Mark Fleischmann

Audio Video News
Sound & Vision Tech Tidbits May 2017
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 02, 2017
Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee streaming-only series will move from Sony Pictures–owned Crackle to Netflix for its 10th season. Not that there’s anything wrong with that...

Sony Adopted Dolby Vision HDR video technology along with HDR10 in three 2017 Bravia OLED models and three LCD models. Screen sizes range from 55 to 77 inches...

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AV Receiver Reviews
Marantz SR7011 A/V Receiver Review
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 28, 2017

Audio Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $2,199

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Nine amp channels
HEOS multiroom compatibility
Audyssey, ISF, Control4, Crestron
Minus
No PC-friendly USB jack

THE VERDICT
The Marantz SR7011 is a state-of-the-art receiver with excellent room correction, fine overall sound, and the potential for HEOS multiroom extension.

The D+M Group was formed in 2002 with the merger of Denon and Marantz, each a powerhouse in A/V receivers and other audio categories. Through several changes of ownership, the two brands have remained distinct, with different cosmetic looks, slightly different feature sets, and slightly different voicings; each team has its own sound-tuning engineers and expert listeners. But as a reader once pointed out, popping the lid on comparably priced models from the two brands may reveal a close kinship in circuit layouts, suggesting certain economies of scale. And the new top-of-the-line AVR from Marantz further mimics its sister brand by adopting HEOS multiroom connectivity, a feature previously associated with Denon. Our review sample of the receiver arrived with Denon’s HEOS 7 and HEOS 1 speakers, and we put them through their paces together.

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Audio Video News
Filtering Services Evolve
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 27, 2017
Back in the days before Blu-ray, companies like ClearPlay and TV Guardian offered parents a way to filter their children’s DVD viewing to screen out material deemed offensive. Some may call it censorship; others, a necessary tool for parents.
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Audio Video News
Sound & Vision Tech Tidbits April 2017
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 13, 2017
Sinclair’s TBD is a digital multicast network aimed at millennials. Multicast means TV stations will carry it as a secondary channel, allowing broadcasters to seek new revenue while leaving traditional network and independent channels intact...

Smart TV Platforms are consolidating. Ten TV makers are using Roku and Chromecast in lieu of rolling their own...

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Ears On
WNEW-FM and the Golden Age of Streaming
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 10, 2017
Back when I was a kid, music streaming was awesome. The music of that era—I'm talking about the late 1960s to the mid '70s—was so good, it would eventually become known as classic rock. The streams were in high-quality analog sound, spun from actual LPs. And there were no monthly fees—all streaming was free!

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Audio Video News
Kid-Friendly Content Filtering Evolves
Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 20, 2017
Back in the days before Blu-ray, companies like ClearPlay and TV Guardian offered parents a way to filter their children’s DVD viewing to screen out material deemed offensive. Some may call it censorship; others, a necessary tool for parents.
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Integrated Amp Reviews
Rotel A12 Integrated Amplifier Review
Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 15, 2017

Audio Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $899

AT A GLANCE
Plus
USB inputs for PC and iOS
Premium Wolfson DAC
Bluetooth aptX
Minus
No DSD decoding
No Wi-Fi, AirPlay, or Ethernet
No streaming services

THE VERDICT
The Rotel A12 accepts direct wired input from PCs and iOS devices and gets the best out of both digital and analog sources with its great-sounding DAC and amp.

Connecting a computer to an audio system with a USB cable seems a perfectly logical idea. It’s simple, it’s direct, and it enables the computer to feed bits to the system and rely on the system’s digital-to-analog conversion. Yet this desirable feature is tantalizingly rare. AVRs and streaming amps tend to rely on wired and wireless network connections rather than on a USB port and asynchronous digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that can take over the clocking functions of the digital bit transfer and reduce the effects of jitter.

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Audio Video News
Sound & Vision Tech Tidbits March 2017
Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 06, 2017
Sony Projectors got firmware updates to add HDR contrast to the picture menu, add an HDR indicator to the information menu, and automatically select the BT2020 color gamut. Affected models include the VPL-VW5000, VPL-VW665, and VPL-VW365; the VPL-VW675 already has these features...

Dish Network’s NBA Team Pass lets you follow your favorite team for $119 per season. The NBA League Pass, which covers the whole league, is still available for $199...

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Ears On
For the Love of Music: Click, Buy, Go, Listen, Reflect
Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 03, 2017
At some point in my relationship with Facebook, Mr. Al Gorithm figured out that I like live music. Once he pegged me as a concertgoer, Mr. Gorithm began stuffing my timeline with ads for concerts. This hasn't bothered me at all. In fact, I often click through to the venue's website and buy a ticket or two. Mr. Gorithm seems aware of that as well because the ads have proliferated, especially those from Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. This has had an impact on my listening life, and by extension my listening work. Click, buy, go, listen, reflect.

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Audio Video News
Bell Tolls for Pay-TV
Mark Fleischmann  |  Feb 15, 2017
Forty-one percent of cable and satellite subscribers are planning to trim or sever their pay-TV subscriptions, according to a survey of 1,000 customers by FocusVision and Zanthus.
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