Home Theater View

...and my review of Star Wars: Rogue One

Another Blu-ray disc review (because Disney still mostly doesn't support 4K): Star Wars: Rogue One

Fantastic New Beasts Review

Does it seem like this site just exists for me to shunt you over to Sound & Vision for movie reviews? Yeah, this site is supposed to be a labor of love, and it hasn't received much love in a long time. But here's a new 4K UHD Blu-ray review for you!

More Disc Reviews

My latest disc reviews for Sound & Vision Magazine:

Sully on UHD with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack

10 Cloverfield Lane on Blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack

Blu-ray review: The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 2

My latest Blu-ray/Atmos review is up at Sound & Vision: The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 2

I did not review The Hungry Games - Catching Fur, but if you're a fan of Sesame Street parodies, this is a good one. May the cookies always be in your flavor.

Blu-ray reviews

I've started contributing movie reviews to Sound & Vision, one of the last home theater magazines still available in print form (Home Theater Magazine merged with them back in 2013). You can also find some of my reviews on their site online; Everest is up. I'm focusing on titles with Dolby Atmos soundtracks and/or 3D for now.

CEDIA 2015: Focused on Core Custom Install Audience

This year's CEDIA has come and gone, and unless the journalists in attendance badly missed something, I didn't see many announcements with broad applicability outside the core custom install base. (I attended CES and IFA this year, but was not able to attend CEDIA live.)

Sony showed off new projectors, including a native 4K model priced at "just" $10,000, but these had been announced at IFA in Berlin.

JVC introduced a trio of projectors from $4,000 - $10,000 that create pseudo-4K from 4K source material.

Kaleidescape is now offering a 4K digital storage/playback solution in the $5000 - If You Have To Ask, You Can't Afford It range.

 

There were no new budget projectors announced; those seemingly will wait for CES. There were few new AV receivers, relatively little new home automation gear, and virtually nothing on the Atmos or HDR TV fronts. The exception: Sony's STR-ZA5000ES, a 9-channel, $2700 receiver with Atmos and DTS:X.

Onkyo Swallows Pioneer's A/V Line

I was on the road covering Apple when this happened, so I missed it at the time, but it appears that Pioneer is divesting its A/V reciever and headphone business and selling it to Onkyo by March 2015. While Sony, Yamaha, and Harman all still make A/V receivers, Onkyo (and its Integra custom install brand) dominates the premium segment in a steadily shrinking market. If I read the disclosures correctly, Onkyo intends to keep the Pioneer brand, but will consolidate all back office functions and manufacturing. I like Onkyo's recievers, and Pioneer has been losing money, but this still feels sad. Goodbye, Pioneer.

Orb Audio Mod2X review

It's been a long time since I've done a full formal home theater speaker review, but my "reference" Carver HT5.2 speakers are over 15 years old and I've had the upgrade urge for most of the past decade. When Orb Audio reached out early last year* and offered to send over a complete set of speakers with sub, I thought it was time to start the process of finding a new mid-priced system for our home theater -- or at least start listening to something new. Orb sells complete packages that start at $600 and go up to $2500; I tested the $1400 Mod2X. While that's not free, it is quite affordable for a product aimed at enthusiasts. One reason its prices are low is that Orb only sells direct online. Orb is hardly alone choosing this business model, and as the independent audio dealer channel shrinks and moves into higher price tiers, direct sales make more and more sense. Aperion, SVS, Outlaw Audio, and others also sell exclusively online. However, Orb really ought to overhaul its site. The web design is so outdated that it could cause some consumers to question whether the speakers are up to today’s competition. (Spoiler: they are.)

Orb Audio’s guiding design philosophy is contained in its name – its speakers are small orbs (spheres), each containing a single speaker driver. This means that they don’t suffer from frequency dips or noise introduced by the crossover between the midrange and tweeter because there is no crossover and no distinct tweeter. The spherical shape also means that the cabinet does not produce standing waves. Orb is not the only company to use this approach -- Anthony Gallo and Morel are competitors with similar-looking products -- but Orb speakers are the only spherical speakers both designed and manufactured in the U.S.

I received three boxes:

• the SubONE, a traditionally shaped 12” cube containing an 8” driver and 200 watt amplifier.
• four vertically stacked double Mod2X Orbs for left, right, and surrounds.
• a horizontal double Orb Mod2X for the center channel, subwoofer cable, and plenty of speaker wire to connect everything.

The system that Orb sent over represents the pinnacle of its standard line, though the company does offer an Orb Mod4X Custom line for those who simply can’t enough of these little spheres. Each Mod1 Orb is a bit over 4” in diameter; the Mod2X has two of these in an array, a Mod4X has four. I must commend Orb Audio on its naming scheme – it makes selecting a system easier.

The Look

You can order Orbs in several finishes – black, hand antique copper, hand antique bronze, hand polished steel, hammered earth, or pearl white gloss. Mine were hammered earth, which are brownish-copper, have a nice texture to them, and look stunning. Seriously, these are among the most attractive home audio products I have ever auditioned, and they really don’t look like speakers as much as modernist sculpture. This is clearly the system for someone with a picky spouse; as long as the room has a modern esthetic and you have a spot to hide the sub, there should be no objections to these objects.

Installation Difficulties

My units lacked an installation guide but I was able to download it online. Installation is not nearly as easy as it should be. I first tried to use my usual heavy gauge speaker wire and banana plugs, but the Orb’s speaker connectors are too small to accept banana plugs, and even the bare wire was too thick to fit. Orb Audio had sent over 16 gauge speaker wire that it sells online (100 feet on sale for $38), so I used that. However, the wire does not come stripped (with the ends ready for insertion) or in pre-cut lengths like you find in home theater in a box systems. I have a wire stripping and crimping tool, so managing this was not a big deal for me, but it might be for your average homeowner.  The bigger problem is that each Mod2X Orb consists of two essentially independent Mod1X Orbs connected to each other by jumper cables. These jumper cables are already inserted into the same connector holes as the speaker cable needs to. Unless there’s a simpler solution that I missed, fitting both the jumper cable and the speaker cable into the same connector is both non-intuitive and quite difficult to do. The stands also get in the way of your fingers, further complicating threading the wires. I found myself yanking and pulling and cutting and [muttering politely] throughout the installation process – not the first experience you want a customer to have when they take a product out of the box.

Setting up the Subwoofer, on the other hand, was remarkably simple: plug it in to the wall, plug a standard RCA cable (like the speaker wire, Orb will be happy to sell you one) to the LFE out jack on your receiver, and you're pretty much done, unless you need to mess with the settings. There's a phase knob and you can select the low pass frequency if you aren't using a receiver. The wood veneer on my sub didn't exactly match my dark home theater surroundings but should fit into many homes. I have a pair of absolutely massive coffee-table sized subwoofers from Outlaw Audio; I was eager to see if the relatively small cube from Orb could produce reasonable output.

The Sound

The Orbs produce extremely bright treble and incredible imaging; my notes describe it as “crisp, clear.” It wasn’t so bright as to be grating, but it is hardly neutral. The satellites also cannot produce much bass; the auto-configure setting on my receiver set the crossover at 150 Hz; my usual speakers are set to THX standard 80 Hz. Unsurprisingly, when listening to music via “pure direct” mode on my receiver (which bypasses all room correction, surround modes, and bass management) the music sounded thin and lacked bass — though even in this worst case scenario, imaging was superb. Mark Knopfler’s voice on his album Sailing to Philadelphia was coming from the dead center of the room, and I had to double check to ensure that the center channel was indeed off.

