Innehållsförteckning för February/March 2023 från Sound & Vision

Q I want to add a subwoofer to my Magnepan MG 12s in a two-channel-only setup. I had a HSU sub over the years and found the sound very deep yet somewhat “bloated,” for lack of a better term. I am looking at sealed subs to keep up with the pace of the Magnepans. I can budget up to $1,000 but would prefer to spend less. The room is 380 sq. ft., with the listening area directly in the center. I’ve considered the RSL Speedwoofer Mk II (I know it has a rear-facing slot), a Rhythmik L12, and the SVS Micro 3000. Your professional insight would be appreciated. CRAIG A A You’re on the right track focusing on subs with sealed designs. According to Nick Brown, VP of Marketing for…

RATHER THAN spoon-feed moviegoers, writer/director Jordan Peele opts to challenge us with his stories, so much so that upon first viewing, I didn’t quite grasp what Nope was really about. Yes, a soft-spoken horse wrangler’s father dies suddenly and mysteriously, leaving the future of the struggling, generations-old family business—supplying four-hooved stars to show biz—in doubt. The remote ranch becomes ground zero for increasingly violent phenomena. Being Hollywood folk, the family wants to record and monetize it. But there is also an entire subplot built largely from seemingly unrelated flashbacks. There is at least one genuinely chilling moment and no shortage of unflinching suspense throughout, so be prepared to clutch the reins and hold on for a wild ride. Captured by director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema in various premium formats,…

DOES ANYONE else miss the glory days of Pixar, when they were cranking out hit after hit, putting story and character above all? This was the era of WALL·E, a film of overwhelming visual and emotional beauty about the last working waste allocation load lifter assigned to Earth cleanup in the distant future. His endearing combination of kindness, yearning for companionship. and eagerness to find value in all things set the stage for a memorable, nigh-wordless first act wherein he falls for the newly arrived EVE, a very different robot with a very different directive. This was never my favorite from the Pixar canon but it hits hard, and I can honestly say that I enjoy it more every time I watch it. The geometry and hard surfaces of robots make…

AS A film enthusiast and writer, I often find myself involved in discussions revolving around what are my favorite films, and what I consider to be The Best Film of All Time. Neither question is easy to answer. However, there is no doubt that Casablanca will always be a part of the conversation. Based upon the play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, Casablanca remains relevant 80 years after its release. Its tale of romance set in Morocco during World War II is far from what modern audiences would deem typical. Rather, it draws its characters up front, beginning with Rick, owner of an eponymous café and a seasoned hustler who has managed to carve out a niche that plants him on firm ground with the local clientele, the authorities,…

John Mellencamp was making waves. Saddled with the stage name “John Cougar” when he came onto the scene in the late-1970s, once he began climbing the singles and sales charts, he asserted his artistic identity much more forcefully by crediting his hit October 1983 LP Uh-Huh to John Cougar Mellencamp. He did so again on his full-artistic break-through album, August 1985’s Scarecrow, before dropping the Cougar moniker entirely when the ’90s rolled around. Scarecrow is the LP that catapulted Mellencamp from being known as a brash hitmaker showing flashes of brilliance into the echelon of insightful, observational songwriters to be reckoned with, on par with the best scribes of the rock era—the likes of Robbie Robertson, John Fogerty, and, yes, Bob Dylan. If you paid attention to the Cougar mythos…

Back to the Future Sound & Vision 20 years ago, the “Pre-dawn to new millennium!” Every year I archive the preceding year of Sound & Vision issues, and at times I browse through old ones. This year, I revisited the January 2000 Collector’s Issue of Sound & Vision. Editor in Chief Bob Ankosko, under On Track, writes, “Welcome to the Future!” The most interesting thing in this issue was the special insert, a guided tour to “Home of Tomorrow is Here.” Michel Gaughn, Al Griffin, and Ken Pohlmann made their predictions, too in “A Window Into the New Millennium for Home Entertainment.” Under “Futurespeak,” there were interviews with corporate people from Sony, Panasonic, Philips Electronics, Intel, and RCA. It is amazing how in the last 20 years, the forecasted technology…

FRANK ZAPPA heard music differently from the rest of us. Though Zappa was only here on our planet physically for 52 years—he sadly passed away from prostate cancer in 1993—he left behind a recorded legacy practically unmatched by most other career artists who came of age in the rock era. In fact, Zappa recorded so much material during his lifetime that an official Vaultmeister had to be appointed in 1995 to properly catalog everything he had done, preserve it all carefully for aural posterity, and begin determining what could be subsequently and thoughtfully released to the public at large following years of certainly well-intended but somewhat scattershot issuances. That’s where Joe Travers comes into the frame. He’s the above-noted Vaultmeiser, approved by the Zappa Family Trust. Ever since the family…

The in-room results shown here were produced using the Parts Express Omnimic measuring software and microphone, taken at the main listening seat 10 feet from the speakers, with the latter on their included stands and angled in to directly face the microphone. All the results here 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, the Model 3s rear switches were set to Mid, and the AVR’s tone controls were off.…

TARANTINO BEGINS: RESERVOIR DOGS & PULP FICTION ON 4K When an immensely talented young screenwriter with something to prove fights to make his movie his way—and wins—every once in a while, we get a Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino’s auspicious directorial debut is rough and raw and all the better for it. The story of a heist gone wrong and the rat in the criminals’ midst comes with copious amounts of spilled blood and bodies piling up as plans spin wildly out of control. It’s tight, with a sense of danger that seldom relents, and I’d forgotten just how good young Tim Roth is in the pivotal role of Mr. Orange. Few movies of the past three decades have entered the world’s popular culture with the impact of Mr. Tarantino’s sophomore…

