 Site Links |
 |
|
|
Polk I-Sonic Entertainment System 2 Review
Posted Sun Jun 7, 2009, 4:55 PM ET
I'm hardly the first reviewer to get my mitts on this do-everything Polk iPod docking station, and yeah the official name is a mouthful, so "I-Sonic ES2" will do just as well here on in. The ES2 is a direct outgrowth of the original ES which lacked an iPod dock. We all remember those pre-Apple-monopoly days with fondness, but the truth is, if you don't iPod dock, you don't rock. And one the thing I want you to come away with from this review is that the Polk I-Sonic ES2 really rocks!
READ MORE »
|
So Maybe Local Eggs are Good Eggs After All?
Posted Sun Jun 7, 2009, 10:54 AM ET
|
Okay, it's been 3.5 weeks since WUHR became WMRQ and I'm going to take the unprecedented step of both eating crow and taking partial credit for what's happened since then which is, ugh, not much really. Yes, there's still a DJ named Fish who was so horribly obnoxious on D-day, but unanswered emails from me and doubtless countless others got new management to hose him down. As for Wednesday being biker day, that's still true, but it just means Fish is stuck out in the boondocks on a live feed trying to corral listeners into a Harley dealership. You almost feel sorry for him. I said almost.
READ MORE »
|
When Local Eggs are Bad Eggs
Posted Wed May 13, 2009, 7:47 PM ET
|
Up until some dreadful time today, Connecticut radio station 104.1 played new alternate rock music and did it very well. Not enough of a market to justify formulaic shock-jocks, the former owner, the great, the diseased, the much-maligned Clear Channel radio conglomerate ran 104 WURH like a great indie radio station. No live DJ's, in fact, the few radio breaks they took between songs mostly made fun of the other stations (many of whom they owned). WURH was where I could hear the Killers, the Kings of Leon, Cage the Elephant and a bunch of stuff I didn't care for either, but it was all new for the most part and who isn't at least a little sick of classic rock at this point! Once a week, they played an oldie like that dreadful Four Non-Blondes song whose title I paid a hypnotist to make me forget, but for the most part, radio 104 was always fresh!
READ MORE »
|
Future Sonics Atrio Earphones
Posted Sun Apr 19, 2009, 11:04 AM ET
|
I spend a lot of time in earphones, or should I say, they spend a lot of time in me. I've been on a lose-weight-slash-get-healthy kick for about nine months now. The dead of winter found me hardwired to what would otherwise be the mindless machinations of an elliptical machine that even a hamster would eventually find boring were it not for an iPod (for me, not sure how the hamster would feel). Now that the New England spring has sprung, I can get back to the more exhilarating activity of running America's roadways while under the influence of endorphins and my own personal soundtrack. I know running under the influence (of music) sounds dangerous as you forge ahead against traffic, but I've only been car tagged five times in hundreds of miles of jogging, and to be fair, two of those incidents were probably my fault.
READ MORE »
|
What's Spinning This Week?
Posted Sun Apr 19, 2009, 10:36 AM ET
|
The Black Crowes, $hake Your Money Maker (LP, DEF American Records, 1990), picked up during my first trip to Las Vegas in a used record store on Sahara. Even 20 years ago, The Black Crowes were doing what bands like the Rolling Stones seemed incapable of anymore. This hard-driving rock has no missteps and no end to the catchy tunes. Singer Chris Robinson's distinctive gravelly voice, a cross between Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger, gets stellar backup from the two guitars, bass and drum line-up that's as tight as it is raw.
Johnny Cash, American Recordings (LP, American Records, 1994). One of his last and maybe his greatest, just Johnny and his guitar, singing songs that are as timeless Americana as anything he, heck, anyone, has every done. Freed of the need to prove himself, that's just what he does.
C + C Music Factory, things that make you go hmmm . . . (EP, Columbia, 1990). Okay, one of my favorite albums of the early 90's, it's dance music meets Rap, spoken nice and clear, "Will Smith style," so a white-bread like me can follow along. I picked up this piece of vinyl with three extended remixes of the title song at a garage sale somewhere for less coin than a phone call. Each cut is so different, you're basically hearing three different songs. A great piece of bass pumping guilty pleasure with which to show off your system.
|
Now You Hear It, Now You Don't
Posted Sun Mar 29, 2009, 2:33 PM ET
The company that started life as Now Hear This, but later decided to go with their acronym, has decided to cease business as they've known it, effective this coming Tuesday, March 31, 2009. I first became aware of NHT when Corey Greenburg put them on the map in the mid nineties in his Beavis and Butthead tinged review. I had a pair of towers from them, the 2.5, and loved them to death for a while. Lots of "there there" as they used to say.
READ MORE »
|
What's Spinning This Week?
