John E. Johnson, Jr.

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – May, 2011

SECRETS Movie Review Team

The Greatest Story Ever Told (Blu-ray), The Way Back (Blu-ray), Mob Rules (DVD), The Kings Speech (Blu-ray), All Dogs Go To Heaven (Blu-ray), Mystic Pizza (Blu-ray), Benny & Joon (Blu-ray), Material Girls (Blu-ray), De-Lovely (Blu-ray), Teen Wolf (Blu-ray), Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde (Blu-ray), The Green Hornet (Blu-ray)

Movie Reviews

Sunfire SDS-10 Subwoofer

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Sunfire didn't build the first small subwoofer, but they did begin the trend towards small, powerful subwoofers, characterized by having drivers with long excursion and high power class D amplifiers. The SDS-10 is the 10" model in a line that also has 8" and 12" versions. It uses a front-firing driver with a 10" down-firing passive radiator. The amplifier is rated at 250 watts RMS. For $500 MSRP, I was pretty amazed at its performance. It won't crack the plaster, but it will party hard.

Subwoofers

Maxonix Zero-G Drumstick Holder

John E. Johnson, Jr.

An issue that all drummers deal with is where to put all their sticks so that they are easy to grab, quickly. Bags and cups will hold a lot of sticks, but (1) they have to be vertical, and (2) you have to fish through a number of sticks to come up with the pair you want. Maxonix has solved that problem with a device they call the Zero-G Drumstick Holder. It only holds one pair of sticks, but what makes it so invaluable, is that you can mount it anywhere, and the stick holding plate can be rotated so that the sticks are in any position you desire. Enough said . . . let's take a look.

Accessories

Zildjian 18″ K Custom Fast Crash Cymbal

John E. Johnson, Jr.

The "K" line of Zildjian cymbals have a characteristic "dark" sound, meaning there is quite a strong low frequency component. The K Custom line is stated to retain some of the original K sound, but with the addition of modern hammering techniques that "enhance the K character." The Zildjian 18" K Custom Fast Crash Cymbal has the K hammering, plus some bolder hammer strokes. The bell is a bit different than other K cymbals, which gives it a faster response, and also a quicker decay.

Cymbals

Pass Labs XA-100.5 Pure Class A Monoblock Power Amplifier

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Most amplifier manufacturers produce power amplifiers that are biased as Class AB, meaning that they run a few watts in Class A and the rest in AB. This is usually a push-pull configuration, and the AB moniker refers to a slight overlap in the + portion of the waveform that is delivered by one section of the amplifier with the - portion handled by the other amplifier section.

Power Amplifiers

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – April, 2011

Secrets Movie Revie Team

The Next Three Days (Blu-ray), Little Fockers (Blu-ray), Babe (Blu-ray), The Fighter (Blu-ray), I Love You Phillip Morris (Blu-ray), The Ten Commandments (Blu-ray), Tangled 3D (Blu-ray), Black Swan (Blu-ray), Every Day (Blu-ray), Tron (Blu-ray), Tron Legacy 3D (Blu-ray), The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Blu-ray), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One (Blu-ray), The Resident (Blu-ray), Somewhere (Blu-ray), Taxi Driver (Blu-ray) A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Blu-ray),  Fiddler on the Roof (Blu-ray), Rabbit Hole (DVD), The Incredibles (Blu-ray)

Movie Reviews

Zildjian 18″ K Custom Session Crash Cymbal

John E. Johnson, Jr.

As part of a limited series releases, Zildjian recently began offering this K Custom Session Crash, which was designed per Steve Gadd's sound preferences. He personally signed a number of them at the factory. The 18" A. Zildjian & CIE Vintage Crash is also one of the limited edition releases, and is reviewed in the Percussion Reviews pages.

AV DirectoryCymbals

Zildjian 18″ A. Zildjian & CIE Vintage Crash Cymbal

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Nostalgia is something that we all feel now and then, including drummers. Zildjian recently released several models that reflect their cymbals of decades past. This one is an 18" A. Zildjian & CIE Vintage Crash. It has less of a copper color than some of the more modern cymbals, and the sound does remind me of my college drumming days in the 1960's. I don't think Zildjian plans to keep making these for very long, so if you like vintage sound, get one while they last, because they sound great.