Moving to stereo with bass management and room correction in place, I played some classic AC/DC (Back in Black) which was rich and loud enough that I had to turn it down for fear of waking small children two floors away. I tried jazz, classical, pop, rock… all are satisfying in a way that cheap speakers are not. Is this the best sub/sat system I’ve heard? Hardly. They are still on the bright side, and despite that they are not the last word in clarity. The sub is doing too much work in the upper bass (trombones from New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band were localized to the sub), and the highs lacked “air” around them (a clunky phrase, I know. Describing sound is imprecise).

For movies, the Orb system is far more satisfying than a soundbar, and the SubONE is clearly better than what you’ll find in a cheap HTiB system. The SubONE is not as authoritative as the ore expensive Sonos SUB ($699) which I had on hand, and possesses none of the room-shaking stress of my reference pair of Outlaw Audio LFM-1’s ($499 each, also $100 more than the $399 SubONE). Practically speaking, Star Wars Episode II’s seismic charges scene (Chapter 28) didn't have the impact of the lowest frequencies. Explosions certainly had plenty of boom in the 50 - 100 Hz range where most of the bass is in soundtracks. But going through my other Star Wars discs, the brass in the main theme is quite brassy, and Darth Vader's breathing distinct from rest of sound mix.

A more recent John Williams score, for Lincoln, is much more understated. The music rarely calls itself out, and the Orb speakers absolutely shined, underscoring the movie without drawing attention to themselves in any way. Brass was sweet with no spitting, and piano notes had the proper resonance. The dialogue was exceptionally clear - a bit bright, perhaps, but that benefitted intelligibility.

For a final demo, I got lost in The Matrix on Blu-ray. Music. Expended shell casings. Self-important dialogue. Explosions. It’s all good.

Conclusion

Orb Audio sells direct to consumers online, [cue infomercial voice] “passing the savings along to you!” The Orb Audio speakers are not the last word in sonics, setup was more difficult than it has to be, and the company needs to invest in a more attractive, modern web site. But the bottom line is that products that sound better are either more expensive or less attractive. Even compared to other online-only speaker vendors, Orb provides tremendous value for the customer who requires both good looks and good sound.

 

*Orb sent the system right away. It took me most of the year before I got a chance to finally unbox and set up the system. In the interim, Orb improved the subwoofer, so I swapped the old unit and tested the new one before giving the system a listen. Then it took me another few months to finish and edit this review. Orb is not a huge conglomerate with endless resources for reviewers, and I apologize for the endless delays on my end.

Avi's Audio Heirarchy

A practical guide for the order in which you should upgrade (or build) your AV system:

Avi's Audio Heirarchy:

1. External speakers - even a cheap soundbar - are nearly always better than the tinny ones built into your HDTV.
2. More speakers and discrete surround sound are always better than a soundbar. 
3. Subwoofers in particular make a movie sound like a movie. (Note: I have found that there is often gender bias when it comes to subs - stereotypical men want them to make things go boom, stereotypical women don't think they watch movies where it will make a difference. The men are right on this one.) 
4. Room correction - whether practical or algorithmic - is magic. You will hear a difference. In most cases, it makes a bigger difference than better speakers.
5. Better speakers make a bigger difference than better amplification or processing.
6. If you've settled all of the above, higher resolution formats can sound subtly better.
7. Of course you need functional cables, but I'm not a believer that crazy expensive cables or power conditioning provide audible improvement (it's never been proven in double blind tests. If your religion requires you to buy expensive cables or light eight candles or pray six times a day, go ahead - I do not wish to disparage your form of worship). Note: power conditioning can be essential if you live in areas with unstable electrical feeds, but that's to protect your gear. It should not provide audio improvement in areas with stable power no matter what the marketing literature says.

This site is not dead

It's resting.

Avi's Last Minute Holiday Gift Guide 2013

My long tradition of getting behind with work covering new product launches ahead of the holiday season -- and therefore not finishing my holiday gift guide until the last possible moment -- continues. The guide is up over at techpinions.com.

Sonos Play:1 - Hands On

Sonos sent over a pair of Play:1 speakers for review. In my review of the Sonos PLAYBAR I found too many setup limitations, but I absolutely love the Play:1's. A single Play:1 fills any small or medium sized room with rich, clear sound, and it serves as a perfect entry point to building a full multi-room, multi-source music system. My full report for Current Analysis clients is up; here's an excerpt: 

Sonos notes that multi-room audio sales have been rising 80% year-over-year, fueled by streaming music. With most consumer electronics categories losing ground as consumers put more of their money into phones and tablets, this niche has not gone unnoticed: Bose just announced a line of app-driven WiFi/Airplay speakers (albeit without multi-zone capability), and Samsung’s Shape is a direct Sonos clone. No matter: the Play:1 is half the price of either competitor. Sonos sound quality is more than good enough, and its proprietary WiFi-like mesh network works flawlessly, even in difficult wireless environments. The Play:1 should not only help Sonos fend off Samsung and Bose, it will reach down and pull buyers away from high end Bluetooth speakers from Jawbone and Logitech.

Product Review: Sonos PLAYBAR

Let’s get the disclaimers out of the way up front: Sonos has lent me various components for review, and some are on long term loans. When the PLAYBAR was first announced, I attended a demo and wrote an analytical report for Current Analysis clients, but I was eager to get a unit for a full review. Earlier this year Sonos sent one, along with a pair of PLAY:3’s for use as surround sound speakers (much earlier this year. Sorry!). I also pulled in a Sonos SUB in for a full 5.1 setup. Sonos does not pay anything for consideration and HomeTheaterView doesn’t take ads.

Despite the disclaimers, I’ll be quite frank: I love Sonos. I have recommended various Sonos products in my holiday gift guides for years. Its products are not inexpensive, but they cost far less than most multi-room systems, especially since Sonos components are designed to be installed without any need for construction, consultants, or custom installers – anyone who can follow simple directions and can plug things into an outlet can set up a Sonos system. Similarly, anyone who can download an app and tap a touchscreen can play music on a Sonos. This combination has helped Sonos establish itself as the premier wireless, multi-room audio system on the market, beating back challenges from Logitech, Bose, and countless iPod docks. Sonos has amplified speakers in small (PLAY:3) and medium (PLAY:5) sizes that work in most locations around a home, and units with and without amplification for connecting to stereo systems (CONNECT) and speakers (CONNECT:AMP). A subwoofer (SUB) was added last year, providing prodigious bass alongside any of the other units. There are only a few areas of the house Sonos had not directly addressed:

• the kitchen (though a white PLAY:5 sits in the corner behind our sink – we just pray it doesn’t get wet)
• the bathroom (or better, the shower)
• the nightstand (where a clock/radio/Sonos combination would be killer)
• the backyard (Sonos has no weatherproof models or portable ones)
• the TV

With the PLAYBAR, Sonos is tackling the TV, but its price and design are polarizing: it’s perfect for a handful of situations and completely inappropriate for most others. The price, $700*, is on the high end of consumer soundbars. That’s a premium price point but hardly obscene; you won’t find a $700 soundbar at Walmart, but there are five in that price range at Best Buy along with several more that are even more expensive (though some of those come with a subwoofer). This type of premium-but-not-audiophile pricing is par for the course for Sonos (the SUB costs $700 and the PLAY:5 is $400*), but it will price out consumers simply seeking better sound out of their TV.