Posted Sun Mar 29, 2009, 2:25 PM ET
- Pacific Gas & Electric's Are You Ready (LP, Columbia, 1969), great rock and blues guitar and vocals, originality is high here. It's the 60s, white guys and black dudes, bring it on. Title cut is the best, with classic backup vocals.
- The Seldom Scene's The New Seldom Scene Album (LP, Rebel Records, 1976). Get yer bluegrass here: It's like you've tuned in to the Garrison Keillor show during a musical interlude. The musicianship in this last of the original Seldom Scene lineup is fantastic. Linda Ronstadt is doing some harmonies as well.
- The Kings of Leon Only By The Night (CD, RCA, 2008). It's not often you get the perfect album, but this is the real thing. If you like early Counting Crows, but would like to know how they might sound if they got out from under the rain, here it is! Go Jogging Now!
|
A Totally Blacked Out NCC-1701 ?
Posted Sun Mar 22, 2009, 3:21 PM ET
If you look real close, you can see Capt. James T. Kirk sitting in his command chair. The Radio Shack Indoor VHF/UHF/HDTV Antenna with RF Remote Control may not be able to pick up intergalactic transmissions, but it does a decent, if somewhat mixed job, with HDTV signals. In one case, it reached out over twenty miles to pull in a full-time digital "multi-cultural shopping" station (so now you can not only buy things you don't need, you can buy them in languages you don't understand). But what wasn't so impressive was its inability to pull in the closest tower, a mere 8 miles away, in anything but analog (and miserable looking analog at that!).
READ MORE »
|
Kurosity Killed da' Kat
Posted Thu Mar 12, 2009, 6:30 PM ET
|
Because we're about to become a socialist-driven economy where the majority of the population pay no taxes themselves yet demand the minority do so in their stead, I thought it would be a good time for one last economics lesson about capitalism. In particular, the law of supply and demand and in super-particular, the case of the Pioneer Kuro plasma supply chain either drying up or giving the appearance of drying up which, as every good oil executive knows, is practically the same thing!
READ MORE »
|
Why I Don't Watch the Oscars
Posted Mon Feb 23, 2009, 7:03 PM ET
First of all, I think TV is better than movies. Anybody can write a movie script. You need about sixty minutes of material for a two hour movie, and you're done. TV on the other hand, is judged every single week, every single episode, on how well they've woven their pack of lies. It takes a lot of talent to keep a TV series going (Saturday Night Live excepted).
READ MORE »
|
Care and Feeding of the Videslowdoptus
Posted Sun Feb 15, 2009, 6:34 PM ET
I'm a jaded reviewer who thinks there are only two kinds of people in the world. The first group have the latest flat panel / front projector rigs with HDMI everything, 1080p, ba-blah-ba-blah-ba-blah, and the rest of the world watch TV on the same set Ricky Ricardo used to watch in "I Love Lucy." So imagine my surprise when I got an irate letter from a reader who had read my review of the Rotel RSP-1069 pre/pro in Home Theater magazine where I said, incorrectly, that the Rotel would internally convert HDMI sources to component, all the way up to 1080i. I mean, who would need to do that anyway? Well, he did for one, since his perfectly-good-otherwise widescreen RPTV lacked HDMI (or DVI) inputs. I apologized in print, but that's not the point. I, Fred Manteghian, had discovered a new species!
READ MORE »
|
The Great Kuro Sorrow
Posted Sat Feb 7, 2009, 11:04 PM ET
Here's the thing about a sagging world economy, it puts a damper on the number of yachts being sold. Or in this case, the yachts of the plasma TV world. Pioneer, recognized by all as manufacturing the best plasma TV, at a price that naturally reflects its quality, is throwing in the towel, if this report is to be believed. The Kuro line of plasma TVs is just a production run away from coming to a close and the planned switch to Panasonic glass to reduce cost is now also falling by the wayside.
Am I bumming you out? I certainly hope so.
READ MORE »
|
Hang 'em High!
Posted Sun Feb 1, 2009, 10:19 AM ET
Nope – this isn't another story about the Feb 17th analog cut-off designed to incite people living under a rock for the last few years into vigilante justice. Heck, I'm just as guilty of inaction as anyone else, because I still have no plans for that 13" glow box sitting on my kitchen counter (besides the set of ear plugs I keep in the night stand to block out Gina's screams when she goes down to make coffee and turns on the TV on that infamous day.) I was supposed to handle it. But like everyone else, I plan on taking no personal responsibility and will simply blame the gooberment.
"It's not my fault, I got in line and put in my order, but all I got was a glare and a 'No Coup For You! Come Back One Year' growl from the coupon Nazi!"
But I digress. This blog is about the forever delayed replacement of my DWIN CRT projector with a JVC DLA-HD1 projector. Oh sure, I haven't used the Dwin in years (a combination of the inability for its aging electronics to control convergence and the dimness of the bulbs that were well past their half life), but it still hung proudly off my ceiling. In its place, I sustained myself with a steady diet of plasma and the occasional front projector that found its way into the den.
