Innehållsförteckning för October/November 2021 från Sound & Vision

TRUE STORY. My very first hi-fi system featured a Rotel integrated amplifier—if memory serves, a model RA-20 of some 20 watts per channel. I bought it brand new for around $60 from K&L Sound in Watertown, Massachusetts, with money saved from my after-school job building shelves, sweeping floors, and punching holes in sheet-metal panels that would become the very first ARP synthesizers. (The late Alan R. Pearlman was my next-door neighbor and a lovely, kind, brilliant guy.) With a pair of old Electrovoice speakers inherited from my employer and a Garrard turntable harvested from an abandoned console, that little Rotel served me through college and beyond. It was compact, simple, and unadorned, with screw-terminal speaker outputs and, if I remember right, four inputs, including both “Mag” and “Xtal” phono jacks—so…

The results shown here were conducted in my room using the Parts Express Omnimic measuring software and microphone, taken at the main listening seat about 10 feet from the speakers with the latter on their included stands and angled in to directly face the microphone. All the measurements were taken at the single, seated, ear-level position. (Experience in my room has shown that an average of several readings, taken across a span of about 2 feet, differs little from the single-position measurement apart from smoothing out small ripples.) All curves here are 1/6th octave smoothed and are for the Model Fives alone with no subwoofer. Specs 10 in pulp paper cone woofer, 4 in pulp paper cone midrange, 1 in aluminum dome tweeter; available finishes: English Walnut or West African…

AN ATTEMPT to revive the popular Saw franchise, Spiral (full title “Spiral: From the Book of Saw,” whatever that means) continues the legacy of creative torture-horror under the direction of Darren Lynn Bousman who long ago helmed Saws II-IV. The sadistic madman-with-an-axe-to-grind known as Jigsaw is long dead and now a new serial killer is on the loose, an apparent copycat except this time the murderer is specifically targeting dirty cops with his elaborate, painful deathtraps. Once again, the victims must make the brutal choice to do something horrible to themselves to escape or die in gruesome fashion. The dialogue is inexcusably unoriginal, and, performed with an apparent misbelief by the actors that if they shout their lines they will somehow be elevated, sags under the weight of its clichés and…

SNATCH is a fast-paced comedic caper set in London’s criminal underbelly that follows three separate groups of crooks, all of whom are out to find a diamond that’s just been stolen from an Antwerp jeweler. The primary team is comprised of Turkish (Jason Statham, also the film’s narrator) and Tommy (Stephen Graham), who join up with Mickey (Brad Pitt), an Irish gypsy and bareknuckle boxer who has agreed to take a fall in an illegal match for violent gangster Brick Top (Alan Ford). Then there’s Russian mobster Boris “The Blade” (Rade Sherbedgia), Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro), and pawnshop owner Sol (Lennie James). With writer/director Guy Ritchie’s labyrinthine plot twists, quick cuts, and meta edits, Snatch is an enjoyable and hilarious film from start to finish. This new Snatch remaster…

LAPISCINE (The Swimming Pool) tells of journalist Marianne (Romy Schneider) and failed novelist Jean-Paul (Alain Delon), a young couple summering at an absent wealthy friend’s villa near Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera. They are visited by another of Jean-Paul’s old friends, successful record producer Harry (Maurice Ronet)—possibly a former lover of Marianne—and Harry’s 18-year-old daughter, Pénélope (Jane Birkin). These, the beautiful people, lounge around the pool sunbathing, sleeping, and romping while filling this psychological thriller with palpable sexual tension, suspicions, and jealousy. With all four characters continually testing one another’s trust, it’s only a matter of time before things turn dark—almost noir—and something bad happens. Criterion’s transfer was sourced from a recent French 4K restoration from the 35mm original camera negative and 35mm magnetic audio tracks. Lingering, languorous camera movements…

