Inhaltsverzeichnis für October 2017 in Sound & Vision

Last June, I was invited to a press tour and demo of a new IMAX VR Experience Center in New York City. The company best known for entertaining big audiences with big screens had created a space in the lobby of a popular AMC multiplex on Manhattan’s East Side to deliver one-on-one virtual reality entertainment to walk-in customers. It was their second such facility, after a standalone pilot location in Los Angeles. The complex in New York consists of 12 individual “pods”— walled-in cubes with an open front. VR headsets, haptic vests that provide tactile sensations to the wearer’s back and chest, surround sound headphones, and various interactive controllers and/or tactile seating in each pod allow customers to fully immerse themselves in VR sequences created in conjunction with content partners.…

Dolby Vision has been added to Oppo UDP-203 ($549) and UDP-205 ($1,299) Ultra HD Blu-ray players as a firmware update. It is also coming to TCL’s U.S. TV line for the first time via the P Series ($499 to $999) and C Series ($699 to $1,000)... TBS and TNT are expanding their mobile presence to include the Roku, Chromecast, and Vizio SmartCast platforms. They are already on Android, iOS, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire... AccuWeather is now an app for Android TV. That brings it to smart TVs from Sony, Philips, TCL, and others... DirecTV Now, AT&T’s shot at luring cord-cutters, now streams on Roku. The set-top box was the last major platform without the streaming service... AT&T’s Latest Unlimited Choice mobile package provides 60 DirecTV channels for $70, which…

Would travel plans or other interruptions prevent you from streaming your favorite programs? PlayOn Cloud proposes to solve that problem by recording the streams of the major networks as well as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and HBO Now. Download the app for nothing, then buy a recording credit for each movie or show to be recorded. A credit currently costs 40 cents, and they’re available in discounted bundles. The service is not authorized by any of the services or networks being recorded. The company correctly asserts that the Supreme Court’s 1984 Betamax Decision sanctions home recording; however, it may be in murky waters due to the terms-of-service agreements signed by users.…

Hulu, the big studio-owned video streaming service, is branching out with Hulu Live TV. The service has launched with 50-plus channels plus Hulu’s ad-supported VOD. You and yours can view in two simultaneous streams and get 50 hours of virtual DVR storage at $40/month. An upgrade to 200 hours of storage costs $15/month extra, or $20 extra with unlimited streams. Showtime is a $9/ month add-on. The service can autorecord your favorite sports teams. Platforms include Android, iOS, Apple TV, Xbox One, and Chromecast; those to be added later are Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung smart TV…

The television broadcast spectrum, the oldest source of programming, is getting a spiffy new broadcast standard but may suffer from regulatory changes that would consolidate ownership and dilute local programming. ATSC 3.0, the eventual new broadcast standard for the U.S., is already coming to South Korea in LG TVs. Koreans will be getting Ultra HD, HDR, and next-generation surround from the airwaves before we do. U.S. consumers are interested, though. A SmithGeiger survey finds that when consumers are informed about ATSC 3.0 features, their likelihood of buying a smart TV rises from 55 percent to 74 percent, and they’re willing to spend $205 more, raising the average selling price to $1,155. Emergency alerts may suffer under the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard despite its hip geotargeting and other features, warns…

Believe it or not, even Little Steven—Bruce Springsteen’s longtime guitar foil and songwriting soundboard in The E Street Band, and the decorated Godfather of the Underground Garage and Outlaw Country radio formats—feels the need to recharge the creative batteries every now and then. “This record turned out to be a really wonderful reset, reintroduction, and rebirth of myself,” Little Steven admits about his first solo album in 18 years, Soulfire (Wicked Cool/UMe). “It was a wonderful opportunity to start again and really show my roots in a way I had never done before. I mean, I never put a blues song on a record before, I never did a doo-wop song before, and I never did a cover of anybody before I did this thing!” Indeed, the man also quite…

PRICE $999 THE VERDICT The Denon HEOS AVR reimagines the black-box receiver as a sleek, shapely, appdriven beauty that leverages the home network to provide wireless sub and surrounds. A/V RECEIVER DENON HEOS AVR A/V RECEIVER PRICE: $999 Denon • (201) 762-6665 • usa.denon.com AT A GLANCE Plus ■ App-driven HEOS ecosystem ■ Up to 5.1 channels ■ Wireless HEOS surround and sub options Minus ■ Nearly no front-panel controls ■ No low-volume mode ■ No Dolby Atmos or DTS:X HAVING SUCCESSFULLY developed their own wireless ecosystem under the HEOS brand, Denon is using it to reinvent the audio/video receiver. What the company calls the HEOS AVR departs from the black-box norm by offering suave dove-gray aluminum as an optional alternative to the usual black. It isn’t a box,…

