Editor's Eye

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Editor's Eye
Calibrated Emotions
Mark Henninger  |  Aug 12, 2024  | 
I’ve been immersed in the world of audio and AV for over 20 years. During this time, I’ve come to understand that while technical knowledge is important, it can sometimes hinder emotional connection. This realization was starkly highlighted in a recent, unexpected experience. I found myself getting goosebumps while listening to a portable speaker. This was a first for me, a moment that defied my expectations and challenged my preconceptions.
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Editor's Eye
The Even Bigger Picture
Mark Henninger  |  Jun 04, 2024  | 
Back in February, in a blog I titled "The Big Picture", I discussed the expansion of large TV screens and how CES hinted at future trends. Now, with summer just around the corner, “100-inch-class” TVs are being shipped by all major brands, while 85-inch TVs have become surprisingly affordable and are selling rapidly.
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Editor's Eye
Visions of the Future
Mark Henninger  |  Apr 02, 2024  | 
When Apple first announced the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, it set off a chain reaction of responses and predictions. Its extremely high-resolution OLED display holds promise for entertainment experiences like movie watching, but can a personal device visually surpass what’s achievable with a traditional TV screen or projection system?
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Editor's Eye
The Big Picture
Mark Henninger  |  Feb 06, 2024  | 
What a difference a year makes. In early 2023, I was thinking about ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors in the living room, but saw evidence that TVs would compete in the 100-inch size category. Now it’s a year later, and 100-inch TVs are multiplying like rabbits while prices continue to drop.
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Editor's Eye
The Cost of High Fidelity, My Transition to Streaming & Defining Value and Affordability
Mark Henninger  |  Dec 08, 2023  | 
When I browse audio forums and social media, I often see absolute nonsense posted about the fidelity you can achieve with a phone, claiming it is not "audiophile" or whatever. Reality is if you stream lossless music through a phone and use good headphones, the listening experience is extremely high fidelity.
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Editor's Eye
The Evolution of Performance
Mark Henninger  |  Oct 05, 2023  | 
As highly competent design becomes more commonplace in modern AV gear, it’s the perfect time to discuss the balance between performance, design, and features.
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Editor's Eye
Summer’s Almost Here & the Writer’s Strike Continues
Mark Henninger  |  Jun 07, 2023  | 
Summer 2023 is just around the corner and Hollywood writers have been on strike since May 2. If the strike ends soon, it may not have a significant impact but there are concerns that a prolonged strike could be catastrophic for movie theaters that depend on a constant flow of blockbuster releases to remain profitable.
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Editor's Eye
The Future Is Bright for 4K UHD TVs
Mark Henninger  |  Apr 18, 2023  | 
If there is one dominant trend in 2023, it is the remarkable increase in brightness of TVs. Whether it’s OLED or mini-LED FALD LCDs, the luminance improvements are substantial. The OLED category, in particular, has seen significant gains, with LG claiming a 70% gain and peak brightness levels now easily surpassing 1,000 nits, which is sufficient to display most HDR content without requiring tone mapping.
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Editor's Eye
New Horizons
Mark Henninger  |  Jan 25, 2023  | 
Getting to know Sound & Vision Editor Mark Henninger.
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Editor's Eye
The Evolution of Bass
Al Griffin  |  Jun 15, 2022  | 
In recent months we experienced the happy convergence of having three formidable THX Certified subwoofers in house for testing, including M&K’s beastly X15+, all of which tied in perfectly with technical editor Thomas J. Norton’s overview of the latest version of Audyssey’s room EQ processing, MultEQ-X
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Editor's Eye
New Ways of Watching
Al Griffin  |  Feb 11, 2022  | 
Premium VOD (Video On Demand), Early Access, Theater at Home, In-Theater Rental. Each of these terms essentially describe the same thing: new movies screening in theaters that can also be streamed for home viewing. Premium VOD (we’ll run with that label) is a fairly recent development, one that quickly accelerated with the arrival of Covid. And while theaters have since re-opened, Premium VOD appears to be here to stay in a big way, with many new movies available to stream from services such as Vudu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and more.
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Editor's Eye
Canceling Netflix
Al Griffin  |  Dec 03, 2021  | 
Fall 2021 was a period of intense highs and lows for streaming giant Netflix. At one extreme, it scored an international hit with Squid Game, a Korean production that quickly became the service’s most-watched show. At the other extreme, a Netflix original comedy special, Dave Chappelle’s The Closer, drew intense criticism from the transgender community over its targeted jokes. Adding to Netflix’s woes during this time was the imminent cancellation of the service by a longtime customer, Sound & Vision editor Al Griffin.
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Editor's Eye
Spatial Is the Place
Al Griffin  |  Oct 08, 2021  | 
A regular complaint aired in Sound & Vision’s Letters section is that the 5.1 surround discs covered in our Remaster Class column are 1) out of print, and 2) too expensive to buy on e-commerce and collector sites like eBay and Discogs. And while I commiserate, the reality is that disc releases, be they LP, CD, SACD, Blu-ray, or whatever, don’t remain eternally in print. That’s why there’s a thriving market for vintage vinyl, and why albums and movies are regularly remastered and reissued on disc.
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Editor's Eye
CEDIA 2021: The Incredible Shrinking Expo
Al Griffin  |  Aug 30, 2021  | 
The highly-anticipated 2021 “reunion” edition of CEDIA Expo has been hit hard by worries over the rapid-rise of the Covid-19 Delta variant.
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Editor's Eye
Back to Basics
Al Griffin  |  Jun 10, 2021  | 
Yes, it had to be done. Consider it a form of spring cleaning. The “it” is in this case is a streaming service — HBO Max to be specific — that I decided to drop. My video streaming plate had become over-filled during the pandemic as I spent much of my free time at home, and now that I was vaxxed up and ready to re-engage (as much as possible) with the world, I made the decision to dump at least one service. It’s not that I wanted to lose it — in the final days of my active subscription, I of course happened upon a new original series, Mare of Easttown, that was right up my alley — but something had to give, and it was going to be HBO Max.
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