Table of contents for Feb-12 in Home Theater

One of the great things about working at an A/V magazine is that you get to sit in the catbird seat, privy to all the new technology before the public at large, and generally enjoy your hobby as your job. To be honest, though, there aren’t too many earth-shattering developments that really come along. Most of the time, we’re content to get out our thrills by finding a new speaker that delivers stellar sound at a great price (see the RSL and ADAM Audio reviews, both in this issue) or exploring the finer points of biamping or LCD versus plasma image quality. There have been exceptions, of course. The transition from VHS and Laserdisc to DVD, and ultimately to high-def discs in Blu-ray and HD DVD, were pretty heady times,…

Biscotti is here! No, this is not a dessert alert; it’s the arrival of the HDTV phone ($199, no monthly fees) and the next generation of home video calling. Forget crowding around a small screen or booting up your computer because, according to this company, the future of making phone calls is on your home entertainment system. This sleek, crescent-shaped device (thus the name) turns your HDTV into a big-screen phone so you can make free calls in 720p to friends and relatives anywhere. You can make unlimited calls to other Biscotti TV phones, as well as computers, tablets, and smartphones that support Google voice and video. All you need is a Wi-Fi network (802.11 b/g/n) to make the required Internet connection (there’s no Ethernet jack, so don’t even think…

James Cameron may be king of the world, but Martin Scorsese is vying for the 3D throne. At press time, Scorsese’s first 3D film, Hugo, based on the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick, had just hit mainstream theaters. In this video shot by the Hollywood Reporter last November after a screening of the movie at the DGA (Directors Guild of America) Theater in Los Angeles, the two legends sit down for a discussion of the film and its artistic use of 3D. Cameron says he found the film very emotional and that it was ultimately about the magic of cinema. For his part, Scorsese loved shooting in 3D, which was in some ways the fulfillment of a dream. “Every shot was special,” he says. “The big…

Congratulations to winner Steve McAuley of London, Ontario, Canada, who correctly identified the Mark Levinson No. 502 Media Console surround processor featured in our November 2011 Back Panel. Steve will receive a Cobra CIR 1000 tabletop Internet Radio. See cobra.com. January’s cluttered Back Panel adorned the flexible Yamaha HS-50m powered studio monitor, featuring both balanced and unbalanced inputs as well as response switches for Mid EQ, Room Control, High Trim, and Low Cut. Learn more at http://usa.yamaha.com/products/music-production. All branding has been removed from this month’s Back Panel. Send your guess to editor@hometheater.com with the words February Back Panel in the subject line and your name and town in the body of the e-mail. We’ll pick a winner at random from the correct entries to receive a Sanus Elements ELM4308-B1 8.2-foot…

Grado Phono Cartridges In the days before the CD arrived in 1982, LPs were the format of choice for music lovers. While the turntable played a significant role in determining sound quality, you also needed a great phono cartridge to get the music out of the grooves. The cartridge’s stylus eventually wears out, and if you played as many records as I did, you’d have to replace the stylus or complete cartridge every year or so. I jumped from one brand to another, until I bought my first Grado in the early 1970s. It was an FTE+1, and I have to admit, its gray plastic body didn’t look all that impressive or high tech, but the sound was so much more dynamically alive and powerful than the Empire, Pickering, Shure,…

Eleven years ago, in the fall of 2000, the Sunday Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times published a long freelance article I wrote announcing the birth of digital cinema. Digital projection for large venues was mostly a dream at the time, but the technology existed and had been proven to provide satisfying images for the average moviegoer. Meanwhile, digital cinema’s biggest booster, filmmaker George Lucas, had just finished shooting Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones in 1080p/24-frame-per-second digital using a cutting-edge camera developed by Sony and Panavision. It was the first major motion picture to be shot entirely in video. Although the article was mostly a rehash of developments reported in the trades, it carried the weight of my interview with Lucas on the benefits of…

According to the promotional material Sony provided with the projector, the company recommends a viewing distance of between 1.5 and 3.5 picture heights for 4K material (3.0 to 3.5 is frequently recommended for 1080p HDTV). But what about 2K sources upconverted to 4K? Since the latter is likely to be the best material available to the consumer for use on a 4K projector for the foreseeable future, this isn’t a trivial question. Using picture height as a yardstick is actually a confusing way to determine seating distance. It doesn’t take into consideration screens—and images—of varying aspect ratios. A more accurate way to look at the issue is the viewing angle—the angle the image subtends in your field of vision from left to right. The viewing angle is more usefully related…