THE WOMAN KING is inspired by true events and centers around General Nanisca (Viola Davis), the seasoned leader of the Agojie, an all-female group of warriors that protects the African kingdom of Dahomey. After Gen. Nansica suggests to the king that the slave trade, an essential part of their economy, has put their future at risk, she urges him to seek other means of commerce through their foreign partners. The outlying African tribes, one of which is at odds with Dahomey, decide to seize the opportunity to overthrow their rival kingdom. This is the impetus for the film’s central conflict as well as the relationships that rotate around it. I am generally drawn to films with strong female characters. The Woman King has epic aspirations, but the script lacks the…

WHEN DOUGLAS TRUMBULL, the wizard behind the visual effects on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, finally took to the director’s chair, the result was 1972’s Silent Running. The environmentally themed adventure set in the distant future stars Bruce Dern in a gripping early career performance as botanist Freeman Lowell. Lowell is on an assignment in outer space aboard the Valley Forge, a ship carrying in its large biodomes all remaining plant life from a devastated Earth, bereft of foliage. When the command comes in to abandon the mission, destroy the domes, and return home, he defies orders and turns on his shipmate, deciding to go his own way and ultimately drifting into the void of space alone. Although not as successful as 2001, Trumbull’s environmentalist sci-fi has proven extremely…

XTC WAS INDEED riding high following the both-sides-of-the-Pond success of February 1989’s psychedelically fulfilling Oranges & Lemons, but far be it from Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, and David Gregory to even think of doing the same thing twice. Hence, it took three incubating years before April 1992’s Nonsuch appeared before our ears—but it was undoubtedly (and indubitably) worth the interim. Nonsuch is, arguably, the perfect nexus-intersectivity point of the British band’s broad-stroke aural ambitions—17 tracks and 63-plus minutes that needed, if not required, uninterrupted listening sessions to absorb all of its orchestral-leaning alt/art-pop intentions. Since Nonsuch came out during the height of the physical digital media era, I began listening to it on the standard 1992 Geffen/Virgin CD. The remastered 2001 Virgin CD, in which the band had no involvement,…

After encountering the same issues repeatedly when working with customers at my CI firm, I thought a series of columns on working with an installer might help. While this is written through the lens of working on A/V projects, many tips are applicable when hiring any trade to work in your home. And I can guarantee that following these suggestions will make the project—and your relationship with the installation team—go smoother for everyone. The client/installer relationship has different aspects depending on the project’s phase. In part one of this series, I covered things you should plan on leading up to the day of installation. This included being there, emailing pictures of the work area, understanding the scope of work, confirming that any gear you are providing is available, working, and…

WE LIVE in a remarkable era where home entertainment delivers experiences with convenience and quality that was the stuff of science fiction not long ago. The past year yielded a lot of interesting new gear, including the first quantum dot OLED TVs from Samsung and Sony. It’s a year where Sony updated its 4K home theater projector lineup and went all-in with laser light sources. Meanwhile, Epson raised the bar on what to expect from an ultra-short-throw (UST) projector with the wall-hugging LS800, while LG made its popular OLEDs bigger and brighter than ever. In 2022 we saw Apple update its best-selling AirPods Pro headphones with the addition of personalized spatial audio. It was a great year for bass-loving home theater enthusiasts; the new Cinema Series Marantz AV receivers introduced…

PEAK OUTPUT MEASUREMENTS Peak output was measured using a UMIK-2 along with REW. Amp volume was turned to max and all measurements were taken with the UMIK-2 facing down 90 degrees at exactly 1 foot from the center of the woofer placed in the middle of my room to minimize the room effect on the measurements. The volume level from my pre/pro was increased in 10 dB increments until distortion occurred while playing a 10-200 Hz sine wave. From there, the volume was dropped in 1 dB increments until distortion was no longer present. ROOM PLACEMENT…

THE COVER art and title for filmmaker Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling is rather misleading. We could be excused for thinking we’re about to watch some sort of romantic drama, but on the contrary, the film is a psychological thriller in the vein of The Stepford Wives, if not an indirect remake of that film. The story follows a group of married couples in an experimental 1950s suburb called Victory, run by an influential and powerful tech company. The focus is on Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack Chambers (Harry Styles), who, when we meet them, seem to be incredibly amorous and in love. As Alice starts having strange dreams and hallucinations, she begins to question what is really going on in this idyllic town and at the company where all…

THE PROBLEM with writer/director David O. Russell’s most recent outing, Amsterdam, might be summed up as “too many”: too many famous faces cast as too many characters possessing too many quirks, to the point that it feels like a party for them but a chore for us—especially considering the two-hour-plus runtime. Much like his overwrought American Hustle, it combines a fictitious storyline intertwined with historical events. At least this time it sheds light on some forgotten but worth-remembering chapters from our past. The plot centers on three close friends (Christian Bale, John David Washington, Margot Robbie) who bond over the horrors of World War I but are able to recover in the bohemian lifestyle of the Netherlands’ capital. Fifteen years later in New York City, they are pulled into a…

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND is not for everyone—nor were they ever intended to be. The avant-garde darlings of Andy Warhol’s Factory scene of late-1960s New York, the VU forged a truly groundbreaking style that saw the doo-wop/pop songwriting and seedy poetry of guitarist/vocalist Lou Reed embed with the hypnotic, drone-centric playing of violist/pianist/composer John Cale. Cale nailed it when he observed the idea was to use long, sustained tones to find natural harmonics, leading to a sound both “elegant” and “beautiful.” Director Todd Haynes’ love-letter film doc The Velvet Underground, which first aired on Apple TV+ in 2021, builds on the Warholian tenet of fusing music, art, and film by presenting the visual narrative in a variety of ways. Sometimes Haynes goes fully widescreen, sometimes he uses split-screens of multiple images—some…