Sound & Vision June/July 2022

On The Web Log on to soundandvision.com and sign up for our free monthly enewsletter. You’ll get exclusive tips, news, trends, and reviews from your favorite S&V writers. 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. Bass Evolution THE HAPPY CONVERGENCE of three formidable THX Certified subwoofers arriving for testing provided something of a theme for this issue, one that tied in nicely with technical editor Thomas J. Norton’s overview of the latest version of Audyssey’s room EQ processing, MultEQ-X (see page 48). Bass reproduction has come a long way since the early days of the home theater boom. And when I say boom, I mean that literally: Back…

Roon Ruminations Howard Kneller’s feature on Roon in the April/May issue was well-written and very informative. One thing he might have added was that you don’t have to use your main computer to run a dedicated Roon core. I have been a happy Roon user for over four years, and three years ago decided to get a dedicated Roon server to free my PC up from having to do double-duty. I bought a refurbished PC for less than $300, put in a large spinning hard drive for music files, and installed Roon’s Windowscompatible server software. This requires a bit more personal intervention to keep the software up to date, but it is pretty easy to do for a moderately skilled home PC user and much less expensive than the Unix-based cores…

The over-ear Alpha’s build quality is solid and rugged. It’s also quite comfortable, with the 40mm full-range drivers surrounded by removable soft earcups with cooling foam. I’m not sure why I’d ever need to remove the earcups, but in this age of hypercleanliness it’s nice to know I can rinse them off if necessary. The band is also padded (not removable) and the headphone lays flat or can be folded up to fit in its included semi-rigid carrying case. The battery lasts up to 35 hours with a quick-charge feature that provides 4 hours of playback from a 10-minute charge. The Alpha features Bluetooth 5.1 with Qualcomm aptX Adaptive for a wireless connection. It also has a 3.5mm analog audio input and comes with a cable for plugging in a wired…

I’d like to tell you about Thomas Yuen. He died recently at the age of 70. I didn’t know him well, but he made a tremendous impression on me. Mr. Yuen was chairman and CEO of SRS Labs. With over 150 patents, SRS was an industry leader in audio enhancement and surround-sound processing. The company’s audio solutions were found in over one billion products spanning home entertainment, portable media devices, personal telecommunications, automotive, and personal computers. It had over 300 licensees and partners including companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, LG, Microsoft, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio. Tom asked me to do some consulting for SRS Labs in 2008 and later extended an invitation to join an advisory board. From the beginning, everything about Tom was both informal and concise. His…

Tech company acquisitions almost always garner an audible gasp—and/or at least a snarky #hashtag assessment and/or upwardly trending meme—bemoaning the almost certain disconnected corporate-generated creative “intervention” that more often than not tends to dilute the power of brands we’ve come to love and depend on for our entertainment, informational, and/or personal values-related needs. (“CNN Minus,” anyone? Ach, we hardly knew ye…) That said, an infusion of capital and other associated brandexpanding resources can sometimes lead to a better, stronger product overall—witness how SiriusXM became a much, much better satellite radio service once the two competing companies joined forces, for example. With all that in mind, we here in the Stream On universe were intrigued to see when, back in March, the announcement came from on high that gaming giant Epic Games had…

Of course, a massive flat-panel TV creates design challenges for rooms, and my previous column covered ways to mitigate the harm that mounting a 100-inch black screen on the wall can have on your home’s décor. As it turns out, there are plenty of options here, such as using the display as a digital canvas, framing it like a piece of art, or using a motorized lift to conceal it when not in use. But which solution is right for you? For this column, I thought I’d go through some of the conversations we have with clients when helping them determine whether to go with a large flat-panel TV or a projection system. THE SIZE This is a no-brainer. If you’re considering a screen under 90-inches diagonal, go with a flatpanel TV. If…