Innehållsförteckning för February/March 2019 från Sound & Vision

And they asked, “What can you possibly do to follow up the remarkable Triton Reference?” The answer is; Triton One.R! GoldenEar Technology is pleased to announce the introduction of the new Triton One.R. This extraordinary new reference quality loudspeaker is a smaller, less expensive follow up to the Triton Reference. The T Ref has been compared with speakers selling for over ten times its surprisingly a? ordable cost. It has had a remarkable response from both music and hifi enthusiasts as well as press and reviewers from around the world, who have bestowed upon it innumerable Speaker-of-the-Year and Product-of-the-Year awards. Now the T One.R is here for your ultimate delight. S&V’s Al Griffin raved,”…a revelation… If I could pull a Spinal Tap and push the Triton One.R’s Value Rating beyond…

Apple Music Arrives on Amazon Echo Devices Tech Giants doing battle in the consumer Artificial Intelligence space are notorious for protecting their turf. One example: Siri, the digital assistant built into Apple devices such as the company’s HomePod speaker responds exclusively to music streaming commands for the subscription-only Apple Music service. Want Siri to fetch songs and playlists from Spotify or Tidal? No dice. With such exclusivity being the norm, Apple’s recent announcement that it would allow built-in Apple Music support for Amazon’s Echo family of smart devices came as a surprise move. But is it really that surprising? The $349 HomePod, a Sound & Vision Top Pick award-winner for 2018, is a much pricier option than Amazon’s top speaker, the $149 Echo Plus, a model that already features built-in…

AFFORDABLE, 4K-CAPABLE projectors are very much a reality — Sound & Vision has reviewed several such models plucked from the DLP, LCD, and LCOS camps. And in some cases, “affordable” can equate to $2,000 or less. One drawback you have to contend with when considering such projectors is their dependence on pixel-shifting technology to display a full Ultra HD image onscreen. But given the crisp pictures we’ve seen when viewing with pixel-shifting models from JVC, Optoma, Epson, and others, the lack of true 4K-resolution imaging chips ultimately isn’t much of a drawback at all. This time last year we reviewed Epson’s Home Cinema 4000, a $2,200 LCD projector that uses pixel-shifting to deliver “4K Enhanced” image quality. That model has since been replaced by the Home Cinema 4010, a new…

(Some minor changes from the settings used for these calibrations were made in the final viewing tests. For the control settings used in the viewing, go to soundandvision.com) The measurements here were made using CalMAN measurement software from Spectracal, together with Photo Research PR-650 and Klein K-10A color meters and a test pattern generator from Murideo/AVPro (Fresco Six-G, for 4K/HDR). The measurements were made at 15 feet from my 1.3 gain Stewart Studiotek 130 2.35:1 aspect ratio screen with the zoom set approximately to its midpoint. Both brightness and contrast will vary somewhat depending on the setting of the zoom control and, of course, the characteristics of the screen. HD/SDR FULL-ON/FULL-OFF CONTRAST RATIO: 4,500:1 In the Reference Calibrate preset, with the Brightness control at 54, Contrast at 80, Lamp setting…

Q ACOUSTICS is a relatively new British loudspeaker manufacturer who has made a goodly amount of noise in the value/performance speaker arena for a dozen years now. I count the firm among the 21st-century flowering of affordable-speaker-makers catalyzed by partnerships with Chinese manufacturing firms and ever-more powerful and widely accessible computer-modeling design processes. The result of this confluence has been a bounty of excellent designs in the most competitive price ranges, from new and old names alike, that in the aggregate make the home-theater dollar go further than ever before. To learn just how well Q Acoustics plays in this consumer-benefiting fray, we called in a $1,499 “Cinema Pack” culled from its latest 3000i series: 3050i floorstanders, complemented by 3010i compact two-ways for the surrounds, a 3090i center-channel, and a…

IT’S HARD to overstate the importance of Krell Industries in the history of high-end audio. Founded by Dan and Rondi D’Agostino in 1980, Krell was the audio equivalent of Lamborghini—an audacious riposte to more Ferrari-like rivals such as Mark Levinson and Audio Research. For almost three decades, Krell went from strength to strength, introducing a stream of ever more ambitious products that tested the depth of their customers’ pockets, along with the strength of their audio equipment shelving. Then, starting around a decade ago, the brand slowly slipped off the radar screens of most audiophiles. We now know that the D’Agostinos were the target of what Dan has described as a hostile takeover by a group of investors. The new owners were more interested in making a deal to put…

