Innehållsförteckning för November 2018 från Sound & Vision

A RECENT reader comment on soundandvision.com gave high praise to the magazine’s A/V equipment reviews, but then went on to condemn our “weak” attempts to review movies on Blu-ray disc. The gist of the message was that movie disc reviews are best left to websites that can cover them on a timely basis, as opposed to the weeks or even months that it takes for Sound & Vision to turn out reviews of the same titles. While I understand (to a point) where the commenter is coming from, I’d like to make a case here for the importance of movie and music reviews in Sound & Vision magazine. Yes, product reviews and tech info are undoubtedly the main reasons why readers turn to S&V—those topics are clearly our speciality. But…

EISA, or the Expert Imaging and Sound Association, is an organization representing 55 special interest magazines from 29 countries covering the categories of Hi-Fi, Home Theater Video, Home Theater Audio, Photography, Mobile Devices, and In-Car Electronics. Each year, EISA expert group members gather at the Kasteel (castle) den Brandt in Antwerp, Belgium to preview the latest products in their respective categories, and to cast ballots on which products are worthy of receiving the prestigious EISA award. Once European-based, EISA has expanded into a global organization, with member publications now located in North America, Asia, and Australia. As a member of EISA’s Home Theater Video and Home Theater Audio groups, Sound & Vision had the opportunity to participate in the vote for the 2018-2019 awards. It was an honor to participate…

The measurements here were made using CalMAN measurement software from Portrait Displays, together with Photo Research PR-650 and Klein K-10A color meters and a Murideo Fresco 6-G (UHD) pattern generator. The peak white levels given below were rounded here to the nearest foot-lambert/nit. 1080P HD/SDR Post-calibration, with the 65C8’s peak white output set to 39.5 foot-lamberts (135 nits) in ISF Expert (Dark Room) Picture Mode with OLED Light at 45, Contrast at 85, and Brightness at 50, black level could not be measured. The image was effectively totally black, making full-on/full-off contrast ratio infinite, or, more practically speaking, unmeasurable. I measured a 1080p HDMI input lag of 21ms in Game mode, increasing to 100ms in ISF Expert (Dark Room) mode. In ISF Expert (Dark Room) Picture Mode, the pre-calibration grayscale…

TODAY’S ULTRA HD BLU-RAY player market is drastically smaller than the one for the spinning-disc machines of old. In my early days reviewing DVD players, I could literally enter an electronics store, walk out with over a dozen players, and that would only represent a sampling of the available models. But with the massive rise in the popularity of streaming, we’ve seen the player market continue to slim down. On the plus side, the quality of the UHD Blu-ray players we’ve seen has been uniformly good. Granted the quality of the disc media is fantastic, so in the end the player just needs to pass that data along to the display with as little manipulation as possible. For this review we’re going to look at a new UHD Blu-ray player…

SOME PEOPLE get weird about anything with a 13 in it. Fear of this seemingly innocuous number, otherwise known as Triskaidekaphobia, has brought us buildings with no 13th floor, and even the renaming of the 13th Space Shuttle mission. But Denon has shown us they don’t have time for silly superstitions by delivering the world’s first A/V receiver with 13 channels of onboard amplification. Physically, the AVR-X8500H marks a return to the monster receivers Denon was known for in the past, such as 2008’s massive AVR-5308CI. You won’t find any class-D amplifier modules or wimpy switched-mode power supplies here. A glance through the perforated cover of this 52-pound beast reveals that two-thirds of the real estate is dedicated to the huge transformer and 13 individual class-AB amplifier cards. Four fans…

THE ORIGINAL PS Audio Sprout integrated amplifier/DAC was noted as being part of a new trend of ultra-compact ampDACs when Sound & Vision reviewed it back in 2015. We’ve since tested similar models from Elac and Teac, though it was the Sprout that most grabbed our attention due to its moving magnet phono stage—a feature those other models happen to lack. While vinyl playback may not be a priority when an ampDAC is on your desk connected to a computer and used to drive headphones, that feature takes a step-up in importance when it’s in a living room connected to speakers. Three years later, PS Audio has come out with a next-gen Sprout, the Sprout100. Vinyl playback remains a priority for the new model, which features a re-designed phono stage,…

