Febuary/March 2021

Sound & Vision

Authoritative information on entertainment technologies and products.

Sound & Vision3 min read
Stream Theater
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. soundandvision@emailcustomerservice.com Call (800) 666-3746 (international call
Sound & Vision1 min read
Sound & Vision
EDITOR: Al Griffin SENIOR EDITOR, TECHNICAL EDITOR: Tom Norton EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Bob Ankosko CONTRIBUTING TECHNICAL EDITORS: Kris Deering, Barb Gonzalez, Michael P. Hamilton, Daniel Kumin, Rob Sabin, John Sciacca, Michael Trei, David Vaughn CONTRIBUTO
Sound & Vision1 min read
Top Picks Of 2020
In a year of upheaval, it’s good to know some things remain the same. The Sound & Vision Top Picks of the Year award feature that regularly runs in the February/March issue is back again (see page 22) and packed with plenty of the exceptional gear we
Sound & Vision3 min read
Fractured Fairy Tales
Okay, children! Time for a bedtime story! Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. While walking through the forest, she came upon a quaint little village. In that village there were three ways to watch movies. The first way to wat
Sound & Vision4 min read
Qello Hooray
The supermarket was quite the innovation when it emerged near the outset of the previous century by offering many a consumer’s favorite products in one place for relatively easy one-stop shopping. Some of our modern-day streaming services resemble th
Sound & Vision7 min readTechnology & Engineering
Letters
I received the December 2020/January 2021 issue a few days ago, and the products tested ranged from $2,500 all the way up to $20,000. This is all very expensive stuff and something that most people cannot afford, especially these days. Why not also r
Sound & Vision4 min readComputers
Buy Once, Cry Once
In my previous column (Buy Once, Cry Once), I considered areas in your A/V budget where you should consider splurging when building a system. The categories I listed—projection screens, amplifiers, speakers—are ones that can provide years of enjoymen
Sound & Vision3 min readComputers
Hi-Res Bluetooth?
Q I own an LG V30 smartphone, a model with highperformance Quad-DAC audio system that’s capable of decoding hi-res files encoded with MQA. Here’s my question: I want to use the LG phone as a source to stream Masters-quality music from Tidal via Bluet
Sound & Vision15 min readTechnology & Engineering
Top Picks Of The Year
FLAT-PANEL UHDTVS ■ PROJECTORS ■ SCREENS ■ A/V RECEIVERS ■ AUDIO SEPARATES & INTEGRATED AMPS SOURCE COMPONENTS ■ SPEAKERS ■ SOUNDBARS ■ WIRELESS SPEAKERS ■ SUBWOOFERS ■ HEADPHONES ■ EXTRAS ■ TOP VALUES THE BEST THING I can say about 2020 is that it’s
Sound & Vision3 min readPerforming Arts
Test Bench
For picture settings used in the viewing, go to www.soundandvision.com. The measurements here were made using CalMAN software from Portrait Displays (www.portrait.com) together with Photo Research PR-650 and Klein K-10A color meters and a Fresco Six-
Sound & Vision17 min read
The World Of Raised By Wolves
A MOTHER AND FATHER HEAD to a new home to begin a family. Sounds simple enough, right? But in the world of HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves, the world is anything but simple. The Ridley Scott-driven sci-fi series takes place 150 years in the future, when a
Sound & Vision9 min readPerforming Arts
HDR Done Bright
PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE WHILE MOST buyers might view two grand as a high price to pay for a new TV, longtime readers here will recall the days when that amount would barely get you a small, flat-panel HD set with few features—and certai
Sound & Vision8 min readTechnology & Engineering
Class-D-elightful
PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE WHETHER YOU fall into the “all well-designed amps sound the same when used within their limits” camp or the “amp selection is critical” army of true believers, it’s arguable that prior to the turn of the millenni
Sound & Vision8 min readTechnology & Engineering
Supersized TV
PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE REMEMBER THE rear-projection TV (RPTV)? RPTVs were big, boxy contraptions housing a projector that beamed an image at the rear of a screen mounted on the set’s front surface. While necessarily inelegant compared