PRICE: $6,850 AT A GLANCE: 0 for looks • 11 on a 10 scale for sound • Smooooth air motion transformer tweeter ADAM AUDIO GTC77 SPEAKER SYSTEM PERFORMANCE : 5.0/5.0 BUILD QUALITY : 4.5/5.0 VALUE : 5.0/5.0 Stop! Listen! Don’t Look! Although Berlin, Germany–based ADAM Audio is a recent player in the American A/V marketplace, the company has produced passive and powered loudspeakers for both pro and home use for 11 years. The acronym ADAM stands for Advance Dynamic Audio Monitors. ADAM Audio USA entered the pro market here in 2002 and only recently began building a home audio distribution and sales network. The company’s X-ART tweeter is hand-made in house, and the GTC speakers are designed, assembled, and tested in a modern manufacturing facility, the large size of which…

HARMAN KARDON AVR 3650 A/V RECEIVER AUDIO DECODING: DOLBY: TrueHD, Digital 5.1, EX, Pro Logic II/IIx/IIz, Volume DTS: DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS, ES, 96/24, Neo:6 HARMAN: Logic 7, Virtual Speaker, Headphone 3D: Yes THX CERTIFICATION: No NUMBER OF AMP CHANNELS: 7 RATED POWER (WATTS PER CHANNEL): 110 into 8 ohms, two channels driven SPECIFIED FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 10 Hz to 130 kHz (+0/–3 dB) VIDEO PROCESSING: Faroudja DCDi AUTO SETUP/ROOM EQ: EZ-Set/EQ DIMENSIONS (W X H X D, INCHES): 17.31 x 6.5 x 17.13 WEIGHT (POUNDS): 27.25 PRICE: $999…

RSL 5.1 THEATER SYSTEM SPEAKER SYSTEM Satellite Sensitivity: 85 dB from 500 Hz to 2 kHz Center Sensitivity: 87 dB from 500 Hz to 2 kHz This graph shows the quasi-anechoic (employing close-miking of all woofers) frequency response of the CG4 satellites (purple trace), Speedwoofer 10 subwoofer (blue trace), and CG24 center channel (green trace). All passive loudspeakers were measured with grilles at a distance of 1 meter with a 2.83-volt input and scaled for display purposes. The CG4’s listening-window response (a five-point average of axial and +/–15-degree horizontal and vertical responses) measures +2.58/–4.38 decibels from 200 hertz to 10 kilohertz. The –3-dB point is at 106 Hz, and the –6-dB point is at 87 Hz. Impedance reaches a minimum of 7.14 ohms at 263 Hz and a phase angle…

INTEGRA DHC-80.3 SURROUND PROCESSOR Analog frequency response in Direct mode: –0.05 dB at 10 Hz –0.00 dB at 20 Hz –0.01 dB at 20 kHz –0.04 dB at 50 kHz Analog frequency response with signal processing: –0.30 dB at 10 Hz –0.08 dB at 20 Hz –0.28 dB at 20 kHz –33.54 dB at 50 kHz The above chart shows the frequency response of the left (aqua), center (green), LFE (purple), and left surround (red) channels at the preamp outputs of the Dolby Digital decoder. The left channel measures –0.01 decibels at 20 hertz and –0.28 dB at 20 kilohertz. The center channel measures –0.00 dB at 20 Hz and –0.26 dB at 20 kHz, and the left surround channel measures –0.01 dB at 20 Hz and –0.30 dB at…

YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY The first Cars movie is generally recognized as one of Pixar’s weaker efforts. The Playskool-inspired characters and aesthetic targeted a very young audience and had less appeal for adults than most of the studio’s product. Nevertheless, the film coasted by on a pleasant, laid-back attitude and a lot of charm. Unfortunately, even that much is gone in Cars 2, the overbearing sequel that shifts the earlier entry’s weaknesses into overdrive and stalls out on its strengths. (OK, no more car puns. I promise.) In this one, comic-relief redneck tow truck Mater is mistaken for a secret agent, while best buddy Lightning McQueen gets targeted in a conspiracy to discredit an alternative fuel company. The previous movie’s theme about slowing down and taking some time to enjoy…