For years, most of the service calls my company received were cable TV-related. And it didn’t matter if the customer’s TV screen read “No Signal,” there was no sound, image quality was poor, or they couldn’t change channels or access the program guide, all issues were usually fixed with one simple action: rebooting the cable box. Nowadays, the service calls we get usually involve issues with a home’s network. “My Wi-Fi is slow.” “I can’t connect to the internet.” And the biggie: “I can’t get Netflix to play.” (“I can’t get Disney+ to play” is also starting to climb the service call charts.) Unfortunately, trouble-shooting a network issue is not always as simple and straight-forwdard as rebooting a cable box. And trying to diagnose the problem can lead you deep…

BACK IN MAY 2021, Apple significantly boosted the appeal of its Apple Music streaming service with the addition of two new features: Lossless Audio (including high-res versions for some albums and tracks) and Spatial Audio. While the term “Spatial Audio” might indicate that Apple has created a completely new surround sound music format, it’s essentially Dolby Atmos—the same immersive, object-based mixing technology used for movie soundtracks. Atmos for music isn’t a new idea; Dolby has conducted demos of its new technology applied to the musical realm since day one, and Atmos-mixed tracks have been available on the Tidal and Amazon Music services since late 2019. But Apple is clearly aiming to take Atmos music acceptance to the next level with its Spatial Audio offerings, which are far more numerous than…

EVEN AS TVs grow ever-larger, the projector category continues to be an active one, with more recent designs like ultra short throw models giving viewers an alternative to room-dominating hang-from-ceiling setups. And while we here at Sound & Vision typically advocate for high-performance, and accordingly high-priced, options, the reality is that much of the action in the global projector scene involves affordable lower-end models, many from brands you may have not heard of before. XGIMI (pronounced “X-Jimmy”) is a leading maker of home entertainment projectors in its native China. The bulk of the company’s offerings are compact, portable HD-resolution models designed for quick-and-easy setup outdoors or in an interior space where you want a temporarily project a bigscreen image, usually on a wall. While you can find tons of similar…

LUCA IS a young sea monster living in the ocean with his family and fellow mer-people just offshore of the small Italian village of Porto-rosso. But he changes into a normal human boy when on dry land (and back to a monster when wet—an ongoing gag that provides most of the film’s humor), a transformation that leads to a meeting with free-spirit mer-boy Alberto and later human girl Giulia. Through them he discovers a new world very different from the one he left. A coming-of-age tale with a “make your own way” message, Luca offers a relatively thin story strengthened by beautiful animation. Youngsters will be enchanted by the brilliant colors and simple plot, but older animation fans might find it less compelling. The humor is thinner, the plot less intriguing,…

AS SOMEONE nicknamed “Almost Famous” by the road crew of a band I’ve been embedded with on scores of their North American tours over the past two decades, I can attest firsthand to the accuracy of every backstage moment seen on unadulterated display in director/screenwriter Cameron Crowe’s film of the same name. Indeed, Almost Famous is Crowe’s love-letter depiction of his early/mid-1970s zeitgeist years spent as a geeky teenage scribe desperately trying to act cool while seeking to chronicle the true essence of rock & roll and life on the road. In a vibrant two-disc 21st anniversary Steelbook edition, the film’s A/V palette takes even more of a starring role in Ultra HD on both the Theatrical Version (Disc 1) and Bootleg Cut (Disc 2). Almost Famous maintains the requisite dingy…

Buried Treasure I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed Matt Hurwitz’s article about the making of George Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass in the August/September issue. After reading the article, I ended up pulling out my copy that’s been sitting on a shelf for 50 years and playing all 6 sides. It has been a long time since I played that album, and I was surprised when I took it out to see there was a poster of George still in the case. It looked brand new. I really enjoy your magazine and go back to the Stereo Review days. I have attached a photo of my George Harrison album, record sleeves, and poster. They are in good shape for being 50 years old. Mike…

