Devices View – Page 13 – a Techsponential Company

Is it a Receiver or a PC?

August 28, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

CEDIA and IFA news is filling up my inbox, but one press release jumped out at me. I’ve seen similar features from other manufacturers (Onkyo immediately comes to mind), but the emphasis on digital media features in a new receiver from Yamaha was a big enough shift for me to write about it. Here’s the headline: NEW YAMAHA RX-Z7 7.1 CHANNEL HOME THEATER RECEIVER EXPANDS ON YAMAHA’S HIGHLY ACCLAIMED Z-SERIES, OFFERING SOPHISTICATED HOME ENTERTAINMENT AND BEST-IN-CLASS HD PERFORMANCE Well that sounds like any other high end super receiver. But wait, here’s the subhead: Following the Lead of the Company’s Flagship …

Logitech Buying Ultimate Ears

August 14, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

Logitech announced today that it is buying high end earbud vendor Ultimate Ears. UE is best known for $1000+ custom headphones for professional musicians, but it also has a line of consumer headphones in the $40 – $400 range. Its business model is incredibly similar to Shure – both come from professional audio (initially microphones in Shure’s case) and branched out into the consumer space. In contrast, etymotic’s background was in hearing aids, and V-MODA seems to have come from the fashion world. Without the custom business, Ultimate Ears is just another headset vendor, and its brand differentiation will be …

Uncategorized

Crazy Amps Get Crazy Speakers

August 12, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

Brent Butterworth reviewed Cinepro’s speaker line in a sales showroom combining home theater and Lamborghinis a while back over at Home Entertainment Magazine. I’ve heard Cinepro’s amps at various shows, and they always claim to have the room with the most power – truly crazy claims, especially at some of the smaller audio shows where 10,000 watts of power is pressurizing a tiny hotel room. I have long respected Brent’s reviews and personal integrity, and he’s listened to nearly every high end system on the market and somehow remains grounded in the real world. He stays true to form here, …

Audio / Computing

Sonos 2.0

August 5, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

Sonos announced several upgrades today to its whole-house audio system (my review of the original system is here). The receiver modules have shrunk in size, have been upgraded with an upgraded version of Sonos’ proprietary wireless mesh networking technology, and the one with an internal amplifier (the ZonePlayer 120) has gotten more power. The software has been upgraded, and it now supports ridiculously large music collections (65,000 songs), OS X Leopard, and NAS devices (networked hard drives, which means you can listen to your own songs without turning on your PC). What hasn’t changed: The Controller 100 ($399) gets no …

Displays / HDTV / Industry

New Wireless HDTV Standard(s)

July 24, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

A bunch of big companies are getting together to standardize wireless home HDTV transmission. Again. The AP reports the details here. Most of the commentary I’ve seen has been fairly positive, though everyone points out that several of the big players backing WHDI are separately supporting WirelessHD as well. Could we have a standards war here? Jeremy Toeman is taking a contrarian stance, saying it doesn’t matter. He makes some good points: WHDI products aren’t expected to hit the market for at least a year or two Testing this stuff will take forever Even if it just adds $100 to …

Accessories

Monoprice’s HDMI Switcher – and its Customer Service – Work

July 8, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

A while back I tested ACCELL’s 4×2 HDMI switcher. In closing, I noted that budget cable site monoprice sells a similar unit for just $89, and "For $89, if it just turns on I’ll be impressed." Well, the first unit turned on, but didn’t do much more than that. The box was attractive and well packed – from a packaging perspective it inspired confidence. But it didn’t work. I could force it to manually switch between displays by turning one display off, the other on, and then unplugging/replugging the switch – not exactly what it is supposed to do. I …

Displays / Industry

In NYC next week? Come “Downtown”

June 4, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

If you’re in the Wall Street area next Thursday, I’ll be moderating a panel at Digital Downtown on Flat Panel TV Trends: Plasma and LCD TVs are the center of any digital home. The category’s success is driven by the produts’ fashion appeal and picture quality as well as the DTV transition. Listen to our panel of industry experts discuss the current trends affecting the flat panel TV market and where it’s heading. The session is free to financial analysts, press, and "invited guests." You can register here.

Audio / Computing

Product Review: Axiom Audio Audiobytes and EPZero Subwoofer

May 29, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - 7 Comments.

Axiom has been trying to get me to review a set of speakers from their home theater surround lineup, but I asked to start with something smaller, so they suggested their Audiobytes PC speaker system. I’ve been using what counts as “high end” speaker systems in the PC world on my media center PC for nearly a decade. My primary PC speaker system is a Klipsch THX Pro Media 5.1, which I have pitted against a 5.1 THX setup from Logitech, 2.1 systems from Altec Lansing, and others over the years. Axiom’s Audiobyte system consists of up to four pieces: …

Audio

Product Review: mStation 2.1 Stereo Tower

May 26, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - 4 Comments.

Against my parents’ wishes, all my aunts and uncles got together and bought me a cheap stereo system as a Bar Mitzvah gift. (My parents would have preferred a set of Talmud, a computer, sports equipment – literally anything that wasn’t a stereo system I could use to blast horrible rock and roll and annoy my father. Yes, I grew up in the movie Footloose.) It was a thing of beauty: a Fisher record player/tape deck/am/fm radio and a pair of speakers that were at least three feet tall. Oh, those speakers were huge, and the system could play much …

Accessories / Audio / Displays / HDTV

Product Review: Accell 4×2 HDMI Switcher

March 11, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - 3 Comments.

HDMI was supposed to bring the home theater world from the confusing age of multiple cables for audio and video (and sometimes multiple audio cables and multiple video cables) down to just a single cable from each component to your display. If your display doesn’t have enough HDMI inputs for all your sources, you need an HDMI switcher or a receiver which has an HDMI switcher built in. Then you need an HDMI cable from the each source to the switcher or receiver, but just one from there to the display. Fortunately, even some budget receivers now have HDMI switching …