Sound Quality

Sound quality is excellent, and on par with premium soundbars in its price range – especially for music playback. That’s good, because a key reason to buy the PLAYBAR is to use it as a zone in a multi-room setup. The soundstage is wide, the midrange is clear with no sibilance, and upper bass is punchy enough that most music and TV content sounds rich and full throated. Still, a subwoofer is needed to reach the lowest tones. Action scenes with vehicle chases, spaceship flybys, or explosions are simply missing the aural impact they ought to have.  The PLAYBAR can play exceedingly loud without distortion, but the lowest tones that convey dread or punctuate an explosion are gone. The Sonos SUB fills in the missing tones, but at $700 it doubles the price of the system. The speakers at the end of the bar are angled outward, helping stereo separation and providing reverb (one of the reasons the PLAYBAR sounds so rich), but there is no surround to the sound – Sonos has solid audio engineering chops, but there is no psychoacoustic hocus pocus to try and fool your brain into thinking there are speakers behind you. That is, unless you actually put speakers behind you. By adding a pair of Sonos PLAY:3 (or PLAY:5) speakers, you can have a reasonable facsimile of a wireless 5.1 system: the PLAYBAR handles the front three speakers, the PLAY:3’s are in the rear, and the SUB handles the bass. Unfortunately, this system will cost $2,000, and simply doesn’t sound as good as the best discrete 5.1 home theater systems in or even below that price range. The Sonos system is easier to hook up as the sub and the rear speakers are wireless (they only require power cords, not speaker cable), but I found that employing six good individual speakers is better for home theater. Critically, Sonos offers no room correction and cannot be used with an A/V receiver (more on this later). The setup distance ranges for the speakers are ridiculously large. I was only able to set up the surrounds as being between 2 feet and 8 feet away. That meant that one speaker three feet from my head was absurdly loud, while its counterpart seven feet in the other direction sounded silent in comparison. The sound was discrete, but not as clear as my reference system of ancient Carver speakers, which benefit from larger drivers and more physical stereo separation. This is especially apparent in terms of discrete panning in the front, where the PLAYBAR is, well, just a soundbar. I also still wish that it was easier to manage the bass level of the SUB on the fly (see my mini review of the SUB at the end of last year's holiday gift guide).

The folks at Sonos spent a lot of time focusing on setup, though there are some serious drawbacks to their approach. Like any Sonos speaker, it requires a Bridge ($50) or a direct Ethernet connection to the router in the home. Any existing Sonos system will already have this (or will have located a Sonos speaker near the router), but it means that the PLAYBAR isn’t plug-and-play for someone simply looking for a soundbar. I think this is a mistake; with all of Sonos’ emphasis on simplicity with the PLAYBAR, shouldn’t it be ideal for consumers new to the brand? Sell them a PLAYBAR, then let them expand to other rooms.

The PLAYBAR can be mounted flat against the wall or sit on a cabinet; internal sensors adjust its sound output accordingly. Just as clever, Sonos built in an infrared passthrough, so you can use your existing TV remote to control volume from the PLAYBAR – even if you have the PLAYBAR sitting in front of the IR sensor on the TV.

Setup is incredibly simple, but incredibly limited: you need to connect an optical audio output to the PLAYBAR. That’s it. The idea is that most consumers connect their cable box directly to their television, most modern televisions have optical audio output jacks, and, viola! We’re done. This is brilliant except when it isn’t. What if your HDTV does not have optical audio output? You’ll need a new TV. TVs also do not decode advanced surround sound modes, so if you were planning on the full PLAYBAR + PLAY:3 + SUB system, it will not be able to take advantage of the best audio track on a Blu-ray disc (another reason the Sonos combination does not sound as good as a traditional A/V receiver + speaker system). What if your TV only has two HDMI inputs – which is incredibly common – and you have more source components, so you use an A/V receiver? The Sonos isn’t for you either.

In fact, this was the exact scenario I encountered when trying to test the PLAYBAR: my TV does have an optical audio output, but has just two HDMI inputs. I cover digital home devices, so I have [a lot of] source components, and at any time seven of them are connected to a very expensive A/V receiver, which does not have an optical audio out. Few A/V receivers do. Now, I know that my setup is absurd; I evaluate connected devices for a living. Still, it is not at all difficult to imagine a consumer who is considering spending $700* on a soundbar wanting to connect it to a set top box, a game console, and a Blu-ray player. Many gamers have two or three consoles.

Conclusion:

The PLAYBAR is a long bar packed with amplifiers and speakers. Unlike other soundbars in this price range, it claims no fancy electronics or engineering designed to simulate surround sound, cancel crosstalk, fight standing waves, or make you a sonic sandwich. If your room is somewhat narrow and has reflective surfaces, the PLAYBAR speakers are angled to bounce surround channel sound to the side. In the wide hotel room where I first heard it demo’d it sounded good; in my somewhat narrow home theater it was actually a little better. The PLAYBAR does not produce real surround sound, or even especially good fake surround sound, but it is rich and immersive sound, and the center channel dialogue always remains clear.

That makes the PLAYBAR perfect for

…people who own or are assembling a Sonos system

…who don’t want a full home theater system or need a soundbar for a secondary TV,

…and that TV has optical audio out

...and has enough inputs for all the source components

Are there people like that? Sure. If you’re one of them, I can easily recommend the PLAYBAR. It sounds good, and it is easy to install. But I suspect that Sonos has cast the net too narrowly this time. 

*Corrections 9/16/13: This review accidentally overstated the pricing of two Sonos components. The PLAYBAR is $700, not $800, and the PLAY:5 is $400, not $500. The corrected pricing does not change the analysis or recommendations.

Last Minute, Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide 2012

It's up over at techpinions.com 

Belated Happy 8th Birthday, HomeTheaterView!

Time flies. I was looking for something I had posted a while ago and discovered that this site has been live and somewhat regularly updated since October 24, 2004. So I'm about a month late noticing, but this site is an eight year old! We're a tween! 

My first post:  Welcome.

Thanks for reading. Now I need to go out and buy a cake.

Home Theater for the Fairer Sex

Here's another link to that unrelated site with the similar name. HomeTheaterReview has a thoughtful piece on an old chestnut: how do you get women to buy home theater gear? (I wrote something similar a bit over a decade ago.) Two things that stand out:

1. While her advice is not new, Adrienne Maxwell has about as strong a pedigree to say it as anyone. She's written and edited home theater magazines at the highest levels. And while she can geek out with the best of them -- I've met her at trade events and can confirm this firsthand -- she, well, she's a girl. I'm not suggesting that men can't write about women's issues, but that women do bring inherent credibility to the discussion.
2. Read the comments. I love the practical advice on hiring women as salespeople so that the firm can pitch men and women with gender-appropriate messaging/messengers.

OK, now go back and read my column - it stands up pretty well despite its age and my gender.

What's Wrong with the Specialty Audio Business

...what ails the specialty AV market isn't even about technology or a lack thereof, it's about elitism and how you're not a real enthusiast unless you do (insert absurd claim here).

Home Theater Review (no relation to this site) nails it.

The most insane home theater I've ever seen

This.

CD Players Are Not Dead (Yet)

Apple’s iTunes now sells more music than any other retail outlet and CD sales are famously in decline, so you’d be forgiven if you thought nobody makes CD players any more – or at least nobody would be foolish to launch new ones. That's why I was somewhat delighted to read this press release: Parasound has just introduced a new CD player, the Zcd. This isn’t a CD player aimed at the mass market, but it isn’t targeting money-is-no-object audiophile snobs, either. It costs $400; mass market CD players start at $17.99 at Target, and audiophile brands can top $4,000. Instead, the Zcd is aimed at the custom installation market (the giveaway is that it is described as being “half rack width”).