PRICE $4,132 as reviewed THE VERDICT A paradoxical hybrid that blends excellent contrast management for challenging viewing environments with a frustrating callousness about pristine image fidelity. SCREEN STEWART FILMSCREEN PHANTOM HALR AMBIENT LIGHT REJECTING SCREEN PRICE: $4,132 Stewart Filmscreen • (800) 762-4999 • stewartfilmscreen.com AT A GLANCE Plus ■ Excellent off-axis light rejection ■ Wide viewing angle maintains color saturation ■ Very good calibration accuracy Minus ■ Cloudy artifacts with camera pans on bright scenes ■ High price TWO YEARS AGO, SOUND & Vision contemplated how pairing sub-$2K projectors with innovative ALR (ambient light rejecting) screens might compete as similarly priced replacements for large flat panels in multipurpose environments. Compelling, immersive, life-size projected images for the same currency swap as a diminutive, backlit, uh…TV? We celebrated our certainty at pinpointing…

E-mail them to HTLetters@sorc.com. Please note: Questions about the features and functions of a particular product are best directed to the manufacturer. Questions about what product you should buy are best directed to a dealer who knows all the details of your system, your preferences, and your personal habits. All submissions are considered the exclusive property of Sound & Vision magazine and TEN: The Enthusiast Network. We reserve the right to edit letters for brevity. Due to the volume of mail that we receive, we regret that we cannot respond to every letter. Sirius Mistakes I read with interest the article by Ken Pohlmann on why he didn’t buy the Benz (“Why I Didn’t Buy the Benz,” Signals, July/ August 2017), which I found especially interesting considering that I own…

MrSpeakers Aeon Headphones PRICE $799 RATING MrSpeakers Aeon Headphones THE VERDICT The Aeon are a game changer for MrSpeakers. Their least expensive headphones might be their most accomplished design. AT A GLANCE Plus ■ Closed-back, planar magnetic design ■ Made in San Diego, California ■ Beautifully balanced sound Minus ■ Non-standard connectors on the earcups I MEET A LOT OF AUDIOPHILES who flat out refuse to give headphones a chance. They go on about the headphones they bought in college when Michael Jackson released Thriller and won’t even try the new breed of ’phones. This one here, the MrSpeakers Aeon, might be the headphones that turn them around. The complete package— the sound, the shape, the smooth feel of the carbon fiber earcups, the luxuriously thick earpads, and best of…

Sennheiser is offering a Special Edition of its Momentum HD 1 wireless headphones to commemorate the recent Pink Floyd exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The purple steelhinged earcup of this folding on-ear design is graced with the triangular Dark Side of the Moon logo, and the famous album cover is further celebrated with rainbow stitching on the headband. Features include noise cancellation and Bluetooth with aptX and NFC. Voicing is described as “detailed, pure, and with a slight bass emphasis.” You can buy the headphones at the exhibition or from the online stores of the museum (vam.ac.uk/shop/hd-1-edition-pinkfloyd-headphones-150698.html) or Sennheiser (en-us.sennheiser.com/hd-1-edition-pink-floyd). The U.S. price is $500.…

Fidget spinners, the latest way to distract the human mind through the wonder of ball bearings, are now available for smartphones. The Fidget Tech Spin Master augments the physical spinning device with a double-sided suction cup that sticks onto a smartphone. That enables it to serve as a phone stand or phone grip. While it’s OK to hold the phone and spin the spinner, the company doesn’t say anything about holding the spinner and spinning the phone, presumably because that might end badly. The toy costs $30 from Brooklynbased fidget-tech.com with free shipping and will sell for $20 in stores. Or you could just buy a generic fidget spinner and double-sided suction cup for 99 cents each on eBay…

Having the right tool makes any job easier—or even possible—and when my company’s vans show up for an installation, they are loaded down with a huge array of gear to help us overcome virtually any hurdle. Between specialized drill bits, to hand tools for terminating an assortment of fittings, to fiber-optic cameras for peering into walls, having the right tool on hand can make the difference between a job well done and an impossible one. If you’re looking to do some basic installation work—such as mounting a flat-panel TV or retrofitting new in-ceiling speakers for a Dolby Atmos setup— assembling a basic toolkit isn’t hard or expensive. Over the next couple of columns, I’m going to dissect some basic installations you can tackle on your own. Below is a list…

