Home theater

Sony's making high-end speakers?

It's kind of like hearing master chef Mario Batali is concocting a $25 Quarter Pounder for McDonalds. It's just that I associate Sony speakers with the sort I hear in home-theater-in-a-box systems. You know, little plastic boxes with low-tech drivers. Those speakers can be decent enough, but they're light years away from bona-fide high-end audio devices.

Well, the Sountina NSA-PF1 doesn't look like anything I've seen from Sony, or any other speaker manufacturer. Exact design details are sketchy, other than to claim the speaker uses "Four columns linking these … Read more

Every year it seems there's a new catchy spec in the HDTV realm everybody likes to talk about. A few years back it was 1080p resolution. Then we heard about 120Hz, which is supposed to reduce motion blur in fast-moving images on LCD TVs. Well, this year, the latest and greatest spec is 240Hz, which is supposed to do what 120Hz does, but better.

Not too long ago, our video guru David Katzmaier gave his initial impressions on 240Hz in a post titled "Is 240Hz worth waiting for?" When he wrote that piece, he'd just seen his first 240Hz TV in action and wasn't sold on the new technology. Now that he's reviewed four 240Hz HDTVs and has a fifth review (the LG 47LH55) in the works, he's still not sold, but he admits the verdict isn't totally clear-cut.

Part of the problem is that there's a difference between what your eye sees in everyday material you watch and objective testing done with test patterns. As Katzmaier notes in his post, "Standard LCD and plasma TVs refresh the screen 60 times per second, or 60Hz, which is plenty fast enough to eliminate flicker and create the illusion of motion from a series of still images. In fact, most sources sent to your display arrive at the nominal rate of 30 frames per second, and each frame is repeated once by the television to achieve 60 total fps."

For most people, including me and Mr. Katzmaier, it's very difficult to see the impact that "faster" LCD sets have on picture quality. We spent some time in our AV lab watching various source material from 120Hz TVs and 240Hz models and it's really hard to detect any difference (it's hard to detect any difference between 120Hz and 60Hz models, too). To be clear, I'm referring here to motion-blur reduction because of faster refresh rates, not to dejudder processing, which smooths out motion and makes film-based material shot at 24fps look more video-like. When dejudder is engaged, you can easily spot its impact on the picture. (It's also worth mentioning that the dejudder processing on the 240Hz TVs we tested so far wasn't any better--or worse--than than the dejudder on 120Hz TVs). … Read more

I get this one a lot, what should I do about my--fill-in-the-blank--broken headphones, buzzing speakers, static noises, intermittent sound, or when my subwoofer stops subbing?

Only rarely can I solve the problem with a quick fix; I always first advise contacting the dealer or Web site that sold you the product. Service is their responsibility and if they don't provide it, you shouldn't buy from them.

Of course, the best time to ask about service is before you buy any product. Will they replace a product if it fails within 90 days of purchase? Do they pay for return shipping? I'm talking about audio products here, but that advice works for any tech purchase. … Read more

Updated August 18, 2011.

If you're an iTunes user (download for Windows|Mac) whose appetite for music, movies, and podcasts is outstripping the capacity of your computer, it might be a good time to think about offloading that library to an external hard drive or a separate internal drive. If you do it right, the process is relatively simple, although the transfer time could take an hour or more, depending on the size of your media library.

To walk you through it, here are a step-by-step video and slideshow tutorial on how to move your iTunes library to an … Read more

Last year's HDTVs are yesterday's news, but great audio designs, like Vandersteen's Model 1C floor-standing speaker ($995/pair) stick around for decades.

Richard Vandersteen designs speakers for buyers who care more about sound than fashion. His stuck-in-the-1980s styling isn't a calculated stab at retro. The handsome 1C tower speaker was originally introduced in 1981 as the Model 1, and the "C" iteration debuted in 1996. No matter, it still sounds better than any speaker I've heard near the 1C's price. It's as good as it gets for under a grand.

Change for the sake of change isn't an option at Vandersteen, and that extends to bucking the industry stampede to move production offshore. Vandersteen still builds all of his speakers in Hanford, California, and every speaker is tested and measured in the factory's anechoic chamber. That's commitment.

It's a two-way design featuring a 1-inch alloy dome tweeter mounted just above an 8-inch woofer. The speaker is 36 inches high and weighs 44 pounds. Build quality is absolutely superb.

As you can see from the picture, the 1C isn't a conventional "box" speaker; the baffles supporting the drivers were designed to be as small as possible to reduce the reflections that are (unfortunately) part of the sound of conventional speakers.

The audible differences between box speakers and the 1C aren't subtle, so the very first thing you'll notice about the Vandersteen sound is that it's remarkably "open" and dare I say it, it approaches the purity of some high-end panel speakers. It's simply more natural sounding than any box speaker near the 1C's price.

The Vandersteens' soundstage depth is positively addicting; the spacious image isn't just wide and deep, it's also taller than average, which adds to the believability of the sound. … Read more

Today's receivers are jam-packed with features, but the one thing they lack is power.

In fact, most $500 receivers never come close to delivering their rated power into all channels.

Some can barely manage a third of their claimed wattage. Right now, your 100 watt per channel receiver might be pumping out only 30 something watts.

