Innehållsförteckning för April/May 2019 från Sound & Vision

AS SOMEONE WHO has spent the past two-plus decades writing about and reviewing TVs, projectors, and associated gear, I have to say that the addition of high dynamic range to video is among the more impressive developments I’ve encountered. Not since high-definition TV took over the airwaves back in 1999 and then made its way to Blu-ray (and HD DVD) discs a few years later have video enthusiasts been treated to such a massive leap in visual quality. Oh right, there was the launch of Blu-ray 3D back in 2010, a format that required a new player and TV, goggles, and a 50 percent hit in screen brightness, but…oh, never mind. What are the main benefits of HDR? Viewed on a capable and properly set up display, images have deeper…

CES 2019: TVS TAKE CENTER STAGE The Consumer Electronics Show that takes place each January in Las Vegas has evolved into a broad showcase for the latest technology developments—everything from robots and VR hardware to smart bathtubs and toilets can be seen and experienced. But for Sound & Vision, the main items of interest are the TVs. CES remains a showcase for set-makers to unveil the high-profile products they’ll release in the year to come. It also gives them a chance to dazzle attendees with future-tech concepts that may or may not ultimately make it to market. Here are the TVs and trends that caught our eye at CES 2019. Roll-up OLED: LG Signature Series 65R9 LG’s CES booth featured an array of roll-up OLED TVs that raised and lowered…

The small rectangular box sat in my foyer for days before I realized it was the Zvox soundbar I’d been waiting for. My god, this thing is small, I thought as I pulled the AccuVoice AV203 TV Speaker out of the box. I was immediately impressed with its heft and build quality and as curious as ever about how the diminutive bar would perform. Zvox is a pioneer in outboard TV sound, having introduced the first successful soundbar in 2003 at a time when “home theater in a box” speaker packages were touted as a “simple” but effective alternative to the speakers built into most TVs. In truth, the typical HTiB with its six speakers and gaggle of wires was a pain to set up. When the Zvox 315 Sound…

The two biggest variables in a home theater/media room design are the video display and speakers. My previous column (February/March and soundandvision.com) focused on selecting displays. As screen size often dictates speaker selection, these video/audio discussions go hand-in-hand. This time out I’m going to tackle the audio portion and the options I like to walk the customer through before suggesting one design approach over another. Front Speaker Style Along with the TV or projector/screen combination, the system’s front speakers are likely to be a visual focal point in the room, so there’s no point in discussing other audio parameters until you settle on the front speakers. Fortunately, there are options that can appeal to nearly any design taste. Floorstanding Towers A tower speaker may be the least conservative design choice,…

The indisputable success of Bohemian Rhapsody confirms what many of us have known for decades: Queen was one of the biggest rock bands in the world, and their late frontman Freddie Mercury was one of the singularly most polarizing and mesmerizing popular-music performers of the 20th century. Rami Malek gives a beyond-worthy Best Actor Oscar-anointed performance as the man born in Zanzibar as Farrokh Bulsara in 1946. It’s truly uncanny how seamlessly Malek embodies mannerisms both flamboyant and subtle of the man with the unapologetic overbite in a way that’s 180 degrees opposite of his self-contained, withdrawn, and mostly sullen portrayal of vigilante hacker Elliot Alderson in the dystopian sci-fi TV show Mr. Robot (which won him an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Emmy in 2016). While certain…

WIDOWS is a taught crime thriller directed by Oscar-winner Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), who co-wrote the script with author Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl). Based on a British television series, it follows the lives of several women brought together by their husbands’ criminal pasts and features an outstanding cast led by an intense performance from Viola Davis, with support from Daniel Kaluuya, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and others. Told in a stylish and well-paced manner, Widows holds plenty of twists and surprises for the viewer. I found the movie to be thoroughly engrossing. Shot on 35mm film, Fox’s presentation of the film on Ultra HD Blu-ray looks excellent, even if it does lack some of the pop and detail found on the best transfers made from digital intermediates. Dark…

RUSH WAS on a roll. After the celebrated Canadian trio had finally broken through the FM ether with 1976’s dystopian statement piece 2112, they took the next evolutionary sonic turn with 1977’s expansively majestic A Farewell to Kings. The following year, Rush rotated the screws once again by taking their proto-prog metal to the headiest of limits on 1978’s Hemispheres, their final mind-altering statement of the Me-So-Introspective Decade before shedding their muso-skins yet again with 1980’s forward-thinking Permanent Waves. And just like its two direct-predecessor brethren, Hemispheres has been properly feted in a quite extensive 40th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition box set. Two CDs and three 180-gram LPs share both the remastered original album and 10 additional of-era live tracks, while one Blu-ray contains a masterful 24-bit/96kHz 5.1 mix by…

