Fred Manteghian Blog

When we added the addition that contains the office to our house in 1990, I had the wherewithal to run speaker wires from the built-in nook in the office to the opposite wall. The idea was to put the stereo in the alcove and not have wires showing. I knew enough to use Radio Shack’s finest 16-gauge copper. Of course, I never actually <i>used </i>the wires or the nook. There was always some interesting high-end cable being proffered, and I’m only human. Besides, the speakers and equipment were out on display in the reviewing room, not meant to be hidden in an alcove.

Running around like a chicken with its head cut off, going from one press event to another, oft times miles apart, is what the Consumer Electronics industry likes to do to the press on the day before CES officially begins. While I usually oblige, this year more urgent business meant leaving running the gauntlet to my more willing cohorts. So what have I missed? Hard to tell, I’m 30,000 feet in the air at the moment, somewhere between Connecticut and Las Vegas, without a Wi-Fi in sight, but I’m sure I’ll hear about Thursday morning at breakfast with the other writers.

A month ago, I wrote about how the HD side of the <i>Stroker Ace</i> combo disc didn't play in my brand new Toshiba XA2. Shane asked if I'd bothered to upgrade firmware levels, which, of course, I hadn't. When I did, supposedly to release 1.6, I still had a problem with the disc. I put in <i>Children of Men</i>, another combo, and that wouldn't play on the HD side either. A week ago, I ran the firmware update request again. It took a few minutes (as opposed to about 20 minutes the first time) and then, well, I forget what it did then, but my Toshiba still thinks it's at release level 1.6.

This is a reviewer that is famous in Japan. And that's Home Theater's own Geoffrey Morrison standing next to her.

Sure they look a little too “take me to your leader” for some folks, but maybe that's appropriate, because the sound from the Micropod SE speakers from <a href=" http://www.scandyna-speakers.com/" target="new">scandyna</a> is out of this world. These two-way speakers perch fairly discretely on my office credenza, doing something the 25 year-old JVC SW/AM/FM radio and a Grundig portable were never able to do – bring fine tunes (or is that iTunes?) into my office. Of course, you'll need a way to hook your iPod to the speakers and for this scandyna provides "the dock," as they state in their capital-letter-averse terminology.

Last Sunday I blasted Philips for their technology initiatives to confute the human instinct for avoiding unpleasantness in all its forms (i.e. lame TV commercials) in my blog called
<a href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/fredmanteghian/042306Philips/" target=new>The Perfect Philips Screwdriver</a>. Apparently, the company did have a statement on their website that I had not been able to find that sought to "clarify" the issue from Philips point of view (thank you Gary Kaye of rave.com for finding it). I don't know about you, but I'm sick of companies and politicians trying to cover up their poo in fragrant roses. I'm going take a few minutes to rub their noses in it.