DREAMS CAN COME TRUE Abandoned on the steps of an orphanage as a newborn, inquisitive Lewis has always wondered what his mother looked like. This inspires him to invent a contraption that will look into his mind’s eye to see her image. Unfortunately for the 12-year-old boy, this invention—like most of his others—doesn’t work as intended and nearly blows up his school when he exhibits it at the science fair. A mysterious man in a bowler hat steals Lewis’ invention, and a 13-year-old boy named Wilbur Robinson appears on the scene to whisk Lewis away in a time machine. Lewis finds the perfect adoptive family waiting for him in the future. This was the second all-CGI feature from Disney Animation Studios, and when John Lasseter saw the first cut, he…

ENTRY LEVEL Panasonic Viera TC-P50S30 Plasma HDTV, $1,000 Reviewed at HomeTheater.com Panasonic Viera TC-P50ST30 3D Plasma HDTV, $1,000 Reviewed September 2011 Samsung UN46D6000 LED LCD HDTV, $1,300 Reviewed at HomeTheater.com MIDRANGE Panasonic Viera TC-P55VT30 3D Plasma HDTV, $2,150 Reviewed September 2011 Sony Bravia XBR-55HX929 3D LED LCD HDTV, $2,900 Reviewed November 2011 Samsung PN59D8000 3D Plasma HDTV, $3,000 Reviewed December 2011 HIGH END Elite PRO-60X5FD 3D LED LCD HDTV, $6,000 Reviewed January 2012 PROJECTORS MIDRANGE Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 9700 UB LCD Projector, $3,199 Reviewed March 2011 Sony VPL-HW30ES 3D SXRD Projector, $3,700 Reviewed December 2011 JVC DLA-X3 3D D-ILA Projector, $4,500 Reviewed May 2011 HIGH END JVC DLA-X7 3D D-ILA Projector, $8,000 Reviewed May 2011 Sony Bravia VPL-VW90ES 3D SXRD Projector, $9,999 Reviewed May 2011 Digital Projection M-Vision Cine…

WE WELCOME QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS. E-mail them to editor@hometheater.com. Please note: Be sure to check the FAQ page on our Website (HomeTheater.com) to see if we’ve already answered any questions you might have. 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 Home Theater magazine and Source Interlink Media. Due to the volume of mail that we receive, we regret that we cannot respond to every letter. Where Are the Pros? I’ve been an avid reader of Home Theater for many years now and find myself anxiously waiting…

A $60 VOD Pilot program was canceled by Comcast and Universal Pictures. Theater owners strenuously objected to the prospect of Tower Heist (with Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy) sneaking into homes only 19 days after its movie-house run. UHDTV Specs have been adopted by the ITU Study Group on Broadcasting Service. Trials and demos have already gone public, and Ultra High Definition Television will make a big splash in public screenings of the 2012 London Olympics... Overheating Bravia HDTVs have emerged as a problem for Sony, although reports of a full recall of 1.6 million units proved to be premature. Affected models include the KDL-40V3000, KDL-40VL130, KDL-40W3000, KDL-40WL135, KDL-40XBR4, and KDL-40XBR5. Go to updatemytv.com to schedule a free service evaluation... A PlayStation Hack Attack prompted Sony to lock 93,000 accounts…

For years the rumor mill has churned with unconfirmed reports that Apple is contemplating making a TV—not just the Apple TV set-top box, but an Apple-branded television set. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs got confirmation from the man himself: “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.” Jeff Robbin—an Apple veteran and codeveloper of the iPod and iTunes store—is in charge of the project, according to Bloomberg News. An analyst predicts introduction in 2013, although such predictions have been made in vain before. Whenever it arrives, the Apple-brand TV set seems closer than ever to becoming…

AT&T’s U-verse delivers high-quality video, Internet, and telephony. But once its hybrid fiber-copper network makes the final coaxial lap from local node to home, isn’t it a pain having to wire all the TVs in your house? AT&T now makes it easy with a wireless system that combines a residential gateway with thin-client receivers, all based on Wi-Fi. The U-verse Wireless Receiver (made by Cisco) goes for a one-time fee of $49 and a $7-per-month rental charge. This is an easy lift for AT&T because video delivered via U-verse is already IP based.…