Two music contributions by Mike Mettler to this issue’s Entertainment section effectively serve as bookends for the progressive rock genre. On one side, we have the rock/classical mashup of England’s The Moody Blues, a band noted for bringing the Mellotron to the world’s attention on 1968’s In Search of the Lost Chord. On the other side, there’s the progmetal of Rush, a Canadian trio that pushed its longform sonic explorations to the limit on 1978’s Hemispheres before heading down a more poprock road. Reading these made me nostalgic for my own music-listening past. Hearing the stereo soundscapes of The Moody Blues at a neighbor’s house as a kid served as an introduction to higher-quality hi-fi. Then, as a teen in the early 80s, I caught Rush live during their tour…

I have been going to the Consumer Electronics Show ever since Edison debuted his new, hit single “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” At every show, everyone always asks me, “So, what’s the most important thing you saw at the show?” In years past I have cited things like Compact Disc, DVD-Video, Blu-ray, 4K TVs, and so on. This year the most important thing wasn’t a gizmo in a booth. Rather, it was a message on a billboard hung on a hotel across from the Las Vegas convention center. More specifically, it was an Apple billboard that read, “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” That, of course, is a riff on the well-known Las Vegas advertising slogan. But in this case, Apple is calling out the sins of…

Depending on your personal demographic identifier—that’s my semi-PC way of saying “your age bracket”—the word “Bandcamp” might conjure up some vastly different imagery. To some, it may evoke thoughts of Allan Sherman’s simple yet clever 1963 Camp Grenada narrative, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.” Others closer to the millennial designation may conjure up the not-so-innocent singsong voice of Alyson Hannigan in 1999’s American Pie, wherein the, er, adventurous flautist recalled, “This one time, at band camp….” (Decency regulations prevent us from going any further.) At any rate, neither of these generational markers quite encapsulate just how wonderful and sonically fulfilling the Bandcamp site and service is. Founded in 2007, Bandcamp works with multiple-thousands of artists and labels to provide music fans with direct access to digital music and merchandise with limited…

MY EXPERIENCE covering home video extends back to the early days of DVD. But of all the new technologies and formats I’ve covered in that time, none has generated as much confusion as high dynamic range (HDR). In this article, I will attempt to demystify the subject of HDR, a technology that I find to be the most significant development to hit home video in years. LIFELIKE DEFINED Dynamic range in audio or video describes the difference between the lowest and the highest levels of information available in a signal. So, to describe something as having “high dynamic range” is to state that it offers a wider dynamic range than was previously available. What are the implications for the viewing experience? In simplest terms, it means there is an increase…

A STAR IS BORN manages to rise above the nigh-unavoidable clichés of the music drama genre through the sheer, undeniable force of Bradley Cooper’s love of his craft. Were this not already the third remake of the 1937 film, the potential cinematic pitfalls of this tale of frustrated singer/songwriter Ally (Lady Gaga), who struggles amid the boozy, druggy stumblings of entrenched headliner Jack (Cooper) would still be many. It could have turned out like a well-produced episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, but instead we’re given a deeply felt and surprisingly original update driven primarily by the raw, unrestrained performances of the two lead actors. Their complicated, beautifully explored relationship forms both the heart and backbone of the movie. Plentiful dialogue-centric scenes give these memorable characters a chance to shine,…

WRECK IT RALPH and his new BFF Vanellope have settled into a familiar routine—starring in their arcade games by day, playing other games after work, and hanging out later at Tapper’s (root) beer joint. But Vanellope’s Sugar Rush game breaks, and to find the part needed to fix it they sneak into a new WIFI portal at Game Central Station. It takes them to the totally unfamiliar world of the Internet, where chaos is inevitable given Ralph’s natural talent for wrecking things. While lacking a little of the charm and newness of the original Wreck it Ralph, this entry offers a big helping of sentiment along with gentle humor. The Internet as depicted here will certainly give rugrats some…uh…interesting ideas on how it looks and works—a multi-level, multi-colored world crammed…

