Sound & Vision

A RECENT reader comment on soundandvision.com gave high praise to the magazine’s A/V equipment reviews, but then went on to condemn our “weak” attempts to review movies on Blu-ray disc. The gist of the message was that movie disc reviews are best lef

As this magazine celebrates its 60th anniversary, we are trying to reconcile the fact that Ken Pohlmann is the longest-serving contributor to these pages. Frankly, we’re not sure why we ever hired him 30 years ago. In an effort to find out, we asked

As I mentioned in my last column, I’ve worked as a custom installer for the past 20 years, and a key part of my job is designing and installing media rooms and home theaters. (The difference between the two: a media room is typically an open, multi-u

Q I would like to use an Oppo BDP-93 as the Blu-ray player in my system connected to an Arcam AVR350 A/V receiver. Since the Arcam is a legacy AVR with no HDMI switching, I will need to use the Oppo’s component video output. Here’s my question: Will

I could tell SYD was a serious speaker the moment I heard Joni Mitchell singing “A Case of You” from 1971’s Blue. Her angelic voice was mesmerizing in a way I didn’t expect from a speaker this size, not to mention a 47-year-old recording—and I was st

EISA, or the Expert Imaging and Sound Association, is an organization representing 55 special interest magazines from 29 countries covering the categories of Hi-Fi, Home Theater Video, Home Theater Audio, Photography, Mobile Devices, and In-Car Elect

THE PICTURE quality improvements in LG’s 2018 OLED Ultra HDTVs aren’t a dramatic upgrade over the company’s already superb 2017 sets, but they are accompanied by a new Alpha 9 processor, an autocalibration option, and a few new and updated features.

SAMSUNG’S QLED—not to be confused with OLED—UHDTVs are the company’s top-of-the-line models. In case you’re wondering, that Q in QLED stands for quantum dot, a backlight technology that provides a more precise method to generate the red, green, and b

TODAY’S ULTRA HD BLU-RAY player market is drastically smaller than the one for the spinning-disc machines of old. In my early days reviewing DVD players, I could literally enter an electronics store, walk out with over a dozen players, and that would

IT WAS A sad day for home theater fans when M&K Sound exited the speaker-building business in 2007. Fortunately, a group of investors and former managers bought that company’s assets and created a new venture called MK Sound. To celebrate the company

A COUPLE OF Consumer Electronics Shows ago I was visiting the booth of Sound United, the parent of Polk Audio, when a friendly executive invited me up a narrow staircase to a private meeting room. Once I was sworn to secrecy, a long, thin, black trav

SOME PEOPLE get weird about anything with a 13 in it. Fear of this seemingly innocuous number, otherwise known as Triskaidekaphobia, has brought us buildings with no 13th floor, and even the renaming of the 13th Space Shuttle mission. But Denon has s

I GET TO REVIEW a lot of A/V receivers. Familiarity breeding—well, familiarity—I confess that I tend to sort new examples into one of three classes. The flagship models cost a lot, pump out 140 or so watts from each of at least nine and often more ch

THE ORIGINAL PS Audio Sprout integrated amplifier/DAC was noted as being part of a new trend of ultra-compact ampDACs when Sound & Vision reviewed it back in 2015. We’ve since tested similar models from Elac and Teac, though it was the Sprout that mo

WITH A PHALANX of 38 drivers pointed directly at my ears, it was with some trepidation that I reached for the remote control to start listening with Tekton Design’s Impact Monitor Theater system. After all, I normally subscribe to the less-is-more ap

How many more movies and TV shows will simulate virtual reality to tell a “thought-provoking” story about the fate of society? I gave up on Netflix’s Black Mirror because I could not bear another tale of VR gone awry, but Ready Player One brings the

WHEN AN IMF AGENT gets killed in the line of duty, critical files containing Russian nuclear launch codes that he was carrying fall into the wrong hands. With the help of two IMF colleagues, agent Ethan Hunt penetrates the Kremlin to find out the ide

THE FIRST DECADE of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has all been leading to this, an adventure so utterly spectacular that…well, it’s going to need a whole other movie to wrap the story up. Jam-packed with a who’s-who of familiar faces (and masks), Inf

IN 1983, Michael Crichton wrote a screenplay for Jurassic Park that never really took off. Seven years after shelving the project, he wrote the first of two books—Jurassic Park, followed by The Lost World. Both were eventually adapted and directed by

THIS INDIE REVELATION explores sexuality, relationships, and the way that both interact with technology. Therapy doesn’t seem to be opening uptight housewife Ann to her feelings; it takes videotaped erotic confessions for her to overcome her inhibiti

A LIMITLESS tracking shot showing the universe peacefully expanding and contracting shifts to a very specific night during World War II when a girl talks desperately on a radio to …. A sudden cut plunges us into the awful noise and chaos of a roaring

FERDINAND IS an unusual young bull. Growing up in a ranch that trains bulls for the ring, he loves to smell the flowers and hates to fight. That just won’t do, of course, as his ultimate fate is to be either in the bull ring or what’s-for dinner. Bei