the public Internet.”…

Seventy-nine percent of U.S. consumers still subscribe to pay TV, but that number is dwindling as cordtrimmers, cord-cutters, and cordnevers cut into the base. That’s the news from PricewaterhouseCoopers in its report “Videoquake 3.0: The Evolution of TV’s Revolution.” Twenty-three percent of existing subscribers trimmed in the past year, scaling back service in favor of a skinnier bundle. Another 16 percent cut the cord altogether. Most ominous for the cable industry, consumers ages 18 to 24 are 67 percent more likely to never pay for pay TV at all— and that figure rises to 78 percent for adults in their fifties. At 78 percent, the number of consumers subscribing to streaming services is only a point less than the pay-TV audience. They shell out for Netflix (65.1 percent), Amazon Prime…

Roll Out the Carpet to YouTube Red To cut commercial clutter from a diet rich in streamed entertainment, I agreed to pay Google $9.99 a month for its YouTube Red service across all my devices. Unlike free YouTube, there are no pre-roll commercials to fidget through. The countdown taunting viewers to put their lives on hold until the Skip Ad button appears is nowhere in sight. Intermercials that played between videos or regularly interrupted a full-length movie are gone. I hadn’t felt a weight so heavy lifting from my chest since the advent of the quick-skip button on my first DVR. Time, depleted a thousand times a month by advertisers’ 30-second spots, seems more precious once you take back how it’s spent. Yet, there’s a lot more to YouTube Red…

Dynaudio Xeo 2 Wireless Speaker Little brother to the Xeo 6 tower speaker—one of our Top Picks in 2015—the diminutive Xeo 2 is also self-powered and wireless (via the multiroom Xeo Hub) but adds a new twist: Bluetooth/aptX support for on-demand streaming from smartphones and other compatible devices. Serious Sound: In addition to 65 watts per channel of power, Dynaudio employs active DSP, FIR (finite impulse response) filters, and adaptive bass technology to achieve big sound (down to 40 hertz) from a 10 x 7 x 6-inch enclosure with a 5.5-inch woofer and 1-inch tweeter. USB, optical digital, and analog inputs (RCA and minjack) are provided for wired hookups, and there’s an EQ switch to adjust response for placement in a corner or on a wall. The Xeo 2 is…

HEARD OF HI-RES AUDIO? WHILE most folks argue the merits of Spotify vs. Apple Music vs. Pandora, enlightened music lovers busily seek out other online sources for their music fix. These destinations are generally small Websites that specialize in selling albums and individual song downloads in Hi-Res Audio formats. But just what is Hi-Res Audio? Hi-Res Audio (HRA) is a term used to generally describe both audio equipment and digital music files that deliver the best possible sound quality from studio master recordings. Hi-Res Audio is defined by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)® as “lossless audio that is capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better-than-CDquality music sources.” A key takeaway here is that Hi-Res Audio is “lossless” audio. The majority of…

XTZ Cinema M6 Speaker System PRICE $5,494 as reviewed COMPLETE THE SENTENCE WITH the most appropriate choice: “Yah, I sure do love those Swedish…” A) meatballs. B) supermodels. C) interior designs. D) loudspeakers. If you chose D), congratulations, you’re a winner! Because while Swedish loudspeakers may not be a household word, or available at IKEAs everywhere (yet), the examples before us here just might be a winner in your home theater. XTZ defines itself as much pan-Scandinavian as Swedish per se, but the company’s home base is in the blue-with-yellow-cross zone. The speakers themselves, like so many others today, are made in China, though XTZ points out that they employ high-quality drivers from fellow Scandinavian manufacturers such as SEAS and Scan-Speak, and the drivers are housed in unusually heavy, non-resonant…

Audioengine HD6 Wireless Speaker PRICE $749 pr IN THE DECADE SINCE THEY launched their first powered speaker, Audioengine has become embedded in my mind as the no-brainer recommendation whenever friends ask about getting better sound on their desktop. Dozens of both audiophile and non-audiophile friends have bought A5 and A2 amplified speakers at my suggestion—and so far, nobody has been disappointed. They’re affordable, easy to buy, and easy to set up, and they look great. With the HD6, Audioengine has stepped up their game in a way that moves them into a new category. At $749/pair, the HD6 isn’t the kind of impulse purchase I can just casually toss out there; prospective buyers will want to determine for themselves if it fits their needs. In addition, the HD6 is large…