Parasound apparently thinks there is a market for a high quality CD player where the home owner wants to insert a single disc and listen to it, as opposed to a hard drive-based music server. In other words, the Zcd is intended to be used for dedicated listening sessions, not strictly background music. In that sense, the Zcd is a throwback to the other physical music format with a focused use case – vinyl (though vinyl is explicitly "old school," and all the limitations of the format are typically celebrated as features). The Zcd has top of the line DACs and does fancy things with the volume control and analog converter power source to give installers something to talk about when justifying its cost. While the Zcd can also play back music from USB or a line in jack, it doesn't support dead music formats like SACD or DVD-Audio that few people today seem to even remember. It's a CD player. It plays CDs. It isn't something you're going to find in Best Buy, but it's nice to see someone thinks there's still a market niche left that calls for a dedicated optical disc player.

Gibson Buys a Big Chunk of Onkyo

Gibson is looking to diversify away from musical instruments, and is buying Onkyo USA. Onkyo has been doing reasonably well in the shrinking A/V receiver market - I own an Onkyo NR3007 myself - but I just can't figure out why Gibson decided to invest in the incredibly challenged A/V industry rather than, say, ANYTHING ELSE. Here's the press release:

 Gibson Buys Stake in Onkyo Japan and Majority Interest in Onkyo USA

Forms Strategic Alliance to Take Consumer Audio Experience to a New Level

Nashville, TN. January 04, 2012: As part of its continued diversification into the music and audio lifestyle arena, Gibson Guitar Corp., the world’s premier musical instrument manufacturer, today announced a strategic partnership with Onkyo Corporation, a worldwide leader in consumer audio. With a reputation of excellence for high quality audio equipment and home theater systems, Onkyo offers Gibson’s newly-formed Pro Audio Division substantial technology resources. Gibson will provide Onkyo with its marketing resources and expertise. The result will be an ability to deliver a far superior audio experience to the consumer who has become more and more used to hearing only inferior compressed music through inexpensive ear bud headsets.

Through this venture, Gibson will acquire a majority of Onkyo USA (Onkyo’s exclusive distributor for North America and a distributor for Central and South America) and become the second largest shareholder in Onkyo Corporation. Gibson will make a strategic investment in the company, and Gibson Chairman and CEO Henry Juszkiewicz will be given a position on the Onkyo board of directors. Likewise, Onkyo will invest in Gibson, and CEO and President Munenori Otsuki will take a position on the company’s Board of Directors. Together, the two entities will form a Hong Kong-based joint venture focusing on design and development of unparalleled consumer audio products. Through this alliance, Onkyo USA becomes the latest addition to the Gibson Pro Audio division, which already includes KRK, Cerwin-Vega! and Stanton.

“Onkyo makes some of the world’s best audio equipment, and this partnership will give Gibson the ability to bring a deeper and more enhanced audio experience to music lovers around the world,” says Juszkiewicz. “While people may be listening to more music, they are listening to it primarily in a severely compressed format. The aural disparity between a real system and compressed sound is vast, and as a result, they are simply not hearing tremendously rich sounds. With Onkyo, our goal is to bring the same exceptional experience artists demand in the studio to a larger consumer base.”

“This partnership has significant positive implications for Onkyo as we are always seeking ways of creating new value,” says Otsuki. “Gibson is a leading global company with a massive fan base, best-in-class products and superior marketing skills. Coming together in this way opens the door for amazing opportunities for both companies and, more importantly, fans of Onkyo and Gibson.”

All agreements are subject to Japanese regulatory clearance, negotiation of definitive agreements and financing approvals of lenders.

ABOUT GIBSON GUITAR CORP.
Gibson Guitar Corp. is known worldwide for producing classic models in every major style of fretted instrument, including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolins, and banjos. The Gibson Les Paul Guitar is the bestselling guitar of all time and is a tribute to the late, famed musician of the same name. Collectively, the Gibson Robot Guitar, Gibson Dark Fire, Gibson Dusk Tiger and the Gibson Firebird X represent the biggest advances in electric guitar design in more than 75 years. Through the Gibson Foundation, Gibson Guitar Corp. has become equally known for its philanthropic efforts on behalf of music, education, health and human services. Founded in 1894 in Kalamazoo, MI, and headquartered in Nashville, TN, since 1984, Gibson Guitar Corp.’s family of brands includes Epiphone, Cerwin-Vega!, Dobro, Kramer, Onkyo, KRK Systems, Steinberger, Tobias, Echoplex, Electar, Flatiron, Slingerland, Stanton, Valley Arts, Maestro, Oberheim, Baldwin, Sunshine Piano, Take Anywhere Technology, J&C Fischer, Chickering, Hamilton, Wurlitzer and Gibson Pro Audio. Visit Gibson’s website at www.gibson.com. Follow Gibson Guitar at www.facebook.com/gibsonguitar and www.twitter.com/gibsonguitar.

ABOUT ONKYO
Since 1946 Onkyo has been passionately committed to developing audio products that deliver uncommon performance, quality and value. Bundling proprietary technologies and innovations with other sound-enhancing exclusives, Onkyo continues to created award winning products that are lauded by many of the industry leading audio publications. The company's philosophy is to deliver products that are superbly designed and built to a consistently outstanding standard of excellence. The results can be seen in the obviously high quality of any Onkyo-manufactured product, even before it is turned on. Visit Onkyo’s website at www.onkyousa.com. Follow Onkyo USA at www.facebook.com/OnkyoUSA.

Deal Alert: Belkin Home Theater Surge Protector

Buy.com has the Belkin PureAV PF30 for a great price ($60). I have this unit's big brother (the PF60), and while I can't claim to hear any difference in the filtered electricity, a good quality 8 outlet surge protector usually costs a lot more than $60 (this unit originally retailed for $199).

Note: I get no kickback if you click on the link above. Consider this a public service announcement.

Onkyo Announces First MHL A/V Receiver

There is no indication of price or availability, so this "announcement" is almost comically vague, but it is interesting nonetheless. For the uninitiated, MHL is a standard that aims to simplify getting content from mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) while keeping the devices charged. The MHL folks were smart enough not to come up with their own unique connector/cable; instead it uses the HDMI or microHDMI connectors, and includes HDMI backwards compatibility. It looks like Onkyo's reciever will pop up windows showing you what content is available on the device, allowing you to easily push that content on to the TV. That doesn't seem like an earth-shattering innovation, but given the dearth of MHL-compliant televisions on the market - let alone installed in homes - it could be useful.

Of course, you'll need an MHL-capable phone as well. Here the news is good; there are only a handful of phones with MHL, but one of them is extremely popular, Samsung's Galaxy SII, and most of HTC's latest phones support it as well, including the EVO 3D at Sprint, Vivid at AT&T, Rezound at Verizon Wireless, and the Sensation at T-Mobile.

My Holiday Gift Guide is Up

My Last Minute, Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide is now up over at Slashgear.com. 

Happy Holidays,

-avi

quick review: beats by dr. dre

Question:

My son is here with me today and... he brought up Beats headphones.  I was wondering if you’ve seen/have them and your thoughts.  He’s sold on how “cool” they are but I’m curious if they’re all hype or not.

I get in a lot of headphones but hadn't gotten extended time on the beats until HP gave me a pair to test with its new TouchPad tablet (the TouchPad has a special Beats Audio mode. I tested it with the mode enabled and disabled, the difference is too subtle for most people to notice, but it’s a nice branding initiative).

