Innehållsförteckning för April/May 2022 från Sound & Vision

On The Web Log on to soundandvision.com and sign up for our free monthly enewsletter. You’ll get exclusive tips, news, trends, and reviews from your favorite S&V writers. Customer Service And Subscriptions soundandvision@email-customerservice.com Call (800) 666-3746 (international calls: 386-447-6383) or write to: Sound & Vision, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235 Please include your full name, address, and phone number on any inquiries. ATTENDING THE annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas has always been accompanied by a certain level of stress—I’ve been going since 1995—but the 2022 version was the most stressful one yet. This time, the stress had nothing to do with getting around the show, which was fairly empty compared to a typical year. The stressors came before the show. A primary one was the…

Smooth Operator My first stereo system was a full-on Technics rig, right down to the turntable and cassette deck, so I’ve always harbored a fondness for the brand. And while the recent comeback of Technics to the hi-fi scene has had a decidedly high-end spin—its SU-R1000 Digital Integrated Amplifier costs $9,499—they’ve also branched out into accessible gear like wireless all-in-one speakers and headphones. The company’s new EAH-AZ60 noise-canceling true wireless earbuds are part of this accessible branch. At $230, they are priced less than the Sony’s $280 flagship WF-1000XM4, a Sound & Vision Top Pick, and just above the Jabra Elite 85t model that triumphed in our 2021 noise-canceling true wireless earbuds face-off test. Feature-wise, they bring a similar amount of stuff to the table as both those models, including…

RATING PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE SONY’S PROJECTOR lineup is notable for its use of the company’s full 4K-resolution (4,096 x 2,160-pixel) SXRD (Sony's term for LCOS) chips. It’s also been notable for featuring a 5K model—5K as in $5,000, the price for the line’s entry-level projector. Back in 2021, the company replaced that model, the VPL-VW295ES, with the VPLVW325ES, an updated version offering a few new features, though at a higher $5,499 price. Are the updates worth the extra coin? Let’s find out. The new VW325ES’s 1,500 ANSI lumens light output matches that of its predecessor. This is probably the main thing that will cause potential buyers to hesitate since it’s a fairly low spec, and one that will necessitate installation in a light-controlled room. The VW325ES also has the…

RATING PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE MY LISTENING room has seen components from three different South Korean audio manufacturers over the past year, and in each case the performance, build quality, and aesthetics of the product have been uniformly superb. But what really impressed me about them is the extent to which each used software and/or circuitry developed in-house rather than purchased off-the-shelf. Call me slow, but I think something special is going on south of the 38th parallel. The recent arrival of the RS150 ($4,995) a reference network player from HiFi Rose, brought the number of South Korean manufacturers represented in my listening room to four. HiFi Rose is a division of Citech, a 50-year-old, Seoul-based consumer electronics manufacturer. A slick example to today’s envelope-pushing music playback gear, the RS150…

RATING PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE THE LOUDSPEAKER landscape is dotted with so-called classics. Legends like the Klipschorn, the Quad ESL, and the JBL L100 have remained in production for decades or enjoyed successful reboots not just because they appeal to our nostalgia, but because they remain bonafide audiophile-grade products. If these speakers represent the enduring legacy of the old guard, I’d argue that the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin has earned its place as perhaps a modern classic of the digital age. It wasn’t the first iPod dock when it appeared in 2007, but it was the right speaker at the right time. Its launch conveniently coincided with Apple’s sixth-gen iPod, offering a then-whopping 160 gigabytes of memory—more than enough to forgo low-res MP3s in favor of high-quality rips that begged…

Talk about peaking at the exact right time. Scottish art-rockers Simple Minds had just hit their stride with February 1984’s transitional Sparkle in the Rain and scored an unexpected No. 1 single in the summer of 1985 with the Breakfast Club soundtrack-only smash hit “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”—and it was all precursor to the production power that propelled their October 1985 longplayer, Once Upon a Time, into one of the biggest albums of the MTV Decade. Much of that record’s impact has to do with the acumen of the production tandem of Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain, who built the soundbeds for Time upon the foundation producer Steve Lillywhite had laid down with Sparkle. “Jimmy and Bob are really top-notch,” vocalist Jim Kerr confirmed to me. “Every time we…