READ MORE »
|
A Perfect System for the Office
Posted Sat Dec 20, 2008, 12:30 PM ET
Sure they look a little too “take me to your leader” for some folks, but maybe that's appropriate, because the sound from the Micropod SE speakers from scandyna is out of this world. These two-way speakers perch fairly discretely on my office credenza, doing something the 25 year-old JVC SW/AM/FM radio and a Grundig portable were never able to do – bring fine tunes (or is that iTunes?) into my office. Of course, you'll need a way to hook your iPod to the speakers and for this scandyna provides "the dock," as they state in their capital-letter-averse terminology.
READ MORE »
|
Best Served Cold?
Posted Wed Nov 12, 2008, 6:10 PM ET
|
I'll admit, when Circuit City proposed, and then shoddily implemented, something called Divx, as an alternative to the just born and still struggling DVD format, I did wish things upon them that only Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent could have imagined. You know, things like "May the fleas of a thousand camels nest in your shorts." Divx discs were designed around the rental model, except without the hassle of a return. Buy them for $4 and you could watch them for 48 hours after the first play. You could buy a few more days at a later date, or convert them to "silver" for some other higher price. In the end though, they would be unplayable landfill. Of course such Tom Foolery required a dedicated Divx player which, if you were foolish enough to buy one, would now join the discs at the landfill. I've never seen such corporate "hey-that's-a-great-idea-nah-forget-it"-ism before. In about six months, Divx had come and gone.
But Circuit City lingered on and, despite my personal boycott, prospered. Until recently that is. Last week, right after announcing they were closing 155 stores, they also decided that entering chapter 11 bankruptcy protection would be a good thing as well. But while for the briefest of moments, I experienced a mild sense of vindication and satisfaction, truth be told, the last thing our hobby needs is the reduction in the number of places competing for our business.
READ MORE »
|
Dear Hana
Posted Tue Oct 28, 2008, 7:32 PM ET
I get plenty of requests for AV advice from friends and acquaintances. Most of it comes from people who are really into the hobby. Often, these people already have a specific product in mind, and it's almost like they're testing me. Other folk really want you to agree with them in going with their wallet and picking up a cheap plasma at Costco because, hey, it's cheap. Well, sadly, I am not a walking talking dictionary. My first line of defense is to tell them they should check out the Buyer Guides on our web site(s). This, to many, strongly resembles work. I should do it for them and (sigh) I often do.
But sometimes, I get a letter from an old friend who is so far out of the AV loop, they would describe themselves as "normal." I get the inference, but don't take offense. I write a blog about them.
READ MORE »
|
Perspective
Posted Sun Sep 21, 2008, 10:28 AM ET
Covering a trade show as massive as CEDIA dampens your desire to write your regular blog, so first off, apologies for the month plus a day delay since my last refresh.
READ MORE »
|
Collision Detection: the Fall TV Season
Posted Wed Aug 20, 2008, 9:32 PM ET
DVRs are such wonderful devices – except that they won't record three shows at once very well. Two tuners – two shows. Watch one show, record another, or record two and watch something you've previously recorded (I end up doing that a lot actually). Bottom line, you have to plan your viewing pleasure carefully, especially when the new fall season begins as it will in less than two weeks.
READ MORE »
|
Something Wicked Good This Way Comes
Posted Wed Aug 6, 2008, 8:27 PM ET
Okay, this blog isn't really about audio or video. Not directly at least, but I wanted to mention that we've been in search of clean power, cheap power, non-global-warming-controversy-inducing power, for a long time. Nuclear is clean (you know, in the beginning), and so is hydroelectric power, but only a few of us live near enough a river to take advantage of that. Besides, the amount of paper needed to complete the required zoning permits and environmental impact statements to install that bright red waterwheel you've been eyeing would negatively impact your carbon footprint, so forget that.
But by some estimates, the amount of energy the sun pours on Terra Firma in one hour is enough to power the energy needs of the planet for a year. Were that to happen, we could all have Class A amplifiers and Krell would again rule the world! In any case, the concept is exhilarating.
READ MORE »
|
Do Androids Dream of Blu-rays?
Posted Thu Jul 10, 2008, 9:56 PM ET
|
Somebody slap me, I must be having a nightmare. Didn't we just go through a format war? Didn't Toshiba just get the living crap beat out of them trying to push the HD DVD format down the throats of a world that thinks a) Sony is better (who knew you could get so much mileage out of "Trinitron") and b) people prefer blue disc cases to red ones (no really!).
Perhaps there were some other issues involved, but if you ask me, those were the major ones.
READ MORE »
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sponsored Technology Center
