Tabla de contenidos para August/September 2020 en Sound & Vision

Customer Service And Subscriptions soundandvision@emailcustomerservice.com Call (800) 666-3746 (international calls: 386-447-6383) or write to: Sound & Vision, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235 Please include your full name, address, and phone number on any inquiries. TAP, TAP, TAP… is this thing on? We’re back! I’m sure you’re wondering what happened to the June/July issue of Sound & Vision, so here’s the deal. As the Covid-19 pandemic started to wind its way through the U.S. in March, a business decision was made by AVTech Media to take a pause and combine the magazine’s next two issues into a single “September” issue, and that is the one you now hold in your hands. The move was a temporary austerity measure made in response to the escalating global health crisis, but we…

At first glance, almost everything about the Andover Spinbase turntable speaker system seems wrong. Why? Audiophiles go to great lengths to make sure their turntable, a delicate vibration sensor, is isolated from external sources of mechanical vibration. But with the Spinbase, you plunk your turntable on top of the worst offender in a system—the speaker. That’s a bit like asking a ballerina to do a pirouette while being tackled by the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line. Such thinking would miss the entire point of the Spinbase, which is not intended to be an audiophile solution, but rather an all-in-one powered speaker/turntable platform that allows for vinyl playback where a full rig won’t work due to space, budget, or domestic acceptability reasons. I initially thought the Spinbase would be a glorified…

RATING EPSON’S Home Cinema LCD projector lineup ranges from basic, inexpensive beamers designed for portable use to high-end models meant for serious home theater installations. Of these, we typically devote space to the company’s premium UB (Ultra Black) offerings such as the 5050UB 4K PRO-UHD (reviewed in the August/September issue and also on soundandvision.com), along with mid-range models like the 3800 under evaluation here. A big plus of the Epson projector family is that the costs usually top out at $3,000, with mid-range offerings priced about one-third to onehalf that amount while providing many of the same features found in the high-end offerings. To provide one example of the above, the Home Cinema 3800 ($1,699) features the same 4K PRO-UHD technology and HDR10/Hybrid Log-Gamma display compatibility found in the 5050UB…

RATING TALL, SLIM speakers are certainly in fashion, and it’s hard to imagine many slimmer than Definitive Technology’s new Demand Series D15 towers. Despite housing three 5.25-inch drivers (two carbon fiber woofers and a polypropylene midrange), a 1-inch aluminum dome tweeter, and not one but two 8-inch side-firing passive radiators, the D15 measures just 6.5 inches wide and thus indeed requires its bolt-on aluminum bottom plinth to achieve stability. Def Tech has always balanced serious value with serious performance, and the Demand series clearly maintains the tradition. But while the firm’s top-range calling card has from inception been bipolar designs, with both forwardand rearward-radiating drivers and on-board powered “subwoofer” bass sections, the Demand series breaks rank, placing conventional, monopole (forward-only), fully passive designs at the top, pricewise at least, of…

RATING AT SOME POINT when I reviewed GoldenEar Technology’s Triton Reference tower in early 2017, it hit me that the company may have backed itself into a marketing corner with its new offering. After all, how do you push the performance envelope further after developing a “Reference” speaker? The company’s agenda, as it turned out, was to scale its $8,500 flagship down in order to deliver variations on the Reference experience. To that end, GoldenEar quickly followed up with the Triton One.R ($6,000/pair), a smaller and less pricey tower that to my ears didn’t compromise on performance in any substantive way. Now, the company has introduced the BRX ($1,599/pair), a passive bookshelf entry in the Reference lineup. Since a key component of both the Reference and the One.R is a…

RATINGS There is nothing like Star Wars. Across its three trilogies of Roman-numeraled Episodes, creator George Lucas and the inheritors of his galaxy far, far away opened the minds of audiences across the globe as well as across generations of fiercely devoted fans, thanks to their unique spin on epic fantasy. Love it, hate it, or anywhere in the middle: Star Wars has left an undeniable mark on the world of entertainment. It all began simply enough with the exploits of frustrated dreamer Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), yearning for a life beyond his family’s desolate farm. Soon, fate—or perhaps the mystical Force—would grant his wish, casting him upon a mission to rescue feisty Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) with the help of that cynical smuggler with a heart of gold, Han…

As long as architects design houses with a fireplace as the focal point of the living/family room, people will continue to mount their TVs above the fireplace mantel. But a problem with that location is that it situates the screen too high for comfortable viewing. And even though people know that height is going to be an issue, they often have no other obvious installation choice and are consequently forced to suffer life with TVOF (TV Over Fireplace) syndrome. Chances are you or someone you know is suffering from TVOF syndrome. If that’s the case, may I present a perfect cure: Mantel-Mount’s MM860, an automated, motorized mount that lowers and swivels the TV to an ideal, eye-level viewing position. Full disclosure: I am a MantelMount dealer and I installed the…

RATING LG’S GX series for 2020 sits in the middle of the company’s OLED TV range, just above the CX series, and right below the WX (for Wallpaper—ultra thin and designed for, you guessed it, wall-mounting). But at 20mm deep, GX series sets are also very thin, and while they come with a wall-mounting bracket, it doesn’t include legs for a table-top mount, though that option is available at a modest extra cost. The GX series has built-in Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa voice control, and it also adds a Gallery feature that can display stationary artwork surrounded by a faux frame inside its otherwise nearly invisible bezel. Each HDMI input (four in total) on the 65-inch 65GXPUA model that LG sent us to review is 2.1, a version that…

