Sound & Vision February/March 2018

There’s some real irony in this issue, and it wasn’t planned. Well, a little maybe. I mentioned last month in this column that as we came upon this 60th anniversary of our launch in February 1958 as HiFi & Music Review, I had it in mind to celebrate by tapping our archive for some tidbits that might remind us where we all came from. The first of these flashback features, a primer from that first issue about a brand-new thing called “stereo,” appears on page 42. As it turned out, we also happened to complete our review of the recently revamped and relaunched Technics SL-1200, arguably the most popular turntable of all time with more than 3 million sold since 1972, just in time to stick it on the front…

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. Oh...THERE You are! I’m responding to your December Track One editorial, “Where Have All the Audiophiles Gone?” I realize that, to most of your readers, much of the following will probably make no sense, but here goes: I am…

STOP FOR A moment and think back to home entertainment 10 years ago. You were starting to build a library of Blu-ray titles, thankful that HD had finally made its way to disc, but 4K at home was a technology of the future and streaming was still a curiosity. Netflix was a hugely successful DVD mail order company with a billion discs delivered but could see the writing on the wall when it started offering movies on demand over the internet in February 2007. Today, streaming is commonplace, and home audio and video have reached unprecedented levels of quality, raising the question of what comes next? Looking ahead to the future, we reached out to Dr. Shawn DuBravac, founder of the Washington, D.C.–based consultancy Astra Insights, former chief economist for…

Philo is the name of a sports-free skinny streaming bundle that will feature programming from Viacom, AMC, A+E, Scripps, and Discovery for less than $20 a month. It’s named after Philo Farnsworth, inventor of television... Comcast Is Upping the cost of its Broadcast TV and Regional Sports Network services by $3.50 to $14.50 a month. These very charges have attracted a class-action consumer lawsuit claiming Comcast “secretly and repeatedly” increased them and employees “explicitly lie” by calling them government-related fees and taxes... Integra Added Dolby Vision to seven 2016-vintage surround products including the DRX-R1, -7, -5, -4, -3, and -2 receivers and the DRC-R1 pre/pro. It has also updated such models as the THX Ultra–certified DRC-R1.1 pre/ pro and THX Select–certified DRX-R1.1 and DRX-7.1 AVRs, all with Atmos, DTS:X, and UHD HDBaseT... Broadcast-Only TV Homes have risen…

PRICE $399 SOUND & VISION READERS probably know about Astell&Kern’s portable high-resolution digital audio players. But I’m guessing you’re less aware of Jerry Harvey Audio’s in-ear headphones, which have found favor not only with audiophiles, but also musicians and pro sound engineers who make up a sizeable percentage of Harvey’s customer base. The Michelle Limited in-ear headphones from Astell&Kern were designed by Jerry Harvey. Harvey is definitely one of the most interesting designer-engineers I’ve ever met. The other guys are mostly straight-up techies, and Jerry has that in him, but he’s also a rocker with decades of on-the-road experience doing stage monitor mixes for Van Halen, Kiss, Morrissey, KD Lang, the Cult, and many, many more. He invented in-ear stage monitors for musicians, and that eventually led to consumer in-ear models. Harvey…

I was late to class that morning. So I was a bit over the speed limit, astride my trusty BMW R50/2 motorcycle, heading into town and onto campus. I spotted something shiny lying in the middle of the highway. No time to explore—I was late. But on the way home that night, my weak (6-volt, you know) headlight saw that glimmer again, now on the side of the highway. I braked and circled back. Lying in the gravel was a Seiko wristwatch, a considerable find for a starving student. Boy, it was beat up, but it was still ticking. I wore that watch throughout college, then put it in a box, preferring other, more modern watches instead. Sometimes the “best” product isn’t the one that performs the best. Forty years slipped by. I…