Housed in a compact, curvaceous black matte cabinet, the FullHD 1080p Nero 3D-2 dresses up any home theater or media room but then blends seamlessly into the darkness when it’s show time. This single-chip DLP projector, the first to roll out in Sim2’s new four-model Nero series, has a powerful 280-watt lamp—it’ll deliver a bright picture up to 2,000 ANSI lumens and achieves a claimed contrast ratio up to 30,000:1, thanks in part to its motorized iris control (MIC) and DynamicBlack technology that enhance black levels and contrast. Borrowing top-notch optics and electronics from Sim2’s three-chip Lumis 3D-s line, the Nero 3D-2 boasts the firm’s Alphapath light engine with precision glass optics. Active-glasses 3D playback (the emitter and glasses are optional) is punchy and bright thanks to the powerful lamp,…

Things could hardly be looking better for the video projector fan. The quality you can get today for under $10,000—or even under $5,000—is astonishing. But the competition is fierce, and to stand out in the crowd, manufacturers are constantly on the lookout for the next big thing. True, 3D is still on its run as the NBT of the decade. Beyond that, 4K video lurks, waiting for its time in the spotlight. What is 4K video? It’s a format that can display a maximum resolution of 4096 x 2160, or sometimes 3840 x 2160, otherwise known as Quad HD. The former has a total pixel count of 8,847,360—more than four times the resolution of our current HDTV maximum of 1920 x 1080. 4K has shown up in dream displays at…

When this Long Island homeowner was planning his home theater, his main criterion was that he wanted big sound and a big picture to make him shake in his seat. So Electronics Design Group (EDG) began its theater design with just these broad strokes. Fortunately, the homeowner was game for whatever it took to achieve his home theater dream. EDG’s theater design for this residence replicates the type of sound systems you’d normally find in a traditional movie theater, with Klipsch Pro Cinema speakers and subwoofers built into the wall and placed directly behind the screen. Each of the three KPT-325 LCR speakers sports a 15-inch woofer, and two KPT-418-SW 18-inch subwoofers were added to the array, guaranteeing the homeowner plenty of high-powered bass energy and chest-pounding punch. To match…

ADAM AUDIO GTC77 SPEAKER SYSTEM L/R Sensitivity: 90 dB from 500 Hz to 2 kHz Center Sensitivity: 90 dB from 500 Hz to 2 kHz Surround Sensitivity: 87 dB from 500 Hz to 2 kHz This graph shows the quasi-anechoic (employing close-miking of all woofers) frequency response of the GTC77 L/R (purple trace), GTC77 horizontal center channel (green trace), GTC55 surround (red trace), and GTC Sub subwoofer (blue trace). All passive loudspeakers were measured with grilles at a distance of 1 meter with a 2.83-volt input and scaled for display purposes. The GTC77’s listening-window response (a five-point average of axial and +/–15-degree horizontal and vertical responses) measures +1.65/–3.14 decibels from 200 hertz to 10 kilohertz. The –3-dB point is at 49 Hz, and the –6-dB point is at 39 Hz.…

HARMAN KARDON AVR 3650 A/V RECEIVER Five channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads: 0.1% distortion at 70.4 watts 1% distortion at 85.8 watts Seven channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads: 0.1% distortion at 43.6 watts 1% distortion at 50.8 watts Analog frequency response in Stereo mode: –0.23 dB at 10 Hz –0.08 dB at 20 Hz +0.04 dB at 20 kHz –2.51 dB at 50 kHz Analog frequency response with stereo signal processing: –1.59 dB at 10 Hz –0.48 dB at 20 Hz –0.28 dB at 20 kHz –35.02 dB at 50 kHz This graph shows that the AVR 3650’s left channel, from CD input to speaker output with two channels driving 8-ohm loads, reaches 0.1 percent distortion at 109.2 watts and 1 percent distortion at 124.6 watts. Into 4…