LAST YEAR—oh, around the same time that I’m sitting down to write this—I penned an editorial lamenting changes to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that made it inhospitable to writers covering the high-end audio and home theater categories. The gist of my article was that for us CES had become mostly irrelevant, and that I would sit the 2018 show out and quite possibly future ones as well. Yet here I find myself packing bags for Las Vegas, same as I have nearly every year for the past 25 years. Why? A main reason why I’m attending CES 2019 is to check out new TVs. Manufacturers including Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL, and Vizio will all be there as usual showing off new sets, and the highlights are…

Even though 4K TVs have been on the market for less than five years, numerous companies announced that they’ll start selling 8K TVs at CES 2019. This despite the fact that less than half of U.S. homes include a 4K TV, and there’s no 4K programming available yet on U.S. broadcast TV networks. A mite premature? That’s how it must have seemed to consumers 65 years ago when, on December 30, 1953, Admiral and RCA put the first color TVs up for sale. At the time, TV itself was only a few years old, less than half of U.S. homes included a TV, and there was barely any color programming to watch and wouldn’t be for nearly a decade. From its earliest imaginings in the late 19th and early 20th…

FULL-ON/FULL-OFF CONTRAST RATIO: 8,300:1 (SDR); 6,238:1 (HDR) The measurements here were made using CalMAN (www.spectracal.com) measurement software from Portrait Displays, together with a Photo Research PR-650 color meter, Minolta LS-100 luminance meter and a Murideo/AVPro (Fresco Six-G) test pattern generator. Pre-calibration measurements were made with the Epson Home Cinema 4010’s Natural color mode active. Post-calibration measurements were made in the same mode. All measurements were made at 14-feet from a 92-inch diagonal, 1.1 gain Stewart Filmscreen Cima screen with the zoom lens set near its midpoint. The projector’s highest SDR contrast ratio was achieved with the Natural color mode, Medium Power Consumption, and High Speed Auto Iris setting active. With this combination, black measured 0.004 ft-L and peak white 31.72 ft-L for a contrast ratio of 7,930:1—a good showing for…

THE OTHER DAY a friend who’s neither a videophile nor an audiophile dropped by my home to watch a movie. A pair of loudspeakers I had just finished reviewing for Stereophile, our sister publication, were sitting in a corner, waiting to be packed up. When I told him their price—$6,000/pair—he appeared shocked. Even Paradigm’s affordable new 700F speakers, then as now serving as the left/right channels in my system, are pricier than he would like were he to invest in a system of his own (unlikely!). But most home theater fans know better. Spending as much for speakers as you might for a top-of-the-line 65-inch UHDTV isn’t something they would consider outrageous. Case in point: Paradigm’s Premier series. Consisting of six models ranging from the $800/pair 100B bookshelf speaker to…

'I was struck by the power and weight delivered by the TXNR787.' IT’S EASY to get overlooked when you’re in the middle. A middle child misses out on both the attention that’s lavished on the first born and the doting care parents give to the baby of the family. The same thing can happen with an audio company’s product lineup. Onkyo makes more than a dozen A/V receiver models at varying price points, but most of the acclaim inevitably goes to the flagship with its flashy bells and whistles, while models at the entry level get lots of love for providing good value. Often, however, the real value sweet spot lies somewhere between the two extremes, where you get something like 80 percent or more of the flagship’s performance and…

RATINGS Director Stanley Kubrick’s seminal sci-fi epic, co-written with author Arthur C. Clarke, takes the whole of human history as its subject—from the initial flicker of intelligent thought in hominids, to the present day where humans live with the assistance of computer-generated artificial intelligence. The film literally works as a space opera: long stretches pass dialogue-free with just classical music serving to enhance the hyper-realistic images of ships and passengers aloft in the cosmos. (2001: A Space Odyssey won an Oscar for best visual effects, the only one it managed to take home from the 1969 ceremony.) While viewers at the time of the film’s release were challenged by the slow pacing and mystifying ending, its themes of the banality of human endeavor in the face of cosmic vastness, and…

Sensible Sound & Vision I would like to comment favorably on the December 2018/January 2019 issue of Sound & Vision. There are many good, sensible reviews of affordable equipment in the issue and I liked reading about the music titles used during listening evaluations. The “Boxes of Joy” feature was also enlightening. I really enjoyed the throwback to the older days of the publication in previous issues and hope that this treat will not stop since some of us have been subscribers for almost 40 years. We lived through hi-fi’s heyday and still hope to see a resurgence of brick-and-mortar stores that sell great equipment. Keep up the good work. Jim Zimnicki Via email Streaming: The Saga Continues One letter-writer in the December 2018/January 2019 issue complained that streaming is…

