Fred Manteghian Blog

There are countless major music studios that have not transitioned successfully to the Digi-Tools age of computers. JVC Victor is not one of them. Getting into their elevator for a music tour, a philosophy that will become clearer as the tour continues is printed on the inside of the elevator so that all visitors and employees can read and remember it in moments when nothing else might be going on.

We saw several studios within JVC's Aoyama facility. Each has its own unique acoustical properties and features. This one, studio 401, has a wood floor and the top of its two story high walls are also adorned in wood.

Hideo Takada, General Manager of the JVC's Recording & Engineering Division discusses the acoustical characteristics of Studio 302. Takada-san has 37 years of experience in sound recording and judging by his youthful appearance, it's a great line of work!

Microsoft's HDMI-less HD-DVD-less XBox 360 has a tumor of an add-on. For $200, you can only play HD-DVD discs <i>through </i> your 360's component output. The sign in front of the unit summarizes my thoughts on the subject succinctly.

Mitsubishi, Philips, Sharp, Panasonic, Pioneer and Hitachi were showing protype BluRay players they think they might build.

Just one "O" away from an Audi

Pioneer blew everyone away with their new 60" plasma prototypes. They claim better than 20,000:1 contrast. They say they can't measure it any higher given todays test equipment. I wonder what Toshiba is using to measure the 50,000:1 contrast they claim they've achieved with SED?