PRICE $6,000 THE VERDICT Samsung’s new top-of-the-line QLED flagship brings first-rate brightness, brilliant color, and crisp resolution to the Ultra HD party, but enthusiasts might notice its lack of a full-array, localdimming backlight. ULTRA HDTV SAMSUNG QN65Q9 LCD ULTRA HDTV PRICE: $6,000 Samsung • (800) 726-7864 • samsung.com AT A GLANCE Plus ■ Bright and punchy HDR ■ Excellent resolution ■ Stunning color Minus ■ No Dolby Vision ■ Edge-lit instead of fullarray backlight dimming NOW THAT WE’RE AWASH IN high dynamic range (HDR) material on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Samsung is determined to make the most of it with two new TVs, the 65-inch QN65Q9 reviewed here and the 75-inch QN75Q9 for buyers who prefer a bigger (and, at $10,000, pricier) set. Each has a screen that’s flat, not curved.…

DENON’S HEOS SUBWOOFER stays true to the HEOS ethos both cosmetically and functionally. This is a sub without a wired analog input, connecting exclusively through the network, either Ethernet or Wi-Fi. It can be used to add bass support to any HEOS wireless speakers, including the HEOS Bar soundbar, and can be used with the HEOS Amp and Link modules as well as with the HEOS AVR. The sub is the size and shape of a desktop PC and can be placed vertically or horizontally. Behind a fabric-covered grille is a pair of 5.25-inch drivers; there’s also a port on the cabinet’s back panel. Aside from the HEOS-style volume and mute buttons on top, the LED stripe at bottom, and the necessary connect and reset buttons on back, it takes…

UHD BLU-RAY Logan Escape Claws There have certainly been terrific comic book movies, but Logan is a terrific movie that just so happens to be inspired by comic books. The proper balance of story, character, and juicy action set pieces is an elusive one. (Think back to the disappointing first two solo Wolverine flicks.) But in his ninth and reportedly final portrayal of Logan, charismatic star Hugh Jackman— in the role that will surely define his career—is at the center of a remarkably original, powerful film. The year is 2029. Mutants, once misunderstood and widely feared, are almost extinct and largely irrelevant. Once the deadly-yet-noble X-Man known as Wolverine, Logan is now an Uber driver living a sullen existence on the U.S./Mexico border. Well past his prime, and not just…

NEW GEAR, TOP NEWS, HOW TO, AND MORE... • Remember iPod Hi-Fi? Of Course You Don’t. I tried to contain my excitement when Apple announced HomePod, declaring it “a breakthrough wireless speaker for the home that delivers amazing audio quality.” And to think that it will use “spatial awareness to sense its location in a room and automatically adjust the audio.” Fantastic! With that kind of technology, I might be forced to end my longstanding (but tenuous) relationship with Windows once and for all, trade in my Samsung Galaxy for an iPhone, and embrace Apple Music. As I pondered Apple’s place in the burgeoning smart speaker market, I scanned the internet to gauge the media’s reaction to the HomePod, trying to decide whether Apple is fashionably late to the party…

With mobile screens dominating your waking hours, app makers have begun targeting the time you spend sleeping. Touch the Sleep button, and some apps will lull you into slumber with tranquil audio or mask invasive sound with white noise. They’ll graph your snores, chart your turnovers, and rate the quality of your experience. They can wake you with good vibrations. While most apps rely solely on your smartphone, others require a Bluetoothconnected pillow or under-mattress sensors. Given S&V’s penchant for speakers, I decided to lay down with the ZEEQ Smart Pillow by REM-Fit. The pillow (26.5 x 16.75 x 5.5 inches) embeds eight wireless speakers (four on each side), a microphone, two vibration motors, a three-axis gyroscope, a rechargeable lithium-ion battery (affording about two weeks of usage), and a wired…

What is MQA? Carlos Padrigan / via e-mail Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) is an audio technology that was originally developed by Bob Stuart, co-founder of British hi-fi manufacturer Meridian Audio, and is now licensed by MQA Ltd. A main idea behind MQA is to take high-resolution master recordings and package them into a standardresolution file size that can be easily downloaded or streamed. The MQA encoding process manages this using an “origami” technique that “folds” high-frequency information existing outside the main audio band (approximately 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz, the frequency range of human hearing) into the lower frequencies. Since that extended range consists mainly of harmonic information that’s considered inaudible, MQA’s scheme works around the inefficiencies of standard PCM digital audio, which would encode all frequencies equally—even ones outside…

