dolby

In case you missed last week's giveaway, Dolby has been sponsoring the Crave Giveaway of the Week and continues to serve up some sweet home theater prizes. Last week we had Harman's AVR-3600 AV receiver. This week, Dolby's doing you one better with the Onkyo TX-NR3007 9.2-Channel A/V Surround Home Network Receiver with Dolby Volume.

Here's what Dolby has to say about the Onkyo TX-NR3007: "This powerhouse 9.2-channel receiver features advanced Dolby Pro Logic IIz and Dolby Volume signal processing in addition to Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD decoding. Advanced networking capabilities allow you to stream Internet audio and PC files for playback through your home theater system." (See full specs on Onkyo's Web site).

Normally, the TX-NR3007 would cost about $1,265, but you have the chance to get it gratis.

So, how do you try to win this Onkyo AV receiver? Let me enumerate the basic rules. Please read them carefully; there will be a test.

… Read more

In case you missed last week's giveaway, Dolby is sponsoring the Crave Giveaway of the Week, and serving up some sweet home theater prizes. Last week we had the Harman AVR 2600 AV receiver. This week, Dolby's doing you one better with the step-up Harman AVR 3600 with Dolby Volume.

Here's what Dolby has to say about the AVR 3600: "The 7.1-channel AVR 3600 includes a direct connection for charging and playback of iPhone and iPod devices. Advanced Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD decoding complement the built-in Dolby Volume signal processing and 80 watts-per-channel audio performance." (See full specs on Harman's Web site).

Normally, the AVR 3600 would cost about $960, but you have the chance to get it gratis.

So, how do you try to win this Harman AV receiver? Let me enumerate the basic rules. Please read them carefully; there will be a test.

… Read more

I've reviewed many Denon receivers, but never one of the really big ones. Richard Ames, that lucky devil, had the pleasure of putting the Denon AVR-4810CI through its paces for "Home Entertainment" magazine.

Each of the receiver's nine channels puts out 140 watts. Just about every surround format is on board, including Dolby ProLogic IIz height channel processing and Audyssey's DSX (which adds the possibility of width channels as well). You also get Audyssey's MultEQ XT 8-point room correction processing.

Video signals, regardless of resolution or input, can be upconverted/transcoded to HDMI and … Read more

Those awful glasses may doom 3D TV.

What with all the advances in technology they still haven't eliminated the glasses people have been using to watch 3D movies since the 1920s. "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland" may use vastly more refined 3D techniques, but the glasses remain. Some people get headaches, dizzy, or even nauseated watching 3D. There are exceptions, but most 3D films haven't matured past the gimmick stage.

No matter how you look at it, 3D TV is an expensive proposition. You'll need to buy a new Blu-ray player, new TV, and possibly a new receiver. Oh, and don't forget to factor in the cost for extra 3D glasses for family and friends.

Worse yet, after you've made the substantial investment in new hardware there's not a lot of 3D content to buy or see. Put those bucks in better-sounding speakers, and you'll have a vast assortment of choices to dazzle your ears right away. Surround sound may be imperfect, but you can hear it with just your own two ears; no special "ear goggles" are required.

So instead of investing in 3D TV, take those dollars and buy better speakers or a new receiver. That's an improvement you hear with every movie you watch and music you listen to. It's simply a smarter way to spend your money.

What is 3D sound? True 3D sound would involve height, width, and depth speakers. Stereo sound produces width, and surround speakers produce depth. What about height? My experiences with the only available height systems--Dolby Pro Logic IIz and Audyssey DSX--didn't do much for me, but I'm not giving up on the height dimension entirely. Pro Logic IIz and Audyssey DSX were designed to work with any surround movie. Maybe we'll have to wait for movies mixed to provide genuine height information to get three-dimensional sound.… Read more

Dolby Laboratories on Thursday announced its plans to bring its Axon 3D voice chat technology from the PC over to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Mac.

The software development kit (SDK) will be made available to all game developers in April, though it's already been in beta testing with a handful of developers, which Dolby would not disclose.

The technology, which has been available to PC game makers for the past year, adds three-dimensional location to a game's voice chat channel. This gives gamers a sense of where other players are talking from when heard through … Read more

I'm a big proponent of stereo home theater, but I'd quickly concede that most home theater buyers are looking for multichannel systems. Of all the available multichannel options--11.1, 9.1, 7.1, 6.1, and 5.1 --that last one is the most popular, but that hasn't stopped most manufacturers from only offering 7.1-channel models. Budget-priced models are the only 5.1 receivers you can buy.

And in 2009, Dolby Pro-Logic IIz, which featured two additional "height" channels, bumped the total for some receivers to 9.1 channels, even though our listening tests here at CNET … Read more

Dynamic range compression and lossy file compression are completely different things. What's the difference?

Dynamic range compression squashes soft-to-loud volume shifts. This form of compression has been used by recording, mixing and mastering engineers for decades.

Other than bona-fide audiophile recordings, most of the music you hear has been dynamically compressed--which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as dynamic range compression adds punch, presence, and impact to music.

It's just that over the past decade or so the trend is to overcompress dynamics, so not only has music lost most of its natural soft-to-loud dynamics, but nuance and subtle detail are missing as well. The loud-all-the-time aesthetic is boring.

Recordings with less compression have lower (quieter) overall volume, so if you go from listening to maximally compressed contemporary recordings to something with less compression you need to turn up the volume to compensate for the difference.

As a consumer of music, you don't have the option of buying uncompressed music. If the engineers squashed the soft-to-loud dynamics out of the new Lady Gaga record there's no way of getting them back. Once sound is compressed, you can't decompress it. If you want to hear music with less compression, buy original pressings of 1960s or 1970s LPs. Yes, some of those will be compressed, but less than contemporary recordings. … Read more

Acousticom manufactures audio communication equipment utilized by the Department of Defense and leading aerospace companies. The company is well-known for its flight helmets, but it is coming to CES 2010 with something almost everyone can enjoy--the Sound Egg.

The egg chair is back, but with a 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound system and an intimate media experience not intended for sharing. The chair can be connected to a television or computer and its unique foam insulation means no more complaining from your significant other. Go ahead, play Call of Duty all you want--he or she won't hear a … Read more

We've covered just about everything you need to know about the PS3 Slim, but the sleuths over at Engadget HD (via a translated version of AV Watch) found a chart that indicates the PS3 Slim can bit stream both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. That change actually isn't that surprising, since the original limitation on the "old" PS3s was due to an older HDMI chipset; newer HDMI outputs have no problem bit streaming the high-resolution soundtrack formats.

We have a PS3 Slim review sample onhand, so it was easy to confirm the rumor. We had … Read more