The beats are certainly a style icon, and since most people seem to choose them based on looks I was surprised that the sound quality is quite good. The bass is excellent (boosted but still natural – a tough combination to pull off), the midrange and highs are fair, and there is only some lightly audible distortion in the midrange from the noise cancellation (all active noise cancelling headphones have some distortion, as quite literally that’s what noise cancellation is). They are closed over-ear headphones with mandatory noise cancellation – they don’t work without batteries, and there’s no way to turn the cancellation off. The noise cancellation itself is very good, though not as good as Bose's QuietComfort line.

Overall, I still prefer a good pair of passive in-ear headphones from etymotic, Shure, or Ultimate Ears – especially if you can get custom earpieces, though that usually means spending more than the $300 or so that the beats cost (except when it doesn't). Sennheiser makes slightly better sounding headphones at the same price, and Bose has better noise cancellation around the same price. However, the Sennheisers do not have have noise cancellation, and I think most people might still prefer the Beats for bass-heavy music regardless. (Disclaimer: I haven’t gotten in the new Bose QuietComforts for a full review, so I can’t say which has better overall audio, but the noise cancellation on the Bose is the best I’ve heard when I've tried them on at retail and in airports).

Bottom line: while the beats would not be my first recommendation for all types of listening,  I can easily recommended them, and they are particularly good if you listen to a lot of hip-hop and dance. If you want the beats' style you can be comfortable that you aren’t throwing away your money on hype, as they do offer quite good sound overall.

Selling CE to Women: Two Views

CEPro has a new mini-article by Molly Gibson with four tips for selling custom installed home theater products to women, and Julie Jacobson links to an article of hers on the same subject.

Here's the summary:

Molly thinks that women need a soft sell based on listening to her needs and discovering how she thinks that the system will be used. She also rails against pushing features and future-proofing that goes beyond the buyer's needs, and pushes style as a critical part of the woman's buying criteria.

Julie thinks that this has nothing to do with selling to women and everything with not being a bad salesperson. Every man would like a system tailored to his actual needs, would prefer not being condescended to, and cares about style. Do this, and both men and women will be happier.

That is certainly true, but... a hard tech sell does seem to work on many men. Also - speaking from personal experience here - some men easily succumb to featuritis. (Not all. Some. And I agree with both writers that focusing on what the product needs - and just what the product needs - generally creates a better long term relationship with the product/vendor/service provider.) The emphasis on creating your sales pitch around design is also much stronger in Molly's pitch. In Molly's view, it isn't about whether the color matches or it's a nice minimalist design, but she suggests you start showing TVs by asking which bezel style they like and in-wall speakers by focusing on the type of grill weave. That's really quite different.

To borrow marketing from a (slightly) different industry, that's the difference between touting the BlackBerry Playbook for its dual-core processor and micro kernel architecture - while ensuring it ships in a beautifully understated thin case - and Apple touting the iPad 2 as "magical" and incredibly thin while also adding a dual core processor. One reason Apple has sold 25 million iPads and RIM has sold 500,000 PlayBooks is because Apple's marketing is aimed at women and men, and RIM's marketing uses the male-centric tech approach. Style-conscious men, to be sure, but manly men, who must have a micro kernel architecture in their tablet... whatever that is.

Roku Goes Retail

It certainly took them long enough, but Roku is finally graduating from online-only sales to retail. It wasn't doing too badly in the old business model - Roku's status as the least expensive and easiest streaming media box allowed it to rack up over a million units sold. Still, Roku always seemed something like a secret that only technically savvy people knew about - and that is not the target demographic for a product designed for simplicity. No, the ideal retail channel ought to be something like Target. Or Best Buy:

Roku XD player is available for purchase at Best Buy stores nationwide and at BestBuy.com. With up to 1080p HD streaming support, integrated 802.11n WiFi and Instant Replay the Roku XD offers unlimited entertainment choices and incredible value to customers. The Roku XD has a list price of $79.99 and is available at Best Buy stores and at BestBuy.com for purchase today. Roku players can also be found at other leading retail stores including BJ’s Wholesale Club, Fry’s Electronics and RadioShack.

Best Buy, Fry's, and the Shack. Well, the good news is that those stores are where a shopper goes if they want an inexpensive box to stream Netflix (or MLB or NBA or any of Roku's other content options). The bad news is that it won't reach consumers who don't know that they want an inexpensive box to stream Netflix (or MLB or NBA or any of Roku's other content options). Hopefully a successful run at Best Buy will get buyers at Target and Walmart interested, because their customers are who Roku should be chasing.

Headphones To Lure the Next Generation

Great article in Dealerscope on how custom audio shops can prepare for the future by focusing more on headphone sales. Money quote:

"There are no new audiophiles entering our community any more," Abplanalp said. "For young people experiencing music, the art of building a stereo has lost its cachet. So selling headphones is a very important part of introducing music lovers to different performance levels..."

The article also notes that Monster's Dr. Dre Beats line is a key sales driver for this demographic, but oddly undersells the ability to properly demo in-ear headphones in-store.

Why there haven't been any posts here at HTV

I've been on the road pretty much since the beginning of the year - first at CES and then meetings, product launches, and more trade shows. Until I have a second to breathe, here's HomeTheaterREview's (no relation) nice write-up debunking CES myths.

Slate talks about the wonders of outboard DACs, I talk headphones

Fred Kaplan is apparently writing for Slate now*, and he correctly points out that digital music often sounds terrible, either due to poor sampling or poor encoding. He recommends using an outboard DAC to correct the problem. It's a great suggestion for people who listen to music in one spot using high end speakers or headphones, but not at all practical for those who are mobile, using an MP3 player or a smartphone as their playback source. Aside from echoing his related note to bump up the encoding rate when you rip music or download higher quality encoded music in the first place, the best suggestion I can make for mobile music listening is to invest in higher quality headphones. My first pair of Shure e535's had an almost magical ability to smooth out ragged MP3s without losing any detail (as well they should for $499). When they broke on me, Shure shipped out a replacement pair, but the new model doesn't sound quite as exceptional to my ears in the MP3-magic area -- it is still a  fantastically neutral pair of headphones with exceptionally clean mids and rich bass, but jagged highs due to MP3 encoding faults still sound jagged on my new pair. The drivers are supposed to be identical, so I'm not sure if I got lucky on the first pair or less lucky on the second (or that I am/was hearing things that weren't there. Also a possibility).

I love the Shures, but my headphones of choice these days are etymotic's flagship ER-4's, which are hardly new, but have been transformed by custom earpieces etymotic had made for me. The program, which I called out in my Holiday Gift Guide, is called CUSTOM•FIT, and costs $100 (in addition to the cost of headphones). If you care about comfort and noise isolation, it is worth every penny.

*UPDATE: Fred got in touch to point out that defense and foreign policy are actually his primary coverage areas - and he modestly left out the part where he won a Pulitzer on those subjects. I know him from his sideline as an A/V writer.

Last Minute Holiday Gift Guide

My Last Minute, Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide 2010 has been posted over at Slashgear.com and includes a Home Entertainment section.