The first smart speakers were cute little gadgets; no one mistook them for serious audio playback devices. Soon, they started getting bigger and somewhat better, with more attention paid to sound quality. Riva, a company known for multi-room speakers, just introduced the Concert, a compact smart speaker that combines the convenience of voice control with sound that can be taken seriously. Finally, a smart speaker worth listening to. The Concert ($179) isn’t the first smart speaker to make a run at good sound quality—it competes there with the Sonos One and Apple’s HomePod. However, the Concert has features such as highres audio support and Bluetooth streaming that might make it a better option for your needs. Volume, playback, and input select controls are on the speaker’s top, along with a…

“Captain!” “Captain.” “Captain!” “Captain.” Anyone who still watches broadcast TV might recognize that repeated one-word exchange from a score of ads for a certain “leg-up” adult beverage. And while I most certainly do not condone drinking while driving your sound system—it’s so difficult getting stains out of cloth speaker grilles these days—this interchange immediately came to mind as I commenced my latest review cycle with Roon. What is Roon, you ask? Roon is a music playback and library management system for usage with digital devices not unlike, say, iTunes, but—spoiler alert—the depth of Roon’s all-encompassing library-based reach and top-shelf sound quality preferences are what makes it the most superior interface currently on the market. Here’s why. Roon supports output to a myriad of gear and gadgets either individually or through…

THE A/V UNIVERSE IN 2018 saw a steady expansion of high-performance technologies into a wider range of products. Support for Ultra HD and high dynamic range formats in TVs and projectors has now become mainstream. Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive sound can be found not just in high-end processors and receivers, but in entry-level receivers and soundbars as well. In response to this development, Sound & Vision in 2018 added a new Top Value designation. This new category now supplements the Top Picks awards we regularly hand out at this time to outstanding products reviewed in the magazine during the previous year. Looking over our Top Picks for 2018, it’s clear that OLED and LCD UHDTVs that push the envelope for picture quality have become more affordable than ever, with…

UNTIL RECENTLY, most home 4K projectors used lower-than-4K-resolution imaging chips and employed various types of time-offset pixel shifting to display a 4K image on a screen. Such projectors are affordable and widely available, and they can be remarkably effective. True, full 4K projection, on the other hand, has remained something of a golden goose, priced out of the range of mere mortals. In 2017, Sony shook up the market when it introduced three under-$10,000 native 4K projectors. The least expensive model, the VPL-VW285ES ($5,000) was hardly an impulse buy, but neither was its price competitive with a new car or a down payment on a house. When we reviewed it in the February/March 2018 issue, the VPLVW285ES was the first relatively affordable true 4K projector. Sony’s new VPL-VW2985ES ($5,000) represents…

GOLDENEAR TECHNOLOGY’S Triton Reference, a model that I reviewed in the June 2017 issue of Sound & Vision, was the result of a value-oriented audio brand throwing caution to the wind to produce a cost-no-object loudspeaker. Even so, since we’re dealing with GoldenEar Tech here, the Triton Reference ended up priced at $8,498/pair—not exactly cheap, but well below what you’d pay for the flagship efforts of other speaker brands. A regular rotation of speakers passes through my doors, but the Triton Reference is the one I was truly sorry to ship back—its powerful, full-range sound and sophisticated cosmetics gave clear indication that co-founders Sandy Gross and Don Givogue were capable of successfully stepping up their game while managing to keep costs in check. For that reason, when GoldenEar Tech asked…

SVS, a company that made its name selling high-performance/high-value subwoofers direct to consumers via the web, has since gone on to build similarly gifted and affordable full-range speakers. Audiophile sound quality that doesn’t break the bank is in the brand’s guiding DNA. So, it should come as no surprise that SVS’s debut wireless product makes an audiophile statement in both its design philosophy and sonic personality. Perhaps the most obvious defining characteristic of the new Prime Wireless Speaker System is that it’s a system, consisting of a stereo pair, and not just another standalone tabletop or portable speaker. It is modeled after the classic desktop system, in which one of the satellites contains the amplification for both speakers and sends the opposite channel signal to a passive mate through an…