Reader K. Reid asked for a profile of ultra-high-end cables from <A href="http://www.nordost.com">Nordost</A>, and I'm only too happy to oblige. At the pinnacle of the company's extensive product range is the Odin line, which includes power cords, tonearm cables, analog and digital interconnects, and speaker cables.
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Boxes! A satellite signal comes into your house and goes to the satellite receiver via coax, right? Why can't you connect the coax directly to an HDTV and get a high-def signal? Also, why do Dish and DirecTV advertise "full HD" when the signal is 1080i?
Jeff Park, HDMI Evangelist for HDMI Licensing, the company that maintains and develops the HDMI spec, dispels confusion about version numbers, cable lengths, "wireless HDMI," installation problems, and more.
On Sunday, March 7, the 2010 Academy Awards were handed out at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California, and like 41.3 million other viewers around the world (including 3.1 million New York Cablevision subscribers who almost didn't get to see it due to a dispute with ABC), my wife and I watched the spectacle live as it unfolded only a few miles from our house. Well, okay, we didn't watch it live, exactly—we waited a couple of hours so we could skip through the commercials and acceptance speeches thanks to TiVo. So what I'd like to know from you is...
Horn-based speakers have been around since the earliest days of audio reproduction, and they continue to find favor among audiophiles today. Germany's <A href="http://www.avantgarde-acoustic.de/hornlautsprecher.php?lang=en">Avantgarde Acoustic</A> is no stranger to horn speakers, basing its business on them since 1991. At the top of the company's considerable lineup is the Trio, shown above in the Classico configuration with a massive Basshorn subwoofer.
Well, that didn't take long. Less than two months after 3DTVs were introduced at CES, some models are already available for consumers to purchase. The first out of the gate are Samsung's UN46C7000 and UN55C7000 LED edge-lit LCD TVs (shown here), which can be purchased at Amazon.com for $2339 and $2969, respectively, as well as a few other online retailers such as Crutchfield, which has the 46 in stock for $2400 and is taking pre-orders for the 55 for $3060. Soon to follow are some Panasonic plasmas, which are scheduled to go on sale at Best Buy on March 10, marking the first time that 3DTVs will be available at brick-and-mortar outlets.
When I first heard about the flagship 069 CD player from German high-end manufacturer <A href="http://www.burmester.de/en/">Burmester Audio</A>, I was surprised to learn that it is belt driven. Of course, many LP turntables use belt drives, but I'd never heard of a CD player with such a mechanism, which is said to decouple the platter from the rest of the chassis, eliminating vibrations and allowing the data to be read with considerably higher precision and less jitter.
TiVo is one of the most recognizable brands in all of consumer electronics—so much so that the name of the company has become a verb in the popular lexicon, much like Xerox. After years of anticipation, TiVo today announced the next generation of its DVR platform—Premiere and Premiere XL.
Ill-Advised Combo I have a very large room with high ceilings and a loft, and I have a 5.1 system with satellite speakers. Will a Polk SurroundBar 360 work together with the speaker system I have, or does it work only by itself?