PRICE: $4,400 AT A GLANCE: 4K scaling • Reference-quality video processing • Audyssey MultEQ XT32 ups the ante for room EQ • Nine channels of THX Ultra2 amplification The New A/V Juggernaut I don’t know what’s more impressive, the fact that Integra can produce a new state-of-the-art surround processor each year, or that the company can find new audio/video processing modes to add to its already ridiculous list of features. The Integra DHC-80.3 is the latest home run from Integra, with some of the most future-proofing features the company’s delivered yet. I can’t imagine adding much more to a surround processor, but I’m sure Integra will pull some new surprises out of the bag next year. I’ve reviewed several of the past incarnations of Integra’s A/V processor, but this time…

INTEGRA DTA-70.1 AMPLIFIER Seven channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads: 0.1% distortion at 111.5 watts 1% distortion at 125.2 watts Five channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads: 0.1% distortion at 119.1 watts 1% distortion at 137.7 watts Frequency response RCA input: –0.06 dB at 10 Hz –0.02 dB at 20 Hz +0.06 dB at 20 kHz –2.63 dB at 50 kHz Frequency response XLR input: –0.06 dB at 10 Hz –0.02 dB at 20 Hz –0.05 dB at 20 kHz –2.80 dB at 50 kHz This graph shows that the DTA-70.1’s left amplifier channel, with two channels driving 8-ohm loads, reaches 0.1 percent distortion at 154.7 watts and 1 percent distortion at 177.7 watts. Into 4 ohms, the amplifier reaches 0.1 percent distortion at 230.2 watts and 1 percent distortion…

IT’S A DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD Bolt the wonder dog and his person, Penny, co-star in one of the biggest shows in Hollywood. Unfortunately for Bolt, he thinks it’s real. When he’s accidentally shipped to New York City and gets separated from Penny, he soon finds out it’s a dog-eat-dog world as he tries to find his way home. This is a great family film filled with many of the ingredients that have made the Pixar classics so successful—awesome animation, a fun story with tons of laughs, and a kick-ass soundtrack. My favorite character is Rhino the hamster, who provides most of the humor. His devotion to Bolt and his quest shows kids what a true friend is made of. Like most computer-animated titles, the transition to 3D doesn’t suffer from many…

WES ANDERSON’S PERFECT SOUFFLÉ Rushmore is a perfect film, by which I don’t mean it’s necessarily a great film (any more than a perfect soufflé is necessarily equal to a top-notch leg of lamb), but rather that everything about it—its look, tone, pace, casting, soundtrack, aspect ratio, every shot and line of dialogue—fits as a whole. There’s not a single false note, not a single choice that could have been improved upon. The plot is about Max Fischer, a more-than-precocious 15-year-old at a prep school that he’s idealized to define his life, his oddly touching friendship with a disenchanted tycoon, and his oddly wistful obsession with a beautiful teacher. More, it’s about lost dreams, finite possibilities, and the compulsion to flail against both—but I’m making it sound way too somber.…

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WHITE HAUTE Long recognized for its distinguished, drool-inducing Danish designs, Bang & Olufsen has for the first time rolled out its BeoSound 5 Encore digital music system ($3,350) in a minimalistic, modern white finish that gives this already space-age device an even more futuristic feel. If you’re burned out on black—OK, take a look around your living room—this streaming music client/controller is a refreshing alternative. It features a 10.4-inch LCD and aluminum scroll wheel, and you can mount it on either a table or a wall (permanent sockets are concealed for outof-sight cabling). But in this digital era with its growing cluster of connectivity options, you’ll most love it for the easy access it gives to a vast library of digital music from your source of choice: music server, network…

By the Way, Which One’s Pink? Wish You Were Here is only one of three Pink Floyd albums to get the Immersion Box Set treatment, in addition to Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. Still, it’s special in several ways. Both David Gilmour and Richard Wright have cited the follow-up to Dark Side as their favorite Pink Floyd album. And as we’ve reported previously, the pricey box earns its heft y price tag with the historic debut of a 5.1-channel mix as well as a new mastering of the original mix in high-resolution stereo. But even those attractions end up being overshadowed by extras that include a full half-hour of what would later become Animals played in raw, exciting live performances before the releases of both Animals and…

