Audio Video News

Iconic indie-rocker Lou Reed passed away at the age of 71 on Sunday, October 27th from complications after a recent liver transplant. Reed was married to experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson. Although Reed had only a single top-ten hit, he will be remembered for so much more.

Soundbars may be one of the top selling categories in consumer electronics today, offering a simple and inexpensive path to (faux) surround sound, but many hardcore enthusiasts who read Sound & Vision wouldn’t dream of using one for their main AV setup, according to the findings of our soundbar poll. We asked “do you own a soundbar" and offered several yes/no choices, but the vote wasn’t as overwhelming against soundbars as you might think. Although half of the respondents “would never consider a soundbar,” four in ten acknowledged using one for different reasons. Here’s the breakdown…

Klipsch has introduced the SB 120 TV sound system, a self-contained 2.1-channel soundbar that supports wireless Bluetooth streaming from mobile devices. List price is $500.

To commemorate its 40th anniversary, Polk Audio has launched the “Listen to the Music” competition inviting independent musicians of all genres to reinterpret the Doobie Brothers rock classic of the same name. Contestants will submit performance videos to vie for a chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas to open for the Canadian pop-rock band Walk Off the Earth and John Legend at the Hard Rock Cafe in early January.

WD, a Western Digital company and leader in storage solutions, today introduced My Cloud, a cloud-based hard drive described as a solution for organizing, centralizing, and securing digital content from computers and mobile devices. Once My Cloud is connected to the Internet, content stored on it can be accessed from any device without having to pay monthly fees or giving up control of personal data, according to the company.

Dolby Laboratories announced that Ray Dolby, an American inventor recognized around the world for developing groundbreaking audio technologies, died on September 12 at his home in San Francisco, at the age of 80. Dr. Dolby had been living with Alzheimer's Disease in recent years, and was diagnosed in July of this year with acute leukemia.

In October Panasonic will begin selling the first Ultra HD TV based on HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2a specifications. Part of the Smart Viera line, the 65-inch TC-L65WT600 is THX-certified and accepts 4K 60p video signals.