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Audio News for June 28, 2016

by | Jun 28, 2016 | Audio News

Consider a Home Theater Makeover If: You can’t tell the color orange from the new black on your favorite prison show; there’s motion blur when people are running; the speakers aren’t loud enough to hear Simon Cowell’s insults; there are more remote controls on the coffee table than people in your home. First, two things you should know about 4K TVs: If you sit close enough, the four times greater resolution provides so much picture details it’s almost like being there. Due to more 4K content now becoming available and falling prices, this could be a good time to invest in a UHD TV (not really 4K), provided it has HDR, high dynamic range brightness, to bring greater color and contrast to the screen. Some have “quantum dots” whose tiny nano crystals are laid out in sheets in front of the backlight source, producing a wider color palette and better brightness. Sound bars are becoming more popular because they are less expensive than 5.1 or 7.1 surround speaker system, and easier to set up, and take up little room so become ideal for smaller rooms and apartments. A horizontal soundbar typically sits just under the TV screen. Many ship with […]

Audio News for March 29, 2016

by | Mar 29, 2016 | Audio News

Benefits of a Curved Screen HDTV – Almost none. Perhaps if you’re a single person sitting right in the center of the screen it might be nice, but it prevents good viewing from the sides and takes up more room, as well as being more expensive. It may be nice in some commercial theaters but in the home the better visual quality is in fact unverified. Basically it’s just a commercial ploy to get you to spend more on a TV. And wait for the next generation of 4K HDTVs – this one doesn’t address the many other areas needing upgrading besides the resolution, and you need to sit extremely close to see any improvement in resolution anyway. And there is almost nothing reasonable available in 4K until the higher-capacity Blu-rays come out in a few months. MIT Launches Battery-Operated Headphone Amp –  MIT has put their patented Multipole Technology inside an active circuit to make their Vero HCA 29 high current, silent-powered class AB headphone Amp. The new amp, which features 29 poles of articulation, is so far only on Indiegogo. Multipole Technology has been used on many films and recordings as well as MIT cables, but this is […]

HOWARD HANSON: An American Romantic – Ch. works perf. by var. artists – HDTT Blu-ray

HOWARD HANSON: An American Romantic – Ch. works perf. by var. artists – HDTT Blu-ray

by | Mar 19, 2016 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

A fine cross-section of some of the little-known works of one of the great American Romantic composers. HOWARD HANSON: An American Romantic = Concerto for organ, harp & strings; Nymphs and Satyr Ballet Suite; Concerto da Camera for piano and string quartet; Two Yuletide Pieces for Piano; Prayer for the Middle Ages; Psalms 8, 121, 150; String Quartet – David Craighead, organ/ Eileen Malone, harp/Meliora Quartet /Rochester Ch. Orch./ David Fetler/ Brian Preston, p./ Roberts Wesleyan College Chorale/Richard Shewan/ Theodore Sipes, bar./ Barbara Harbach, organ/ Lyric Art Quartet Houston – HDTT 192-14 DTS-HD MA audio-only stereo-only Blu-ray ****: These are recordings originally made by John Proffitt, and have been remastered from the original analog tapes by HDTT. An earlier DVD-Audio version of the same program is also available, except that it does not include the final String Quartet movement, and has a different cover. The liner notes are printed even smaller on the Blu-ray than they were with the DVD-Audio, making them nearly unreadable. I have both discs and they sound about the same. The resolution on both is 192/24. The original master tapes used DBX encoding at 15 ips. Hanson was part of the distinguished composers all born in […]