Kaleidescape Ships Blu-ray Server (Sort of)

First a bit of background: Kaleidescape is a high end media server vendor. They make boxes you have a custom installer put in one spot, which connect over a wired network to smaller boxes your installer connects to each TV and projector in your home. You - or your installer - copies all your DVDs onto the big box, and then you can watch all your movies anywhere in your home. Basically, it's Sonos for movies for rich people. How rich? Kaleidescape was actually the reason I instituted a policy not to review anything I could not reasonably afford. Years ago Kaleidescape offered me a full setup to review; I refused because I didn't want to take out an insurance policy on a loaner, and I didn't want to take out a second mortgage on the chance that I couldn't bear to return it. A full Kaleidescape system in those days easily topped $50,000. Prices have come way down, but most systems will still end up in the $20,000 range with installation.

I had good reason to fear wanting to keep a system. I have used Kaleidescape at trade shows and have been consistently impressed. It is fully babysitter proof and requires no technical knowledge to use whatsoever. As all the movies are ripped to the system's hard drive(s), movies start instantly. However, its one downfall is that until now it only supported DVDs, not Blu-ray discs. As many installations include equally expensive HD projectors, this is a real problem.

Kaleidescape's first stab at the problem was adding Blu-ray support to the M500 player - one of the small boxes you'd have near your TV. That certainly enables you to play a Blu-ray disc (both at that TV or anywhere else in the house), but it still requires physically handling the disc every time you want to watch a movie and it is not all that much better than a regular Blu-ray player from Sony or Samsung. The whole point of Kaleidescape is access to any movie you own instantly thoughout the house.

Kaleidescape is now selling a partial solution to the problem: you can rip Blu-ray discs to the hard drive in the server, and it will play off the server (which means you can include it compilation video playlists). However, to appease the copyright gods, Kaleidescape still has to physically verify that you own the Blu-ray disc before playing any of its sweet 1080p content. To do so, you'll need a media vault ($1500), the ugly box pictured on the right, which can hold up to 100 Blu-ray discs. You can add as many of these as you like, but each needs to be connected to an M-class player (like the M500). In short, Kaleidescape now allows Blu-rays to be treated just like DVDs, only there is a lot more complexity and kludginess involved. It's better than nothing, but it has to seriously pain Kaleidescape's management and engineering staff who have made simplicity and elegance a core part of the product's value proposition.

Buy a Blu-ray Player. Now.

Philip Berne's latest Slashgear column provides a well argued view for buying a Blu-ray player despite the rise of downloadable and streaming content.

Full disclosure: I also write columns for Slashgear. If you click on the link, I get... nothing. So I guess that's more of a plug than a disclosure.

Onkyo <3 Apple

As if the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad family wasn't already encroaching on distributed audio and home automation control systems, Onkyo announced that its future A/V receivers will come with free iOS remote control apps. This is a good idea for Onkyo on several levels: it allows Onkyo to tap into Apple's marketing momentum, and gives it the ability to market a rich touchscreen remote control without having to add anything to the bill of materials for the receiver.

Of course, using a phone as a remote can be problematic - what happens when someone wants to use the system and you're on the phone or out of the house? Dedicating an iPod touch to remote control duty - especially if you invest in a charging dock so it stays charged and doesn't wander off - solves this problem, and gives retailers who carry both Onkyo and Apple products a nice add-on sale at time of purchase. Consumers may balk at the added price, but the truth is that Apple's component prices are so much lower than specialty A/V vendors that it would probably be cheaper for Onkyo to buy an iPod touch and include it in the box rather than try to build an equivalent product for use as a remote control.

Worst DIY Home Theater Installations

The Nintendo cartdrige router should never have made it into the mix (it's awesome), but the rest of CE Pro's slideshow of consumer-submitted photos are hilarious. Custom installers, avert your eyes!

Want to Go to Reno?

Wisdom Audio has figured out a way to properly demo its super-high end architectural (in-wall) speakers: it's offering "qualified" prospects a free trip to its Carson City, NV headquarters.

"Offer: Wisdom Audio will provide round trip transportation for a visit to our factory for someone with qualified interest in a large-scale Sage Series system. They will tour our factory with their dealer, meet the Wisdom Audio team and spend time in our sound room listening to their favorite music. (Limited to North America and must occur before January 31, 2011)"

I've never been there - or heard Wisdom Audio's speakers - but Google Maps says Carson City is near Reno. A couple of interesting points here:

• This neatly sidesteps the need to have super-expensive inventory tied up in dealer installations. The dealer is also invited on the field trip, which is a great training opportunity.
• If they're flying prospects in coach, it really isn't that expensive a proposition. Of course, it also might not be the way people who can afford the system are accustomed to traveling - a full Sage System costs in the $50,000 - $100,000 range.

Overcoming a Low Ceiling

Electronic House poses a terrific real world question: how do you set up a home theater with a projector in a room without the headroom (literally) to hang a projector from the ceiling? Too bad they don't spend much time walking through the different options and just describe the finished room (which placed the projector on a shelf at the back).

Deal Alert: Cheap Carver Speakers

Looking for some good cheap speakers? Wiredforless.com bought up a cache of unloved (discontinued) "Carver TS-241S Home Theater On-Wall Speaker System" speakers, apparently part of a plasma-friendly HTIB system. A pair is just $69 (original price was $199/pair) plus $5 shipping, a deal good enough to be featured on sellout.woot.

These are slim, curved aluminum cases with a wonderfully simple (and included) mounting bracket. I bought a pair. At 89 db sensitivity they're easy to drive and play a few db louder than my reference speakers, they're a bit bright, and they require a subwoofer (like any speaker this size). Are they the best speakers I've auditioned? Hardly. I'm not even comfortable recommending them as main speakers without using something to tame the harshness (a tube amp would work wonders, but that would sort of defeat the whole budget nature of the deal). However, they are exceptionally clear, they play loud without distortion, and they look great. At this price, you aren't going to find comparable value, and they're absolutely perfect for adding surround, height, or width channels to an existing setup. I may have to buy another pair.

Update: just to clarify, the case is metal, the drivers are not. It has two 4.25" poly mids and a 1" silk dome tweeter per speaker. Also, the speaker terminals are recessed and do NOT accept banana plugs or heavy guage wire.

Thiel Goes Amazon - Growth, or Desperation?

 HomeTheaterREview (no relation) is reporting that high end speaker maker Thiel will stop selling exclusively through independent retailers and begin offering some of its entry level products on amazon.com (story here) and indeed, a quick amazon search for Thiel products shows in-walls from $900, and standalone speakers ranging from $1200 - $3,000. Founder Jim Thiel passed away in September, so I'm sure there are some who are saying that Jim must have said, "not over my dead body" and the company waited until that was literally true before making the move. I never interviewed Mr. Thiel, so I don't know what his attitudes or business plans were. However, the company's basic position is pretty simple: the market for high end speakers has always been limited, but audio enthusiasts are aging, the independent dealer channel is shriveling, the recession is tanking custom installers, and competitors are moving design and production to China to lower costs. It would appear that Thiel is suffering from the same maladies as Snell.  

The move to a mainstream, online distribution channel like amazon is definitely risky, especially since Thiel didn't take the obvious step of first segmenting its products into distinct lines for the different channels. Thiel will have to sell enough volume on amazon to offset the fallout from angry independent dealers and custom installers. It's not clear if this is a desperation move -- i.e., Thiel's sales are down enough that anything sold online is a plus -- or if this is an attempt to position the company for growth as traditional channels are expected to continue shrinking over time, and the online channel continues to grow. In any case, simply sticking products from a relatively obscure brand up on amazon will not result in sales; Thiel will need to advertise and promote the products through the new channel. I haven't seen any new Thiel ads or promotions, have you?

RIP Snell, Escient

Not sure where I was when this crossed the wire back in April, but I was saddened - but not surprised - to learn that D&M Holdings shut down both Snell and Escient. 