CALCULATING HOW many times key entries in the Yes catalog have been remastered, remixed, repackaged, and reissued can sometimes feel akin to tallying how many official live albums The Grateful Dead have released over the years—well, okay, maybe not quite that many, but still…. It can also be somewhat arduous to keep up with all the ongoing Yes release permutations without a scorecard, let alone decide which ones are worth purchasing. But once the irrepressible guru of progressive rejuvenation Steven Wilson was enlisted to weave his (re)mixing magic with five peak-period albums in the Yes oeuvre, many of us audiophiles were all-in from the get-go. Wilson had originally been commissioned by the custom label Panegyric to do “Definitive Edition” 24-bit/96kHz surround sound mixes on Blu-ray and DVD for 1971’s The…

What Happened To July/August? I have not found any comment in the September issue or on soundandvision.com about the status of the July/August issue, which seems odd since the issue was supposed to be produced but in fact may not have been. Can you advise whether or not this double issue was produced? Kenneth P. Mullinvia email Sound & Vision owes an apology to readers for any confusion surrounding the existence of a July/August 2018 issue. S&V’s Rob Sabin stated in his June editorial that a July/August issue would be forthcoming. However, it was ultimately decided as part of AVTech Media’s transition to a bimonthly schedule to jump straight to September 2018 and not produce a July/August S&V. Moving forward, readers will of course receive the exact number of issues due…

Last issue, you and I made a pact, right here in this space. What, you don’t remember? (Apparently, even audiophiles have ADD.) Well, our agreement was essentially this: We the golden-ear people wholly accept streaming as another worthwhile delivery system for receiving and listening to our music, especially given the strides some of the services have been making in providing higher-quality, higher-resolution streams. (Coming back to you now?) The point is, good music is good music, regardless of how we receive it. My corollary: Audiophiles can’t discount how we choose to receive said good music if the latest format option—i.e., streaming—is up to our requisite SQ standards. Even music-biz veterans who have weathered many decades of format mods embrace the winds of streaming change. Consider the following from Seymour Stein,…

Little Big Sound I could tell SYD was a serious speaker the moment I heard Joni Mitchell singing “A Case of You” from 1971’s Blue. Her angelic voice was mesmerizing in a way I didn’t expect from a speaker this size, not to mention a 47-year-old recording—and I was streaming from my phone. Actually, SYD had my attention as soon as I pulled it out of the box. The perfect satin finish. The woven Kevlar woofers. The smooth silk-dome tweeters. Attributes that show that Kanto cares about quality. I’m a fan of the exposed-driver look, though I was a bit surprised to find there was no grille cover option. Apart from those expertly crafted drivers, the front panel is sparse with only an LED indicator in the bottom left corner…

READERS OF STEREO REVIEW and, later, Sound & Vision, have been blessed through the years with the reviews, columns, and features of a great many superstar experts. The list of prolific writers who have graced the magazine’s masthead as either a full-time or freelance editor is a who’s who of audio industry celebrities. Their collective contribution to the hobby simply cannot be overstated. If you’re a loyal reader for some time you’ll recognize these names: Julian Hirsch, David Ranada, Larry Klein, Ivan Berger, Tom Nousaine, and even longtime current contributors Ken Pohlmann and Daniel Kumin. Peter Mitchell, whose work we reproduce here, is another member of this accomplished group. At one time a contributor to several audio publications and the president of the Boston Audio Society, Mitchell brought a fact-based,…