FULL-ON/FULL-OFF CONTRAST RATIO: 11,287:1 The measurements here were made using CalMAN measurement software from Portrait Displays (www.portrait.com), together with a Photo Research PR-650 color meter, Minolta LS-100 luminance meter and a Murideo/AVPro (Fresco Six-G) test pattern generator. Pre-calibration measurements were made with the HC 3800’s Cinema picture mode active. Postcalibration measurements were made in the same mode. All measurements were made with the projector positioned 14 feet from a 92-inch diagonal, 1.1 gain Stewart Filmscreen Cima screen. The projector’s full-on/full-off SDR contrast ratio was achieved with the Cinema Picture mode, Eco Power mode, and High Speed Auto Iris settings active. With this combination, black measured 0.004 ft-L and peak white 45.15 ft-L for a contrast ratio of 11,287:1. The projector’s native (Auto Iris off) contrast ratio with the same preset…

RATING WHEN I WAS a trade reporter many years ago, I wrote an article about the skyrocketing sales of packaged home theater audio systems. Inside each box was a rudimentary A/V receiver, five or six speakers (typically compact satellites in plastic cabinets), color coded speaker cables, and graphic instructions to get things hooked up. The article’s big takeaway was that the brands selling these (Sony, Panasonic, et. al.) had discovered that many buyers either left the rear surround speakers in the box or wired them up and placed them on top of the front left and right-channel speakers. (Hey—the more speakers the better, right?) The bottom line was that nobody wanted those damn cables running along the walls to the back of the room. So, the most demonstrable benefit of…

RATING WITH 12 different subwoofers in its line, I’m pretty certain that SVS makes more models than any other subwoofer manufacturer. In providing so many options, not only does the company cover a wide range of price points, but they can also offer subwoofers matched to different use cases, from high-end audiophile setups to big, slamming home theater rigs. The range is organized into five distinct price tiers. Within each tier there are two or three different models using either sealed, ported, or, in the case of the 2000 Pro and 4000 series, cylindrical enclosures. I decided to check out something from the new 2000 Pro Series, which sits one step up from the entry level 1000 series and covers the $800-950 price range. There are three 2000 Pro series…

ENTHRALLING in every way a movie can be, George Lucas’ Star Wars (retconned as Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) is simply one of the greatest achievements to ever hit the screen. A wildly imaginative yet classically inspired adventure, it has been entertaining audiences—and spawning prequels, sequels and spinoffs—since 1977. Back then, fans desperate to watch even a few scenes at home turned to Super 8, either the various highlight reels or the hand-cranked Kenner “MovieViewer” film cassettes. Not until May of 1982 would the pricey Twentieth Century-Fox “Video Rental Library” VHS/Beta videotape version arrive, with copies individually serial-numbered to control their distribution. The first U.S. laserdisc release that same year had pan and-scan troubles that didn’t merely spoil the lovely compositions but actually cut off entire characters, leaving…

Let the Music Play A mere 74 pages is frustratingly too few when the periodical is as enjoyable as Sound & Vision. Over the years I have subscribed to every audio, video, and home theater magazine printed and enjoyed them all (well, perhaps I cannot quite keep up with esoterica of Stereophile, but I try). A great many lawns were mowed to save up for my first system, which consisted of Fisher and Garrard equipment. That system helped inspire a career in music. Later systems have kept the inspiration going. Given our times, I hope there is music still to be played in front of a public. We shall hope. Not to trivialize other tragic times, but perhaps more than ever our souls are in great need of hearing music…

RATING WHILE ENTRY-LEVEL surround systems move increasingly toward less complicated designs that pair soundbars with wireless speakers and subs, the A/V receiver remains the steadfast workhorse of the media room. As such, it is arguably the most important component in your system, handling all audio/video switching, amplification, audio and room correction processing, and often much more. And as systems move from 5.1 to 11.2-channels-plus, the AVR is being called on to do even more. I’ll be honest: reviewing an AVR is not my favorite thing to do. Beyond the hours of listening and testing it takes to fully evaluate a receiver, installing one in my system is roughly a half-day affair that involves disconnecting my current 13.2-channel Marantz pre-pro and accompanying amplifiers, rerouting all of the wiring to the new…

RATING THE NEW Sonos Arc soundbar is the company’s fourth home theater product and the clear result of an evolution. The first Sonos soundbar, the Playbar ($599 and currently being closed out), debuted back in 2013. But with only a single optical input intended to ease installation and no HDMI port, it was already outdated on Day 1. In 2017, the company introduced the Playbase sound platform ($699, also being phased out), a solution for those who found the bulky Playbar too invasive. Playbase was extraordinary for its ability to extract bass from its lean cabinet, but still failed to take advantage of a higher-quality HDMI connection or the benefits of HDMI-CEC control. The Sonos Beam ($399), a more compact and affordable soundbar (or “living room speaker” as Sonos likes…

RATING HOUSEWIDE audio distribution has evolved rapidly over the past few years, with new systems abandoning traditional music sources like CD changers and terrestrial radio tuners to move almost exclusively to streamed content. When it comes to choosing a multizone music streamer for a system, the buying criteria today often boils down to how many streaming services it supports, app ease of use, and cost. Sonos is the biggest player in the streaming market by far but creating a four-zone Sonos audio system would require four separate components (either the unpowered Port or powered Amp) at a cost between $1,800 and $2,600. For those on a limited budget who want to fill the various rooms in their home with tunes while using an app to control it all, OSD Black’s…