Snell was a high end speaker brand without enough brand recognition. Selling $30,000 speakers in a recession is extremely hard. Selling $30,000 speakers from a brand that only involved enthusiasts have heard of is basically impossible, no matter how terrific they measure and sound (Snell was famous for rigorously achieving ridiculously flat frequency measurements). 

I suspect that the recession did in Escient, which made well regarded music servers, as well. Sure, some of Escient's functionality made its way into Windows and iTunes over the years, but the general collapse of the custom installation business was the bigger culprit. That and the rise of Sonos, which is dead simple for regular consumers to install, and considerably less expensive than any custom solution.

New Onkyo Receivers Come with HDMI 1.4 and Buyer's Remorse

The problem with 3DTV - aside from the glasses and the nausea and the total lack of content - is that you need to buy an entirely new equipment chain. It is not enough to replace your TV with a 3D capable set, you will also need a 3D-capable Blu-ray player, and - much to the delight of Monster Cable - you may actually need to upgrade your HDMI cables to handle the increased signal bandwidth. The typical HDMI connection in most devices today is 1.3b, but you'll need to upgrade to HDMI 1.4a for 3D. 

This has implications for audio as well. If you want to get the best audio out of your 3D content, you'll need an A/V receiver (or processor and separate amplifier) to process the compressed digital signal, amplify it, and pass it along to your speakers. If your receiver - like nearly all on the market today - does not have HDMI 1.4a inputs, you will need to run a second digital audio cable from your Blu-ray player to the receiver - assuming that your Blu-ray player can simultaneously output video over HDMI and audio over coaxial or Toslink outputs. It probably can. Probably. 

There are also an increasing number of 2D devices that connect to your television via HDMI, and most TVs and receivers have a paucity of HDMI inputs of any kind. I have 15 devices with HDMI outputs, including game consoles, digital set top boxes, digital camcorders and several smartphones. 

With that background it is entirely unsurprising that electronics manufacturers are rushing to update their lines with new A/V receivers that have multiple HDMI 1.4a inputs. For example, Onkyo just announced three new receivers with 7 HDMI 1.4a inputs a piece, including the 9.2 channel TX-NR1008. Of course, this comes literally three days after I bought Onkyo's current generation receiver with 7 HDMI 1.3 inputs, the TX-NR3007 (pictured). Now, I knew that updated versions were bound to be introduced shortly, and, having sent back all my review units, I needed a new receiver now, not in June ...but I still feel a twinge of regret. 

Note: the TX-NR1008 is technically a replacement for the TX-NR1007, not the NR3007 which I purchased. I'm sure the TX-NR3008 will be along shortly, along with a new TX-NR5008 flagship, which is bound to have 8 HDMI 1.4a inputs.  

Front Projector Sales Up! (Or down. Depends on your point of view.)

CEPro reports that Quixel Research says home-theater front projector sales rebounded in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, with a 51% increase in unit sales and 17% increase in revenue. Woo hoo! Then again, sales are down consecutively from last quarter (the overall market value was $72 million at the end of the first quarter, down from $97 million in Q4 2009). Q1 sales declines are normal - most people buy projectors for Christmas, not the Super Bowl. Nice to see that the high end of the market is recovering overall.

Sonos Goes Stereo

Just a quick note today: Sonos just started shipping a new software update that adds some new Internet radio options, crossfading between songs, some new language support, new alarm settings, and the ability to use two S5's as a stereo pair. None of the features is critical on its own (though the S5 stereo feature is quite cool; when everything is digital, you can do all sorts of neat things) but Sonos already built the best multi-room component system. I sent back my Sonos review system so I can't test this personally. Sigh. 

With the Sonos gone, we've been using Logitech's Squeezebox Boom (OK; needs a better remote, the UI is just "OK," and the Sonos is better for multi-room use). The Squeezebox Touch just showed up, and I'll put that to the test once I get some speakers for it.

The New HT Sales Environment

HomeTheaterReview - not HomeTheaterVIEW, which is what you're reading right now - has an interesting take on how the home theater sales environment has changed since the recession, and how to cope. It's partly a pitch for online advertising, partly a manifesto. Oddly enough, I agree with the advertising part, but he's missing a few pieces in the manifesto:

• Are boutique bricks-and-mortar A/V stores relevant in an amazon.com age? (Short answer: only if they're truly boutiques.)
• Is seated home audio relevant in an iPod/dock age? (While there are exceptions -- witness the rebirth of vinyl -- generally speaking the answer here is, "not for anyone younger than 35.") 
• Are editorial-driven magazines (in print or online) relevant in an age of semi-pro blogs and forums? (If my friends writing for these publications are any indication, probably not.)

Mailbag: Is it Time to Upgrade to a "Blu-ray capable" Receiver?

Here's one from the mailbag:

I’m thinking about upgrading my receiver. Currently I have a Denon AVR-987. It’s 3- 4 years old and does not have the current technology for blu ray. I’m thinking of going with a Sony STR-DA2400ES receiver. I have a 52” Sony XBR and a Sony BDP S-300 blu ray player. My speakers are Soundworks MC300 front/Soundworks original surrounds and JBL Northridge for the center. Any advice would be appreciated.

It really depends on why you think you need the upgrade, but I wouldn’t do it.

You’d be surprised, but your current receiver can handle Blu-ray just fine – rather than upgrade your receiver to a model that can decode Dolby TrueHD, you just have the Blu-ray player do the decoding and send the bitstream (PCM) on over to your receiver – it will sound the same whether the player does the decoding or the receiver. In fact, depending on which Blu-ray player you have, it may work that way by default. For example, Sony’s Playstation 3 can’t send unencoded TrueHD to a receiver, you have to go the PCM route (the newer Playstation 3 Slim can pass an unencoded signal, but, again, there should be no difference in the sound). In your specific case, the BDP-S300 can decode Dolby TrueHD, but only if you download a firmware update. You should be regularly updating your firmware anyway to ensure that newer discs play on it without incident.

So, is it worth upgrading your receiver? Your Denon has more power than the newer Sony, it has basic room correction by Audyssey, and it has plenty of inputs/outputs as long as you don’t need a lot of HDMI switching or video upscaling. While the Sony has all the latest audio decoders, it doesn’t have the most HDMI inputs, the best video upscaling, or the best room correction, so I’m not sure it’s enough of an upgrade even if those were your priorities.

Your biggest bang-for-buck audio upgrade would be to keep the Denon and upgrade your speakers. At the very least I’d get matching front speakers (either get another MC300 for the center or get another pair of JBL’s for front left/right) and a sub.

Off to Apple's Special Event

I'm off to Apple's Special Event tomorrow. Journalists who want to contact me for comments afterwards can call me at 201 658 7729 or email me at agreengart @ currentanalysis com.

Once Apple madness is behind us, more HTV posts are coming, including a post-CES wrap-up, VUDU review, and an end to my quest for an A/V receiver with enough HDMI inputs to serve as a test center.

Strange New Home Theater System from Yamaha

Yamaha just announced the YHT-S400, a two piece home theater in a box. The soundbar is par for the course, giving people pseudo surround sound from just a single enclosure you can mount below your flat panel TV. Soundbars are incredibly popular right now, as they match the design of today's televisions (which also don't intrude on the living space) and don't require stringing wires all over the place. The YHT-S400's receiver is unique, in that it has a built-in subwoofer. Oddly enough, it reminds me of the mid-1980's PC, the Coleco Adam, which combined a daisy wheel printer with the PC's power supply - two things that definitely did not ordinarily go together. The reason my mind jumps way back (and yes, I know I'm dating myself) to the Adam is because strange combination designs not only limit upgrade flexibility, it means that if there is a problem with one component, your whole system is shot. Anyone buying the YHT-S400 needs to be aware that a problem with the sub means a problem with the whole system, and that they will not be able to upgrade any part of the system in the future.