IF THE MOODY BLUES’ most brazen, brave, and bold November 1967 mixture of conceptual rock and broad classical arrangements known as Days of Future Passed both saved their career and opened newer doors of sonic perception for them (and us) to walk through, then their mind-expanding July 1968 follow-up, In Search of the Lost Chord, truly cemented their position as purveyors of some of the headiest of mixes to essentially usher in a new era of progressive music. Indeed, the magnificent Moodies’ late-’60s and early-’70s stereo mixes are often credited with helping to sell the true advantages the then-burgeoning FM format had over AM radio in the United States. “Once we fully understood what stereo was after listening to what other people did with it, we decided we wanted to…

Q I’m planning on installing a 5.1.2 Atmos speaker setup. I mostly watch streamed documentaries (the BBC channel, for example) and nearly all of them have stereo soundtracks. Here’s my question: Would audio upmixing solutions like Dolby Surround or Dolby Pro Logic IIz (I don’t know which is better or more advanced) be able to convert stereo sound for a 5.1.2 speaker setup? How about DTS solutions such as DTS Neural:X or DTS Neo:X (I think Neural has replaced Neo)? Do midrange A/V receivers provide these upmixing technologies? Since I really care about overhead speakers, I need a solution that will upmix to them. OSAMA ASHOOR / VIA EMAIL A Dolby Surround is a new technology featured on Atmos-enabled A/V receivers and processors that upmixes stereo or 5.1/7.1 multichannel soundtracks…

THIS INSTALLATION, by Ed Gilmore and Gilmore’s Sound Advice of New York City, is notable for its open, multi-purpose layout and clever concealment of audio/video components when the system is not in use. In its resting state, the main room is a stylish, comfortable loft area, complete with brick walls from the original industrial building and floor-to-ceiling windows that peer out onto NYC’s Tribeca neighborhood. Come movie time, a Savant control system triggers the shades to close, a screen to drop, and a Sony 4K projector to silently lower from a hidden compartment in the ceiling. The room’s ceiling also houses seven IC-16 speakers from Denmark’s Steinway Lyngdorf. Electronics including surround processor and amplifiers are also from Steinway Lyngdorf, with the company’s RoomPerfect room EQ technology serving to improve sound…

WITH HIS MOST recent film, First Man, Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle has managed to do something remarkable: take one of the greatest achievements in all humankind and render it as cold as space itself. Astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) sacrifices much and faces incredible challenges on his way to leaving those first-ever footprints on the moon. Much as The Right Stuff did 35 years prior, First Man pulls back the curtain to share previously unknown chapters of the frequently idealized, glamorized space program, and to its credit the movie succeeds in educating us. Both flight tests and space exploration are painstakingly recreated with elaborate special effects techniques, and the results come across as truly authentic. This is not a documentary, however, but a biography and historical chronicle, and too often…

IT WAS A bold move for Luca Guadagnino, director of the 2018 Academy Award-nominated, Call Me by Your Name, to undertake a remake of Suspiria, the 1977 film from Italian horror auteur Dario Argento, as his next project. Buoyed no doubt by the critical acclaim Call Me by Your Name had received, Guadagnino, an avowed Argento fan, likely felt he could do Argento’s cult classic justice. While this remake does have its moments, the manic energy and artfulness of the original has been replaced with an extended, and at times highly unpleasant, meditation on motherhood, Nazism, terrorism, psychoanalysis, and lots of other stuff I probably failed to absorb, even after repeat viewings. One thing the film does have going for it is Tilda Swinton, an actor who gives 100 percent…

AFTER HER FATHER is jailed for treason at the end of World War II, Alicia Huberman, a disillusioned, hard-drinking, but patriotic party girl is recruited by Devlin, a suave, cynical government agent. Her mission is to romance a wealthy friend of her father’s, Sebastian, infiltrate his palatial home, and observe his associates that are suspected of Nazi conspiracy in Rio, Brazil. Along with producing and directing Notorious, Alfred Hitchcock aided screenwriter Ben Hecht with uncredited contributions, while playwright Clifford Odets supplied the marvelous love-scenes dialogue. Once everything is set up, the script pushes the emotional tensions and impossible yearnings of the situation to glorious heights. As the spy plot progresses—complete with the ubiquitous McGuffin of mysterious Uranium ore—romance blossoms between Alicia and Devlin, but the job, which demands she seduce…