Steven Wilson keeps pretty busy with his band Porcupine Tree and various other group and solo projects. Yet he still finds time to be, among artists, the leading proponent of music in surround.
Here at S+V, we're lucky to have some of the most dedicated and capable home theater junkie readers around. We know you have all kinds of tips, tricks and DIY tactics to keep your home theater churning out amazing audio and video, and we want to hear about them. To enter: Send your best DIY tips to SandVDIY@gmail.com by January 15, 2010. Feel free to include pictures of your handywork.
Back in the early days of portable music players and digital downloads, your average audiophile could legitimately look down his (or her) nose at the whole notion and say, "Feh!" Boy, have times ever changed. Thin-sounding low-resolution MP3 files...
My love for Sonos is no secret. You'd think I own stock in the company - full disclosure: I don't! - but you have to love a music-delivery product that starts out great and just keeps getting better.
On June 11, 2009, I lost a cherished friend: the Sony Watchman TV I'd owned for 20 years. When analog TV broadcasts went dead that day, my Watchman, along with every other portable analog mini-TV, suddenly became useless. A few portable digital TVs have since appeared to fill the gap, but because the ATSC digital-TV standard wasn't designed for mobile use, none of them can deliver the reliable roving reception of my 1980s-vintage Watchman.
Another year, another roundup of 20 amazing products. Yes, for those of us who regularly write about and test the best that the A/V world has to offer, life can get pretty repetitive - until we step back from the test bench and take a look at the big picture. What we're seeing in our 2009 Editors' Choice Awards assortment is gear that ranges in price from around $300 on up to $85,000.
Call it the projection paradox. Projector owners are so devoted to their pursuit of a cinematic effect that they're willing to spend thousands of dollars more than the average TV buyer and endure lights-out viewing.
To disregard the hi-fi end of what we do is wrong," says Tom Petty of his decision to include a Blu-ray Disc with 62 live tracks mixed in 5.1 as part of the Deluxe Edition of his career-spanning boxed set with the Heartbreakers, The Live Anthology(Reprise). That edition, is impressive indeed.
Call it the projection paradox. Projector owners are so devoted to their pursuit of a cinematic effect that they’re willing to spend thousands of dollars more than the average TV buyer and endure lights-out viewing. Yet all the hot technology seems to go into those sexy flat-panel TV sets that people who don’t know a pixel from a pineapple buy at discount stores while they’re picking up tube socks and army-size bags of Cheddar Jalapeño Cheetos.
Call it the projection paradox. Projector owners are so devoted to their pursuit of a cinematic effect that they're willing to spend thousands of dollars more than the average TV buyer and endure lights-out viewing. Yet all the hot technology seems to go into those sexy flat-panel TV sets that people who don't know a pixel from a pineapple buy at discount stores while they're picking up tube socks and army-size bags of Cheddar Jalapeño Cheetos.