When Edgar M. Villchur passed away last fall at age 94, audiophiles reminisced about his instrumental role in developing the modern loudspeaker. As cofounder of Acoustic Research, with his student Henry Kloss, Villchur found that a sealed enclosure could produce better bass than an open one. The result was the AR-1, the first acoustic-suspension speaker. Introduced in 1954, it became one of the audio industry’s most significant milestones—as well as a massive success, giving AR one-third of the U.S. loudspeaker market by 1966. Villchur didn’t shy away from marketing duties: His “live versus recorded” demonstrations attracted audiences in such high-profile locations as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Grand Central Terminal. He also developed the belt-drive turntable as a means of defeating low-frequency rumble, moving on to a hearing-aid design that…

Remember when Napster was synonymous with file sharing? In recent years, it’s had a lower profile as a paid music-streaming service owned by Best Buy. Now the historic brand is disappearing with Rhapsody’s acquisition of Napster. If you’re a Napster subscriber, what does this mean for you? Napster subscribers who paid $10 per month can purchase Rhapsody streaming at the same price. Logging in as Rhapsody subscribers, they’ll have access to the same library, playlists, and preferences. Those on a $5-per-month PC-only plan will see fee hikes to $10 or more. With a subscriber base of 800,000, Rhapsody badly needs the new customers to catch up with Spotify—one-fifth of whose 10 million subscribers are paying customers.…

When the Federal Communications Commission approved the ATSC digital broadcast standard in December 1996, most consumers shrugged as the pundits (us at Home Theater included) heralded the greatest advance in television since the introduction of color in the 1950s. Time has proven us right. With six times the detail of standard-definition video, HDTV has been both a revelation and a revolution. For those who care about picture quality, one quick look was enough to know the world had changed, and we were never going back. The birth of HDTV forever altered home theater, too, especially the viewing of movies on a big screen. Cineasts with fat wallets and great determination had earlier discovered the wonders of blowing up 480-line images from Laserdiscs using bulky CRT-based front projectors, but to what…

FULL-ON/FULL-OFF CONTRAST RATIO: 152,000:1 For the picture settings used in this review, go to HomeTheater.com. Except as noted, all of the 2D measurements were taken with the projector in the Cinema: Film 1 Calibrated Preset with the lamp control on high, the gamma correction on 2.6, the Advanced Iris set to Auto Full, and the other controls set for the most accurate image within these parameters. There were approximately 160 hours on the projection lamp. The screen was a 118-inch-wide, Stewart Filmscreen StudioTek 130 G3 (gain 1.3). The full-on/full-off contrast ratio shown above was measured directly off the projection lens using a Minolta T-10 (illuminance) light meter. The 100-percent full-white reading off the screen with the above settings was 21.35 foot-lamberts as taken by our Minolta LS-100 light meter. The…

PRICE: $1,249 AT A GLANCE: BD player/recorder with 3D support • HDMI 1.4a • IR remote control PERFORMANCE PERSONAL COMPUTERS DREAM 3D HTPC I PERFORMANCE : 4.0/5.0 FEATURES : 4.0/5.0 ERGONOMICS : 3.5/5.0 VALUE : 4.0/5.0 One of the many questions that keeps me up at night is why dedicated A/V media servers—the kind that sit cozily on a shelf above your AVR and pretend to be just another A/V source in your system—have traditionally been and continue to be so darn expensive. At the gleaming pinnacle of all that is good and glorious (and most expensive) in the media server world is the Kaleidescape movie system. Once you pull your head out of the “I could buy a new car with that kind of money” cloud and look down…

PRICE: $999 AT A GLANCE: High-quality amplification • Logic 7, Dolby Volume listening modes • Distinctive gray and black look HARMAN KARDON AVR 3650 A/V RECEIVER AUDIO PERFORMANCE : 4.0/5.0 VIDEO PERFORMANCE : 2.5/5.0 FEATURES : 3.0/5.0 ERGONOMICS : 4.0/5.0 VALUE : 3.0/5.0 The Road Less Traveled The home theater system’s beating heart is the audio/video receiver. It supports a heroic workload: routing video and audio signals from source components to display and speakers, gussying up the video, decoding audio formats, massaging audio signals with listening modes, cabalistically correcting room acoustics—and last but not least, performing the heavy lifting necessary to drive loudspeakers. The final item on that list is among the AVR’s most significant attributes. But in the race to jam in as many features as possible, amplification is…