SAMSUNG’S QLED—not to be confused with OLED—UHDTVs are the company’s top-of-the-line models. In case you’re wondering, that Q in QLED stands for quantum dot, a backlight technology that provides a more precise method to generate the red, green, and blue light that creates a video image than the process typically used for LCD displays. How does it happen? In a Samsung QLED TV, a blue LED backlight generates the blue component of the image and also stimulates a layer of nanocrystal dots sized to emit a specific wavelength of light—red and green in this case—when energized. The benefits to using quantum dot technology in a TV include a more saturated color range at all brightness levels, along with increased energy efficiency since filters aren’t used to create the red, green,…

IT WAS A sad day for home theater fans when M&K Sound exited the speaker-building business in 2007. Fortunately, a group of investors and former managers bought that company’s assets and created a new venture called MK Sound. To celebrate the company’s 40-year anniversary in 2013, the team decided to bring back the legendary M&K Sound company name, along with the original Miller&Kreisel brand. Today, top models from M&K Sound all carry the Miller&Kreisel name and I’ve had the opportunity to review a number of the company’s offerings, including the X12 Subwoofer and the S300 sub/satellite system. (Reviews available at soundandvision.com.) The latest offering to come my way from M&K Sound is the all-new Miller&Kreisel S150 Series, consisting of the S150 LCR speaker ($1,799 each) and the S150T surround ($2,599…

I GET TO REVIEW a lot of A/V receivers. Familiarity breeding—well, familiarity—I confess that I tend to sort new examples into one of three classes. The flagship models cost a lot, pump out 140 or so watts from each of at least nine and often more channels, and they tend to cram in every conceivable feature. Entry-level jobs are cheap, five- or seven-channel affairs that usually top out at 65-or-so real watts per channel and incorporate more basic feature sets. Everything in between I callously lump into the “commodity-class” rubric. These are the ones nearly everybody actually ends up buying, and for good reason: they’re still heavily featured and impressively capable, but seductively priced at one-third to one-half what the cruisers and battleships cost, and just a couple of Franklins…

WITH A PHALANX of 38 drivers pointed directly at my ears, it was with some trepidation that I reached for the remote control to start listening with Tekton Design’s Impact Monitor Theater system. After all, I normally subscribe to the less-is-more approach to speaker design, where simpler usually means better. Tekton laughs at this type of thinking, however, throwing more drivers into its designs than there are plot twists in a David Lynch movie. The first thing that grabs your attention when you encounter Tekton’s Impact Monitor is a circular array of seven tweeters that stare back at you like a giant fly’s eye. If, like me, you know just enough about speaker design to be dangerous, you may wonder if all of those tweeters will interfere sonically with each…

ALTHOUGH NEVER QUITE as disturbingly dark nor as overtly sexual as the original, Deadpool 2 is nonetheless a more-than-worthy sequel, recapturing that sublime balance between raunchy comedy and edgy action. The story has surprising heart, as super-powered contract killer Wade/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) struggles to cope with a sudden loss while reluctantly coming to the aid of Firefist, a powerful teenage mutant in crisis. Firefist is fleeing a painful secret, and his turbulent young life becomes more violent than ever with the arrival of Cable (Josh Brolin, Avengers: Infinity War), a mysterious hunter from the future. The fights and chases are many, wild, and rather graphic, while the rapid-fire jokes are definitely adults-only, and that’s before we even switch over to the extended, unrated Deadpool 2 Super Duper $@%!#& Cut. Like…

DIRE STRAITS’ 1985 megaplatinum masterpiece Brothers in Arms is the album that truly ushered in the CD era, fulfilling the initial promise of the shiny 5-inch disc in terms of both commercial viability and sound quality. Spearheaded by Straits mastermind guitarist/vocalist/producer Mark Knopfler, co-produced and engineered by Neil Dorfsman (Sting, Paul McCartney), and recorded at AIR Studios in Montserrat, the fully digital BIA recording took full advantage of those heady DDD times. For starters, witness the wide soundstaging of the Latin beats and wafting flutes in “Ride Across the River,” the sprightly synth-organ melodies on the extended intro and verses of “Walk of Life,” the lilting vocal harmonizing on “So Far Away,” and the mesh of MTV-ready messaging and abject guitar muscle of Knopfler’s Gibson Les Paul Junior-into-Laney amplifier crunch…