Assuming that the sound quality is good - I have not heard a unit - the price seems reasonable ($599). Yamaha is probably thinking that this design will help space-challenged apartment dwellers, but there is another market segment worth exploring: parents of small children who don't want their kids stuffing Matchbox cars into a floor-level subwoofer port. I pulled 22 cars out of one of my subs in the playroom - the subs in my home theater all have floor-facing ports. On purpose.

Cheap Blu-ray Upgrades from Warner

Well, this is nice: some of us have felt like suckers, buying the same titles over and over as formats have shifted from VHS to letterbox VHS to laserdisc to DVD to special edition DVD to Blu-ray (and I probably missed a few format changes in there). If you've got a bunch of Warner DVDs and feel compelled to upgrade them to Blu-ray, check out this Warner Brothers site: http://www.dvd2blu.com/. You'll have to physically mail in your DVDs, and shipping charges apply if you have less than four to upgrade, but if you have four or more from the list of 55 titles, it should be about $8 per disc. Not free, but not bad, and a nice gesture to loyal customers.

Lessons From Panasonic's Plasma Day

On Tuesday, I, along with a handful of tech journalists, was invited to attend a briefing by Panasonic in New York to show off their latest line of plasma televisions. The emphasis was on the technical capabilities of Panasonic's plasma technology relative to the latest LCD with LED backlighting.  Some things I learned:

1. Never have a Japanese engineer who doesn't speak fluent English give a marketing presentation to journalists. Yes, there was a lot of technical detail included, but the fundamental reason Panasonic was doing the briefing was to spin the technical detail, otherwise they would have just provided a white paper. While the presentation itself was pretty good, it was agonizingly slow going in parts, and key points just weren't made well.
2. Plasma's burn-in issues are a thing of the past. Non-issue with current sets. Now, the legal guys haven't gotten the message, so you still see a warning in the manual not to allow static images to linger on the screen, but some of the sets are deliberately marketed as better for gaming (which they are). The manuals need to be updated and this issue needs to be taken off the table.
3. Plasma is actually brighter than LCD over smaller areas. This is irrelevant overall - the sample images on the LCD during most of the presentation jumped out at you in a way that plasma does not. Ergo, consumers prefer LCD at retail. (It's more balanced on calibrated sets in a home environment, but on bright images, LCD is superior, and on dark images, plasma rules.)
4. Plasma has markedly better color than LCD, especially off-angle. Sadly, this is basically impossible to see in retail environments with uncalibrated televisions.
5. Maximum energy usage on a plasma is still high if you display white fields all day long, but Plasma and LCD are pretty close in terms of energy consumption on real-world program material. LCD is still better (and has a much better number on the energy use sticker), but it's not a reason to disqualify plasma any more.
6. Plasma is much, much better for resolving high definition when there is motion in the image. This is a key fact that Panasonic should be marketing hard, especially since the LCD competition charges more for sets that try to compensate by speeding up refresh cycles, and they are still noticeably worse on test patterns and real world content.
7. How a TV is set up at retail is critical: the LCD set they had on hand for comparison showed more stars in a starfield, and none of us cared that the gamma of that set may have been off - there were far more stars visible on that TV than on the plasmas. And we actually know what gamma is - the average consumer never touches picture controls when they get their TV home.

All in all, I came away with a better understanding of why I still prefer plasma over LCD for most uses, and why most consumers are buying LCD anyway - and are unlikely to change any time soon.

Logitech Harmony 900 First Take: Not a Pretty Upgrade

I'm a bit backed up here at Home Theater View, both with posts (they're in my head but haven't quite made their way out of my head and onto the site) and with products to review. Logitech had sent over the Harmony 900 remote control just before it launched, but I first attempted to configure it last night.

 
The Harmony 900 is essentially an RF version of the IR-only Harmony One. In English, that means that the 900 is a universal remote control that looks nearly identical to another universal remote control in the Harmony line, but instead of just being able to control components line-of-site using infrared (IR), it can also control components that are hidden behind walls/doors/retractable screens using radio frequency (RF) commands that are relayed to the components with little IR blaster pods. The Harmony One lists for $249 (and sells for $182 on amazon) while the Harmony 900 lists for $399 (and sells for $315 on amazon). The added money also gets you a higher resolution touchscreen and a few extra buttons, but the two products look basically the same (a good thing, as I love the Harmony One's button layout), act basically the same (instead of controlling individual devices, the Harmony line is activity-based), and are set up using the same process (using an online database). The Harmony 900's value proposition is pretty simple: most infrared repeater systems cost a lot more than the $150 price delta, and some of them are fairly complicated, while the hallmark of Logitech's Harmony line is simplicity. 

As I noted in last year's Holiday Gift Guide, I liked the Harmony One so much that I refused to wait for a review unit and instead simply bought one. I later added the Harmony PlayStation 3 adapter, a $60 add-on that seamlessly integrates the game console into a Harmony system (the PS3 uses Bluetooth, which sounds like a good idea but is completely incompatible with any universal remote control). I also have an infrared repeater system, the Microsmith Hot Link Pro that I am eager to replace with a more elegant and responsive solution (I should note that I can heartily recommend the Hot Link Pro; when all the wires and the receiver eye are placed properly, it works perfectly, and at just $67 on amazon, it is a stone cold bargain). The Harmony 900 should have been perfect.

I have been reviewing remote controls for a long time and have been following the Harmony line since before Intrigue launched it (and well before Logitech bought the company). One of the best things about the product is that setup is done entirely online, the online database grows as users add new devices, and upgrading to a new remote control is a simple matter of telling the online software what you just bought.

Except when it isn't. The first problem I had was that Logitech's site claims that there is no software to download for the Harmony 900. A CD is included in the package, but you always need to download the latest updates anyway, and I had intended to use a netbook to do the setup down in my home theater rather than run back and forth between my office and my home theater. This problem was just an annoyance, but an odd one.

The next problem - and one that only affects people upgrading from earlier Harmony remotes - is that you cannot upgrade from earlier Harmony remotes. Despite the fact that the software is identical and the remotes look nearly identical and they function in nearly identical ways, a new Harmony account is required to use the 900, which meant I needed to go back and log every component in the home theater and re-figure out how they are all connected, which inputs are required, etc. The process is straightforward, but it is a chore I would have gladly done without.

The next problem - and the one that simply stopped me cold - was that much of the work that went into getting the Harmony remote controls working with my components over the years seems to have vanished from Logitech's database. Not only do I need a new account, but apparently I need to re-teach Logitech that the monoprice switcher has more than five inputs, that the TiVo doesn't have a power button, and that I am using Logitech's own accessory to control the PS3. I don't have time to troubleshoot all of this - again - so for now I will continue using the Harmony One/Microsmith combination.

If you are coming to the unit without an existing Harmony account, most of my setup problems won't affect you - you would need to set up your system from scratch anyway. Nonetheless, I'm holding off recommending this product until I have the time and energy to get it working properly.

Recovering from travel, posts coming soon

Among other things, AudioEngine sent over their small PC speakers, and a short review should be posted here soon. First impressions were nothing special, but they are growing on me.