Cymbals

Bryston BP-1.5 Phono Preamplifier

John E. Johnson, Jr.

With vinyl experiencing such an incredible comeback over the past few years, so have phono preamplifiers, a.k.a., phono stages. They are required because the output of a phono cartridge is so low - on the order of 0.3 mV to 5 mV - that the inputs of preamplifiers that don't have phono stages can't amplify the signal enough for the power amplifier down stream.

Phono PreamplifiersPreamplifiers

Velodyne DD-18+ Subwoofer

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Just when you think a product can't get any better, it gets better. Velodyne, renown manufacturer of subwoofers from the very small to the very large, has released its latest very large sub, the DD-18+. It has a 1,250 watt RMS power amplifier (3,000 watts peak) and a frequency response of 14.4 Hz -120 Hz ± 3 dB. The magnet, at 40 pounds, weighs as much as some small subwoofers themselves. The subwoofer uses a Windows software interface, via USB, for setting the room EQ, and the bench test results are the best I have ever seen from Velodyne.

Subwoofers

Zildjian 18″ A Custom Fast Crash Cymbal

John E. Johnson, Jr.

There are so many lines of cymbals manufactured by most cymbal companies, it is difficult to imagine what they sound like from their name. If someone asked you what is the difference in sound between an 18" thin crash and an 18" fast crash, would you know the answer? I wouldn't. That's the sort of thing we will be working out here at Percussion Reviews. The current article is a review of the 18" A Custom Fast Crash from Zildjian.

Cymbals

Zildjian 18″ A Custom China Crash Cymbal

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Zildjian first released a China cymbal back in the 1950's in collaboration with Gene Krupa, calling it a Pang cymbal (the collaboration also resulted in the Swish, which is like a Pang, only higher pitched and with more wash). The China went out of production for a while, then came back. Not only does the China cymbal continue to be manufactured today, but in numerous styles. This Zildjian 18" A Custom China Crash looks similar to the original ones, except that it is in a brilliant finish. The sound remains classic though.

Cymbals

Zildjian 18″ A Custom ReZo Crash Cymbal

John E. Johnson, Jr.

In my opinion, the A Custom ReZo is one of the best models that Zildjian has ever designed. They have a very distinctive sound because they are thick near the bell and thin near the outer edge, but also because of alternating regions of heavy and fine lathing. Here, we review the 18" A Custom ReZo Crash Cymbal, which turns out to be my favorite of all the ReZo crashes we have reviewed (19" and 20"). It has a beautiful high pitched bell-like ring to it that cuts like a razor.

Cymbals

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – March, 2011

SECRETS Movie Review Team

Sword of War (DVD), The Last Unicorn (Blu-ray), Bambi (Blu-ray), Memento (Blu-ray), Dances with Wolves (Blu-ray), For Colored Girls (Blu-ray), Thelma & Louise (Blu-ray), Raging Bull (Blu-ray), Skyline (Blu-ray), Les Miserables: The 25th Anniversary Concert (Blu-ray), The Miracle Maker (Blu-ray), Rainman (Blu-ray), The Switch (Blu-ray), Last Tango In Paris (Blu-ray), Moonstruck (Blu-ray)

Movie Reviews

Zildjian 18″ A Custom EFX Crash Cymbal

John E. Johnson, Jr.

It used to be that about the only special effects cymbal available was the China. All that changed in the past few years when lasers acquired the capability of cutting holes in metal. Recently, there has been an explosion of cymbals with several shapes of holes as well as the number of holes. In a few cases, it almost looks like there is more hole than cymbal. The Zildjian A Custom EFX has its own personality, and it is very agreeable. I suppose "trashy" is appropriate, but that word is used with a lot of cymbals that don't have holes in them, nor are they classified as special effects cymbals. You just have to listen for yourself. This one is 18" in diameter and thin in weight.

Cymbals