The message on the Fraunhofer website was concise: “On April 23, 2017, Technicolor’s MP3 licensing program for certain MP3- related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated. We thank all of our licensees for their great support in making MP3 the de facto audio codec in the world during the past two decades.” And just like that, it was over. What this means, practically speaking, is that you no longer need a license to use MP3 in your product in the United States (the European patents expired in 2012). At least for its principle licensors, MP3, one of the most ingenious audio inventions of the century, and among the most lucrative, had lost its money-making mojo. MP3 is free. Some journalists, in reporting the news, breathlessly…

Amazon is many things to many people, and now it’s become the king of the smart-speaker market. Parks Associates reports that the online retail giant dominates smart speakers with 70.6 percent of sales, adding that smart speakers are in 11 percent of U.S. broadband households. The secret sauce in Amazon’s Echo, Dot, and Tap speakers is Alexa voice control, which is also winning new friends on its own. The Dish Network is adding Alexa to its Hopper DVR and Wally sat receiver. (In related news, its Dish Anywhere app now plays live or recorded content on the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick.) Amazon is adding to Alexa’s charms by enabling the voice assistant to turn the speaker into—wait for it—a phone. Update Alexa’s Android or iOS app, and…

PRICE $25,000 THE VERDICT Sony’s ultra-short-throw projector can dazzle for daytime viewing and fulfills its promise as a big-screen panel TV alternative, but dark-room home theater enthusiasts may be less impressed. PROJECTOR SONY VPL-VZ10000ES SXRD 4K ULTRA-SHORT-THROW PROJECTOR PRICE: $25,000 Sony • sony.com AT A GLANCE Plus ■ Crisp 4K image ■ Projects 120-inch picture from 10-inch distance ■ Can be used in average room-lighting conditions Minus ■ Below-average picture uniformity ■ So-so contrast ■ Pricey WHEN IT COMES TO SETTING UP a home theater, the main goal should be to get the largest image that your space and budget will allow. In many cases, that’s going to mean hanging a projector from a ceiling mount at the back of the room and attaching a screen to the wall up…

PRICE $2,399 THE VERDICT Onkyo’s latest A/V preamp/processor adds the Dolby Atmos/ DTS:X and 4K/HDR capabilities needed to bring the brand’s pre/pro current, while maintaining very solid value in the field. SURROUND PROCESSOR ONKYO PR-RZ5100 SURROUND PROCESSOR PRICE: $2,399 Onkyo • onkyousa.com AT A GLANCE Plus ■ Unimpeachable audio and basic video quality ■ Generally good ergonomic design ■ Eminently useful pop-up Quick Menu Minus ■ No aptX for Bluetooth ■ Local-streaming audio doesn’t display file type/ sampling info ■ Fairly downscaled remote ON THE WEB See soundandvision.com/ TestBench for full lab results and technical definitions. THE A/V PREAMP/PROCESSORS from Onkyo (and sister brand Integra) have been through five or six generations over the years, and I think I’ve tested or at least used just about all of them. And…

BEFORE Calibration AFTER Calibration FOR the picture settings used in this review and more detailed Test Bench notes, go to soundandvision.com. 1080P/SDR FULL-ON/FULL-OFF Contrast Ratio: Unmeasurable IN the Movie Picture mode, with the Backlight control on 5, Brightness on 0, Contrast on 86, and BT.1886 gamma adjusted to +3, the measured peak white level was 46 ft-L or 158 nits (rounded to the nearest nit/ft-L). With a full black screen, with or without a white pause bug displayed in the corner of the screen, the center screen measured 0.00 ft-L, for an effectively unmeasurable contrast ratio. IN the Warm 2 Color Tone setting and a peak white level of 46 ft-L, the precalibration grayscale Delta E from 20% to 100% varied from a low of 1.44 at 80% to a…

PRICE $1,595/each ($7,975 as reviewed) THE VERDICT The overhead fruit of Bang & Olufsen’s partnership with Origin Acoustics combines superior, finessed sound quality with remarkably refined looks for any ceiling. IN-CEILING SPEAKER ORIGIN ACOUSTICS/BANG & OLUFSEN CELESTIAL BOC106 IN-CEILING SPEAKER PRICE: $1,595/ea Origin Acoustics • originacoustics.com Bang & Olufsen • (847) 590-4927 • bang-olufsen.com AT A GLANCE Plus ■ Zip-Cliq mount for easy install ■ IPX6 rated for use in highmoisture locations ■ 10-inch woofer ■ Optional billet aluminum Advanced Grille Minus ■ Expensive ALTHOUGH THE STORY OF ITS beginning may sound like it, Bang & Olufsen isn’t one of those up-andcoming startups that briefly create a lot of noise and then are never heard from again. B&O’s is a classic tale, though. Two engineers, Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen,…