People ask me about this stuff all the time--"Steve, Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony and Yamaha receivers all boast up to the nanosecond surround processing modes, connectivity options up the whazoo, and fancy shamncy remotes--so what exactly would a brawny multichannel amplifier get me?" My answer to these queries is always the same: "Just two things, the power and the glory."

The problem: Receivers, even big ticket, $2,000+ models can't spare enough internal real estate to house humongous transformers and hefty power supply capacitors--the compromises inevitably start there. Separate power amplifiers have room for all of that good stuff.

Enter Emotiva Audio's XPA 200 watt, five-channel amplifier ($799), 1,000 watts total. It's actually a lot more powerful than just double your average 100 watt per channel receiver; the XPA amplifier can deliver up to 350 watts to each of its five channels with four-ohm speaker loads. You'll look far and wide to find a receiver that can drive low-impedance speakers like a separate power amp can. And it'll cost a whole lot more than the Emotiva XPA will.

Oh, and please don't worry that the XPA is too powerful for your speakers. Too much power doesn't harm speakers, playing them too loud with an underpowered receiver is far more likely to do your speakers in. … Read more

Buying music or books online makes a lot of sense, but I'd draw the line at speakers.

Maybe there's no place close enough to go to for an in-store demo--a lot of shops closed their doors--precisely because too many people used their service to audition gear, and then bought online to get a lower price.

Nice, so now there are fewer places to hear speakers before you buy them. So even if you're reasonably happy with what you bought online you never had the luxury of comparing one speaker against another and picking the best of your choices. Good enough is good enough.

Over the past 30 years--16 as a high-end audio salesman and 14 as a paid audio reviewer--I've listened to thousands of speakers. My sales experience gave me a deep understanding of how all sorts of people, not just audiophiles, listen to and buy speakers.

Some buyers need to touch the speaker, get a sense of its build quality, and some buyers, even after reading a review, are surprised by the speaker's size or some other quality. It's one thing to read about a speaker or peruse its specifications, seeing and hearing it for yourself is so much better.

I draw upon those experiences when I review speakers, but I still can't predict how each reader will react to their sound. Everyone hears differently, and preferences are all over the place.

Some customers want lots of bass, some just want to play loud, or quietly, some care most abut stereo imaging. One guy plays dance music, another only opera. But most speaker shoppers can't articulate what they want from a speaker. That's the rub, and why reviews, even ones as well written as mine for CNET and magazines, may not be the best possible guide to the right speaker. … Read more

That's right--five speakers for $299--and we're not talking about one of those flyweight packages with itsy-bitsy speakers.

The Fluance SXHTB system features a pair of floor-standing tower speakers, a full-size center-channel speaker, and very decent two-way surround speakers. There's no subwoofer, but the Fluance towers make a lot more bass than tiny satellites, so some buyers won't need to add a sub. I reviewed this system for CNET in 2005, but it's still available.

I'm not claiming the system is a bona-fide giant killer or offers the sort of refined sound you'll find on much more expensive systems. But if you're on a limited budget and have the room for a full-size speaker set, the Fluance SXHTB's combination of credible sound quality and solid construction represent an amazing value.

The entire ensemble is finished in a durable natural beech vinyl wrap (the only finish option). The speakers' robust MDF wood construction cabinets are built to a high standard.

Standing 38.8 inches tall, the towers definitely qualify as full-size speakers, and each one weighs a hefty 33.4 pounds. Each tower's elegantly proportioned cabinet rests on an integrated base, which in turn features adjustable brass feet. The 15.8-wide center speaker is no less impressive, and the surround speakers, which also include bases, are wall-mountable. They're the babies of the package--just 8.8 inches high.

The towers feature dual 6.5-inch poly-coated woofers and a 1-inch silk-dome tweeter. The center channel speaker sports a pair of 4-inch poly-coated woofers and a 1-inch plastic tweeter, while the surround speakers include the same type of woofer and tweeter. All of the speakers are ported designs.… Read more

Some of today's DVD and Blu-ray soundtracks are so densely mixed that dialogue can be hard to understand.

When actors' lines are obscured by onscreen mayhem, you may miss important plot details. The dialogue intelligibility problem is even worse for people who are hard of hearing.

Here's a simple fix to improve intelligibility that also works like a charm for quiet, late-night movie watching.

Turn up the center channel volume level. Please understand, that's not the same thing as cranking up your receiver's volume control. Raising the center channel volume relative to the left/right and surround channels makes dialogue louder than the music and sound effects, so it's easier to understand what the actors are saying.

The easiest way to make the adjustment is with your receiver or home theater-in-a-box system's remote control. Check and see if your remote has a button marked "Channel Select." My Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver's remote has such a control, marked "CH SEL". It toggles through left, right, center, etc., and once I got to the center I used the "Level -" and "Level +" buttons to adjust the center channel volume.

Experiment to figure out how much louder you want the center channel speaker to be, but start with turning it up by three decibels. That might be enough, but don't hesitate to turn it up higher if that's what you need.

Of course, you can also use the CH SEL feature to boost subwoofer volume to taste whenever you switch movies or CDs. Or adjust the surround channels volume. … Read more