A/V Veteran

I've commented before on finding interesting posts on YouTube. Though marred by incessant commercial interruptions (I keep my TV's remote close enough to exit the promotions as soon as possible) that service's offerings cover endless topics: sports, history, current events, music, and much more...Several recent British documentaries, for example, covered the hazards found in English homes of different eras...I recently discovered another far more serious entry. Running for 86 minutes, The Maestro and the Cellist of Auschwitz (a German production with subtitles and translations where needed) covers the very different stories of two musicians during World War II...The maestro of the title here was Germany's Willhelm Furtwangler, arguably one of the most storied and feted symphonic and opera conductors of the 20th Century.

Part two of an interview did I did more than 25 years ago reveals that not everything has changed when it comes to home audio.

I was recently riffling through my collection of video discs, searching for one to use to use as a source in a review, when 2017's The Finest Hours dropped into my hands for the first time years. It's the true story of the nearly impossible rescue of an oil tanker, the SS Pendleton caught in a furious February 1952 nor'easter off Chatham Massachusetts on Cape Cod. It remains the most incredible small-boat rescue in Coast Guard history. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bernie Webber and his small crew set out in a 32-foot boat to save the tanker's 32 surviving crewmen.

In television, as in all things, you can't fully appreciate where you are, and where you're headed, without knowing where you've been. Not all that long ago plasma was king but that was only one step in an ongoing parade of TV designs...

Long-time readers and experienced videophiles will instantly recognize the Spears and Munsil brand. Over the years S&M has released what are arguably the best video evaluation discs on the market for setting up video displays of all descriptions. At $59.95, the new Spears & Munsil Ultra HD Benchmark is the company's priciest offering to date. But it's also the most thorough.

Inspiration for a blog can come from any number of places. In the August/September print edition of Sound & Vision, Ken C. Pohlmann writes about the issues involved in cataloging classical music for access on music streaming sites.

Classical music as a category is a catch-all term for compositions originally played in front of a live audience. Most such music is a century or more old, but adventurous composers are still writing it today. It's similar to modern "popular" music (rock, country, metal, and more) mainly in the fact that it's now experienced more from recordings than viewed and heard live. The late J. Gordon Holt, founder of our sister publication, Stereophile didn't, as far as I know, deprecate popular music, but was a strong proponent of well-recorded classical music, viewing it as the only genre fully suited for judging audio gear. Was he right?