Sound & Vision10 min read
New Bronze Age
PERFORMANCE BUILD QUALITY VALUE PERFORMANCE FEATURES BUILD QUALITY VALUE BRITAIN-BASED Monitor Audio offers a wide range of loudspeakers at prices spanning from the bargain basement up to the penthouse that are cleverly named for a variety of metals:
Sound & Vision2 min readScience & Mathematics
Test Bench
FULL-ON/FULL-OFF CONTRAST RATIO: 1,830:1 The measurements here were made using CalMAN measurement software from Portrait Displays (www.portrait.com), together with a Photo Research PR-650 color meter, Minolta LS-100 luminance meter, and a Murideo/AVP
Sound & Vision1 min read
Test Bench
Using the Parts Express Omnimic measuring system, I conducted several in-room measurements, all taken at the single, seated ear-height position in my room. (Previous experience has shown that an average of several readings, taken across a span of abo
Sound & Vision7 min readTechnology & Engineering
The Next Generation
PERFORMANCE FEATURES ERGONOMICS VALUE THE BIG car companies refresh their lineups on a pretty regular schedule. Honda, for example, brings out all-new versions of its models every four to five years, and it makes smaller upgrades and improvements in
Sound & Vision5 min read
The Sound of Silver
PERFORMANCE BUILD QUALITY VALUE THERE ARE quite literally hundreds of small, two-way loudspeakers you can buy priced from under $100 to well north of $10,000 per pair. To this throng British stalwart speaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins now adds the
Sound & Vision3 min read
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
What a journey. Originally conceived as a simple sequel to his popular children’s book, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings grew to become the epitome of epic fantasy. Set in the far-off, long-ago realm of Middle-earth, it introduces t
Sound & Vision9 min read
Affordable—Upgraded
PERFORMANCE BUILD QUALITY VALUE PERFORMANCE FEATURES BUILD QUALITY VALUE GERMANY’S ELAC is a brand that has greatly expanded its presence in the hi-fi and home theater worlds over the past five or so years. While the company itself has been around fo
Sound & Vision3 min read
The Hobbit Trilogy
THE LORD OF THE RINGS was a box office phenomenon, which of course meant demand for more movies. And lo, a prequel book had already been written, so after some wrangling Peter Jackson returned to make another trilogy set within J.R.R. Tolkien’s fanta
Sound & Vision2 min read
Mad Max
LET’S NEVER forget that the enduring Mad Max franchise—four movies in with a fifth on the way—began right here 42 years ago with this low-budget car/motorcycle-chase gem. Relative to its more popular sequel, The Road Warrior, Max can be viewed as a s
Sound & Vision2 min read
Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai
A PROFESSIONAL assassin who lives by the ancient code of the samurai finds himself targeted by his Mafia bosses. Ghost Dog, a rare venture into genre films for Jim Jarmusch, allows the writerdirector to frequently quote, reference, and build upon man
Sound & Vision2 min read
Total Recall
TOTAL RECALL is a perfect mix of sci-fi action, plot twists, and the twisted tongue-in-cheek humor we expect from director Paul Verhoeven, delivered here with gusto by Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Douglas Quaid, a construction worker. More correctly
Sound & Vision2 min read
The New Mutants
AFTER A SLEW of genuinely outstanding back-catalog reissues on 4K disc lo these many months, editor Al Griffin and I were excited by the prospect of reviewing a new movie…well, perhaps “new” isn’t the ideal word, despite the title here. By the time i
Sound & Vision4 min read
Goats Head Soup Super Deluxe Edition
Show of hands, please—how many of you rate August 1973’s Goats Head Soup as your favorite Rolling Stones album? Anyone? No? Can’t say I blame you. Any record following The Stones’ May 1972 careerdefining double-album masterpiece Exile on Main St. wou
Sound & Vision4 min read
Bell Bottom Bluesbreakers
ERIC CLAPTON WAS IN PAIN. Deep pain. He was hopelessly in love with Pattie Boyd, the wife of his close friend George Harrison, and there was little he could do about it. Hence, Clapton did what any relatively desperate artist would to express his inn

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