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New Products
Tech the Halls: 2017 Holiday Gift Guide
SV Staff  |  Nov 22, 2017
'Tis the season to start driving yourself crazy trying to figure out what the heck to get friends and family members for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa (insert your holiday here). The 2017 Holiday Rush is fast approaching, soon to be top of mind—unless you’re Scrooge or just really good at procrastinating. Me? I fall into the latter camp, so the rush won’t start until a week before December 25th. Same- and next-day delivery has spoiled us and made it exceedingly easy to perfect the art of...well, you know.
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The S&V Interview
Arlo Guthrie Gives Thanks for 50 Years of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 22, 2017
Is there a more hallowed Thanksgiving tradition than the annual spinning of Arlo Guthrie's magical 18-minute tale about one fateful Thanksgiving Day encounter that's also celebrating its 50th birthday this year, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”? Guthrie and I discuss the song’s sonic origins, what had to be done to ensure it fit perfectly onto one album side, and the Guthrie family’s storied annual holiday tradition of playing Carnegie Hall in New York.
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The S&V InterviewAudio Video News
How Origin Is Making Beautiful Music with Amazon
Bob Ankosko  |  Nov 22, 2017
15 Minutes with Origin Acoustics CEO Jeremy Burkhardt

Spend a few minutes on Jeremy Burkhardt’s LinkedIn page and you quickly gain an appreciation of his passion for custom installation and desire to create products that simplify installation and push the boundaries of performance — to “innovate,” as he would say. You also find an executive who is anything but your typical corporate CEO — a man who talks about breaking “all the corporate rules” in describing his work history as CEO for SpeakerCraft, the pioneering custom-installation company he helped build before leaving in 2012. Today, Burkhardt is at the helm of Origin Acoustics, the architectural speaker company he founded in 2014, and his desire for innovation is as strong as ever. Origin was the talk of CEDIA 2017 with the launch of its Valet amplifier, which provides an ingenious way to integrate voice control into a whole-house music system. We caught up with Burkhardt to learn more about the system and get his take on the future of voice control.

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Bluetooth Speaker ReviewsWireless Multiroom Speaker Reviews
Riva WAND Wireless Music System Review
Rob Sabin  |  Nov 21, 2017

Arena Wireless Speaker
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

Festival Wireless Speaker
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE Festival, $499; Arena, $249

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Excellent build and sound quality
Chromecast, AirPlay, Bluetooth built-in
Away mode and optional battery for portability
Minus
Chromecast multiroom interface

THE VERDICT
Riva Audio continues a tradition of excellent sound quality with the WAND series, the company’s first wireless multiroom speakers.

I first met Riva Audio founder Rikki Farr and chief engineer (now also president) Don North in the fall of 2014 when they marched into Sound & Vision’s New York City conference room to demo their first product, a Bluetooth speaker called the Turbo X. North was a youthful, glasses-wearing geek who had just enough of the right credentials and tech swagger to suggest he really knew what he was doing.

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A/V Veteran
Energy Star Certification for TV: How Dim Is Too Dim?
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 21, 2017
New proposed Energy Star requirements for TVs are designed to insure viewers are aware of which picture modes/settings meet the Energy Star certification. But that's not all...
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Audio Video News
RIP: Audio Legend Arnie Nudell
SV Staff  |  Nov 21, 2017
Arnie Nudell, considered one of the founders of high-end audio, has died. He was 80.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
New App Makes it Easy to ‘Soundtrack’ to Your Videos
SV Staff  |  Nov 21, 2017
Moodelizer of Stockholm, Sweden has introduced a free app that makes it easy to add pizzazz to videos you shoot on the fly.
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Signals
What Is Soundtrap and Why Did Spotify Buy It?
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 21, 2017
I once observed that the business of running a recording studio was like renting out a Gutenberg Bible for parties. Your upfront costs are enormous, the anticipated income is relatively slight, and the potential downsides can be tragic. Largely because of that terrible business model, the studio business has changed dramatically.

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Audio Video News
SVS Blowout: ‘Lowest Prices Ever’ on 2 Subwoofers
SV Staff  |  Nov 21, 2017
’Tis the season of the discount and SVS is back with its annual Black Friday blowout.
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Remotely Possible
Where Are All Those Old TVs Going?
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Nov 20, 2017
Televisions are one of the most popular items to purchase during the myriad Black Friday sales extravaganza that’s already begun—even though it isn’t Friday, yet. Last year, for example, Target sold 3,200 televisions per minute in first hour of opening on Thanksgiving. With prices coming down on 4K UHD TVs with HDR, you can bet that TVs will be as big—if not a bigger—a sales success.
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