Have you visited our magazine’s official website, soundandvision.com, lately? If so, you may have noticed the addition of a new column called Spatial Audio File. Written by Sound & Vision’s music editor, Mike Mettler, Spatial Audio File reviews select releases of music both new and old mixed in Dolby Atmos that are added to the Apple Music streaming service each week. From rock to jazz to K-pop, it's all there. We’re bullish on Dolby Atmos music here at Sound & Vision and have enjoyed many of the great Spatial Audio additions made to the Apple Music streaming library over the past year. As I write this, I’m listening to The Beatles’ 1, a 27-track compilation of the band’s number one hit singles that was first released in 2000 and just…

Enno Vandermeer has spent the last 22 years developing music playback management systems for music aficionados. As a co-founder and the chief executive officer of Roon Labs, which employs 60 people spread over four continents, Vandermeer oversees the development of the Roon music streaming app. In audiophile circles, Roon seems to be everywhere and is used by consumers, retailers, and manufacturers, as well as by recording producers and engineers. We caught up with Vandermeer at New York City’s Classic Car Club Manhattan, a great place to discuss music and technology while surrounded by incredible cars and motorcycles. S&V: How did you get involved in developing music playback management systems? EV: In the 1990s, I started an indie record label and a software company, so I had a foot in each…

FULL-ON/FULL-OFF CONTRAST RATIO: 5,226:1 The measurements here were made using CalMAN measurement software from Portrait Displays (portrait.com), 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 Sony’s Cinema Film 2 picture mode active in the default settings. Postcalibration measurements were also made in the Cinema Film 2 mode. All measurements were made with the projector paired with a 1.1 gain, 92-inch diagonal Stewart CIMA screen. The projector’s full-on/full-off SDR contrast ratio was measured in Cinema Film 2 mode with the High Lamp Control and High Contrast Enhancer settings active. Using this combination, black measured 0.006 footlamberts (ft-L) and peak white 31.6 ft-L for a contrast ratio of 5,266:1. Before calibration, the Sony’s grayscale…

RATING PERFORMANCE FEATURES BUILD QUALITY VALUE GERMAN SPEAKER company Elac has had quite a run over the past few years, with designer Andrew Jones turning out new models on an annual basis after setting the audio world on its ears in 2016 with the Elac Debut. Following the Debut’s launch, the company came out with the pricier Uni-Fi. A three-way bookshelf design, the Uni-Fi incorporated a coincident midrange-woofer that positions the tweeter at the apex of the midrange cone where the dust cap usually sits. Coincident drivers offer significant advantages, including less destructive interference at some listening angles where the responses of the woofer and tweeter overlap (comb filtering). They have downsides as well, including design complexity and cost. But Jones worked with British speaker-maker KEF in the 1980s when…

RATING PERFORMANCE FEATURES BUILD QUALITY VALUE WATCHING A MOVIE at home is one of the things I always look forward to when coming back off the road from a long business trip. My home theater has evolved over the years from a modest 5.1-channel setup with a rear-projection TV into a system I never dreamed I’d attain: a JVC RS2000 4K projector, 110-inch Stewart FireHawk scope screen, and a full Dolby Atmos speaker system brought to life by a Trinnov Altitude 16 processor and ATI N-Core amplifiers. I truly am living the home theater dream. Some say that the center channel speaker is the most important weapon in the home theater arsenal since more than 80 percent of a movie soundtrack is reproduced by that single speaker. But I would…

RATING PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE THE ARRIVAL of yet another A/V receiver doesn’t usually engender much excitement here at S&V’s currently sub-arctic regional headquarters in New England. But Onkyo’s new TX-NR7100 is not “just another” receiver. First, the TX-NR7100 features a true ninechannel-power layout, which makes possible a full 5.1.4 Dolby Atmos system without supplemental amplification within hollerin’ distance of the magical ten-Benjamins line. Just as notably, it’s among the first affordably priced AVRs to incorporate Dirac Live, the eponymous Swedish tech firm’s widely praised room/speaker-correction software system, at no extra cost. Otherwise, being a typical A/V receiver, the TX-NR7100 incorporates more features than Jimmy and Rosalynn have peanuts. Let’s start with the most confusing one: HDMI connections. Onkyo states version 2.1 status for all the receiver’s six main HDMI…