I usually don’t talk to myself, but the other day I was sitting down to my favorite breakfast, a stack of delicious Eggo buttermilk waffles, and I exclaimed out loud, “Man, I need to buy some more syrup!” Later that day, browsing on my PC, I got a pop-up ad for Vermont maple syrup. I exclaimed, “Wow! What a coincidence!” And then my life spiraled out of control. Rewind several months. One day I unplugged my TV cable box and switched to a TiVo instead. The cable box sat, unplugged, forgotten, in the closet. This morning I was paying some bills online, and I happened to click on a link to my cable box. There it was, alive and well in the cloud, selecting and recording movies and TV series,…

Q I tried to watch the movie Cruella on Disney+ and was shocked by the poor video quality presented by my Roku streaming device. I have noticed other dark-looking movies in the past, but this example was just terrible. I was able to make Cruella watchable by changing the color mode and lamp settings on my Epson HC 4010 projector, but still wonder exactly what happened. Have you noticed that some movies look notably darker than others? If so, does it have anything to do with high dynamic range (HDR)? GARY EICKMEIER/VIA EMAIL A What does it have to do with HDR? Everything, most likely, though Disney+ isn’t necessarily at fault in this case, and neither is your Roku device. Cruella on Disney+ is in Dolby Vision, a dynamic HDR…

MIKE BATURIN is an avowed technology enthusiast and proud owner of a Tesla Model 3, one of his “favorite pieces of tech.” As cool as the Tesla is with its cutting-edge all-electric design and ability to rocket to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, it still ranks second behind his most prized possession—a dedicated theater he designed and built from scratch for his new home in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The theater started with a vision or, as he put it, “an amalgamation of ideas curated over more than 10 years of participating on home theater forums, listening to and watching podcasts, and engrossing myself in the techniques and best practices of setting up a home theater.” The space he imagined would put the enjoyment of movies above all else…

Anyone seeking to make a horror sequel would do well to study writer/director John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place Part II. A magnificent expansion of the established characters and story, this film wastes nary a second, framing the narrative with a bit of new backstory before picking up immediately after the events of the 2018 original and taking us in bold, terrifying new directions. It’s Day 474 since the aliens arrived and began their wildly proficient killing spree. Few humans—and little humanity—remain, but the tightly knit, recently truncated Abbott family is determined to endure. They venture out into a bleak world and, despite some initial hostility and painful setbacks, soon discover that they might hold the key not only to survival but to stopping the deadly invaders. A new quest begins,…

AFTER RETURN OF THE JEDI, executive producer George Lucas was looking for fresh creative frontiers, and he would embark upon new cinematic collabs with previous and first-time cohorts. One such experiment was his team-up with mastermind Jim Henson for the family-friendly fantasy, Labyrinth. With a playful script by Monty Python alum Terry Jones, the story follows an angry teenager Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) with a fondness for fairy tales. She’s about to live one, with dire consequences: After unwittingly sending her baby brother to the clutches of The Goblin King (David Bowie), she must solve a bizarre maze in just a few hours or lose the child forever. It’s a witty journey brimming with British charm, and now a font of nostalgia for children of the 1980s. This richly realized world is…

CONSIDERING HOW MUCH Roxy Music were deemed outliers in the 1970s as a band pioneering the blend of glam jams with progressive elegance, Avalon, their May 1982 masterpiece of rock chic, is truly a musical entity unto itself. Avalon lays bare the aural tenets of the très-cool Roxy aesthetic, taken to their most go-for-baroque extremes—all of it in the most ear-pleasing of ways. Or, as Roxy guitarist Phil Manzanera told me, “It was coming from an electronic soundscape idea—but the difference is, it’s within the context of a pop band.” While their closest new wave descendants include the likes of Spandau Ballet and The Style Council, no one has ever really mirrored Roxy Music’s singular milieu. Why is Avalon so bloody good? Manzanera again: “It’s very difficult to categorize the styles…