Bob Ankosko

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Premiere Design
Form Following Function: mbl 101 X-treme Speaker System
Bob Ankosko  |  May 24, 2012
Stunning or strange? One of these words is likely to come to mind when you first lay eyes on the 101 X-treme speaker system, the flagship of MBL’s Reference Line. And what a system it is, handmade to order in Germany and comprising a pair of approximately 6-foot-tall towers, each of which supports two utterly unconventional driver arrays in an open frame, and two subwoofer towers, each comprised of six 12-inch woofers, a crossover, and an amplifier broken into three ported birch and aluminum boxes that can be stacked or laid side by side as needed. (No lows left behind.)
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Audio Video News
Flops: Fourteen Formats and Technologies That Couldn't Quite Hang On
Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 13, 2012
The road to A/V perfection is littered with formats and products that didn’t make it for one reason or another. Some were technically sound but ahead of their time or poorly marketed. Some were victims of bad timing, unforeseen circumstances, or uninspired design. Others were just plain curious in a “what the heck were they thinking?” kind of way. And then there are the tweak formats and technologies—embraced by enthusiasts and ignored by the masses—that refuse to go away. Here, we remember A/V formats, products, and technologies that are gone but (mostly) not forgotten.
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Custom Installation How-To
Training Day: Your Guide To Home Theater Education
Bob Ankosko  |  Sep 07, 2011
Home theater is in your blood. You crave the latest and greatest gear and are constantly thinking about your next upgrade. You can’t resist tinkering. Impossible. You’re regularly chastised by family members for monopolizing the remote, ready to tweak the sound or picture at any moment—and get reprimanded often for doing so just as the opening credits start to roll. Glaringly bright images, lopsided sound, flabby bass—these are things that make you cringe. There’s no getting around it: You’re hard core, and no one is going to stop you from dreaming about quitting your day job to design and build insane home theaters.
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Other Tech
Farewell to an Audio Pioneer and a Fine Man
Bob Ankosko  |  Dec 18, 2003

Julian Hirsch was a celebrity, but you would never have known it if you'd met him. He'd have been the first person to shrug off any kind of special status. Yet he was special.

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What’s Your Top AV Gift Pick for 2014?
Bob Ankosko  |  Dec 02, 2014
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Have You Finished Your AV Shopping?
Bob Ankosko  |  Dec 15, 2014
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What’s the Top TV/Video Story from CES 2015?
Bob Ankosko  |  Jan 20, 2015
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What Kind of TV Do You Plan to Buy Next?
Bob Ankosko  |  Mar 09, 2015
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Have You Heard Dolby Atmos Yet?
Bob Ankosko  |  Apr 10, 2015
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