A Very Guilty Pleasure Even before I start listening to headphones, their look and feel on my head can have an influence on my first impressions of the sound. On that score, Campfire Audio’s Cascade headphones really had my hopes up. The satin black machined aluminum earcups felt like they could survive a close encounter with a city bus and escape unscathed. The plush, real lambskin-covered earpads promised good times ahead. Yesiree, the Cascade makes a mighty fine first impression. What about the sound, you ask? No worries there since the Cascade’s sound encourages long listening sessions. Thoughtful design touches abound. A user-replaceable 50-inch-long Litz cable deserves special mention for its über flexibility, which contributes to the Cascade’s wearing comfort. The folding headband’s metal hinges feel like they’ll last forever,…

THE PICTURE quality improvements in LG’s 2018 OLED Ultra HDTVs aren’t a dramatic upgrade over the company’s already superb 2017 sets, but they are accompanied by a new Alpha 9 processor, an autocalibration option, and a few new and updated features. LG has gathered all of these capabilities under the “LG ThinQ AI” rubric. While the AI (Artificial Intelligence) claim may be a bit overstated, that’s where the market is headed and LG is not alone in it. I wonder if adding a blinding blizzard of do-everything geegaws makes the screen interface too complex for the average user who simply wants to turn on his or her TV and watch a movie. But while the OLED65C8PUA certainly delivers most of the things gadget-savvy viewers want (and a lot that they…

Pre-calibration measurements were made with the Samsung 65Q8FN’s Movie picture mode active. Post-calibration measurements were made in the same mode. Post-calibration, the set’s light output measured 40.6 foot-lamberts (ft-L) on a 100% white window pattern, and 0 ft-L on a full-black pattern, effectively providing infinite contrast ratio. This was due to the Samsung’s non-defeatable Local Dimming feature fully switching off its backlight, which was the case with all three Local Dimming settings. Before calibration, the Samsung’s Warm 2 color tone preset with the Auto Color Space setting active displayed average grayscale tracking, with the Delta E averaging out to 2.9. After calibration using the 2-point White Balance adjustments, that number improved substantially to 0.4, with a high of 0.8 at 40% brightness. (Delta E is a figure of merit indicating…

A COUPLE OF Consumer Electronics Shows ago I was visiting the booth of Sound United, the parent of Polk Audio, when a friendly executive invited me up a narrow staircase to a private meeting room. Once I was sworn to secrecy, a long, thin, black travel case was brought out and laid on the ground, and its buckles were snapped open for the big reveal. I half expected it to house a bazooka of some sort. Instead, what popped out was the prototype of a thin spear of a soundbar that appeared to have an Amazon Echo Dot sunk into its middle. Polk’s team was rightfully excited about their new project. The smart speaker was just beginning its explosive push into people’s homes, and no one had yet combined Amazon’s…

Late during my RX-V685 review, Yamaha sent along a pair of its newest MusicCast wireless speaker model, the MusicCast 20 ($230 each), for trial-by-wirelessness in the surround (rear) positions. (This ovi-cylindrical two-way design, about the size and shape of a family-sized carton of Quaker’s finest, also proved to be a very fair-sounding little speaker, especially when configured as a stereo pair.) Setting these up as surrounds in thrall to the V685 proved initially puzzling, but ultimately very straightforward. I first had to find the instructions to do so online—no mention of wireless-surround use whatsoever appears in the receiver’s own manual, despite the feature being trumpeted on Yamaha’s product web page. These instructions, however, proved to be very curt: essentially, follow the on-screen prompts of the MusicCast app on your smartphone…