PRICE: $2,075 AT A GLANCE: Compression Guide Technology enclosure • Top-to-bottom ease and authority • Sub controls in separate remote-controlled box California Dreamin’ RSL 5.1 THEATER SPEAKER SYSTEM PERFORMANCE : 5.0/5.0 BUILD QUALITY : 5.0/5.0 VALUE : 5.0/5.0 Longtime readers know I often revisit the same manufacturers in loudspeaker reviews. I like to see how speaker lines from the same crucible evolve and grow. The downside is that returning to the same brands cheats me (and you) of new experiences. So for this review, I found myself placing a call to Howard Rodgers of RSL Speaker Systems. I dialed his West Coast number at 10 in the morning East Coast time with the intention of leaving a voicemail—only to roust him out of bed, to my surprise and embarrassment. He…

INTEGRA DHC-80.3 SURROUND PROCESSOR AUDIO DECODING: DOLBY: TrueHD, Digital, EX, Pro Logic IIx/IIz, Volume DTS: DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS, ES, 96/24, Neo: X AUDYSSEY: DSX, Dynamic Volume, Dynamic EQ, MultEQ XT32 OTHER: Native DSD 3D: Yes THX CERTIFICATION: Ultra2 Plus VIDEO PROCESSING: Marvell Qdeo 4K scaling, IDT HQV Vida processing AUTO SETUP/ROOM EQ: Audyssey MultEQ XT32 DIMENSIONS (W X H X D, INCHES): 17.13 x 7.81 x 17.5 WEIGHT (POUNDS): 29.8 PRICE: $2,600 INTEGRA DHC-80.3 SURROUND PROCESSOR AUDIO PERFORMANCE 4.5/5.0 VIDEO PERFORMANCE 4.0/5.0 FEATURES 5.0/5.0 ERGONOMICS 4.0/5.0 VALUE 5.0/5.0…

Once upon a time, not too long ago, two mad scientists thought it would be fun to genetically splice E.T. with Godzilla. (Cue maniacal laughter and clap of thunder.) Te Frankenstein’s monster born of those two genres is a film called Super 8, and the geniuses behind its creation are none other than J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg. It was written and directed by Abrams, and the filmmaker pays reverent homage to the movies he loved as a kid and the man who made them. Spielberg serves as a producer on this film, and his influence is apparent in every frame. Abrams slyly mixes elements from Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and Jurassic Park with his own monster movie, Cloverfield. Indeed, what are becoming unmistakable trademarks of…

KID TESTED, FATHER APPROVED A top-secret, highly trained trio of guinea pig super spies is assigned to stop a plot to take over the world. When the FBI disbands the group, squad leader Darwin will do whatever it takes to guarantee the success of his team, which includes Blaster (Tracy Morgan), a weapons expert with an attitude; and Juarez (Penélope Cruz), a sexy martial-arts pro. First-time director Hoyt H. Yeatman Jr. keeps the pacing tight with a kid-friendly 88-minute run time, and my entire family had a blast watching this film. It’s far fetched for sure, but it’s entertaining, includes plenty of laughs, and boasts some outstanding CGI. When I first saw the trailer, I thought Jerry Bruckheimer was nuts to attach his name to the picture. But I thought…

ONLY ONE MAY LIVE Things come full circle for Harry Potter in the thrilling conclusion of this popular franchise. At the end of Part 1, Harry, Ron, and Hermione escape from the clutches of the Death Eaters, but their loyal friend Dobby, the former house elf, perishes. The trio has little time to mourn as they continue to hunt down and destroy the horcruxes that hide tiny pieces of the evil Lord Voldemort’s soul. Their quest takes them to Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank and eventually back to Hogwarts, where Harry confronts the new headmaster, Professor Snape. While Part 1 was a slow build toward a cliff-hanger ending, Part 2 is a pure adrenaline-surging action film from the first moments when Voldemort steals the Elder Wand from Dumbledore’s…

Michael J. Nelson is the former host and head writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the proprietor of rifftrax.com, which offers his commentaries on A-list films, including Star Wars: Episode I, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Matrix. Several months back, I wrote about the shock and shame of encountering a new piece of home theater gear so complex that I was for the first time forced to remove the manual from its plastic bag and, worse, actually read it. Now, in a twist perhaps more ironic than that of Alanis Morissette discovering a black fly in her chardonnay, I find I must actually write a manual. You see, the IT staff at my house is down a man since my eldest son went off to college. He…