John E. Johnson, Jr.

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – September, 2010

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Harry Brown (Blu-ray), Good (Blu-ray), Dexter Season 4 (Blu-ray), Wolverine and the X-Men: Final Crisis Trilogy (DVD), Lost in Space (Blu-ray), MacGruber (Blu-ray), Lost Season 6 (Blu-ray), Nanny McPhee (Blu-ray), Road to Perdition (Blu-ray), The Office - Season Six (Blu-ray), The Evil Dead (Blu-ray), Se7en (Blu-ray), Clash of the Titans (Blu-ray), Crazy Heart (Blu-ray), House - Season Six (Blu-ray), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Blu-ray), Robin Hood (2010) (Blu-ray)

Movie Reviews

A Video Interview with Andy Ton from Win Analog

John E. Johnson, Jr.

After seeing the Win Analog preamp and power amplifiers at the California Audio Show a few weeks ago, I drove to the Win Analog offices in the San Francisco East Bay and interviewed the designer, Andy Ton. These amplifiers are very unusual, especially the power amplifiers, which use a single radio transmitter triode as the output tube in single-ended configuration, with an output of 100 watts rms in Pure Class A. Click on the photo to go to the interview to see why he used such a tube rather than a more conventional audio tube.

Tours, Interviews and Book Reviews

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – August, 2010

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Brooklyn's Finest (Blu-ray), Unthinkable (Blu-ray), True Blood Season 2 (Blu-ray), Hot Tub Time Machine (Blu-ray), Jason and the Argonauts (Blu-ray), Big Trouble in Little China (Blu-ray), Jimmy Hollywood (Blu-ray), Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (DVD), Black Narcissus (Blu-ray), The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (Blu-ray), Greenberg (Blu-ray), The Breakfast Club (Blu-ray), Heroes Season 4 (Blu-ray), Henson's Place (DVD), Repo Men (Blu-ray), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Blu-ray), Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 (Blu-ray), Kick-Ass (Blu-ray)

Movie Reviews

Mystere ca21 Stereo Tube Preamplifier

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Following on our recent review of the Mystere pa21 stereo tube power amplifier, we now review the matching preamplifier, the ca21. It is a single gain stage design, with only one buffer and one capacitor in the signal path. It is as beautiful as its brother, and sounds great as well. Read on.

Preamplifiers

Burson HA-160 Headphone Amplifier

John E. Johnson, Jr.

While headphone amps are not in every audio enthusiast's system, they are still engineered with many of the same design choices as other more common components. One of the main choices to be made is whether to build a full featured but complicated component, or a simple, barebones component that has thrown all the nice but unnecessary features over the side. Burson Audio is an Australian company known for making the latter.

Headphone and Earphone Reviews

Screen Innovations Black Diamond II HD Front Projection Screen

John E. Johnson, Jr.

One of the major problems affecting those of us with projectors is the ambient room light that tends to desaturate colors of the images on the screen when we watch movies. Screen Innovations (SI) has designed a new material that helps solve this problem. It's called the Black Diamond II HD. The screen can be wall mounted, or ceiling mounted with or without motorized control.

The company also offers other types of screen material such as fabric that lets sound come through so you can place your speakers behind the screen.

Screens

Lamm LL1 Signature Stereo Tube Preamplifier – An Audiophile’s Dream

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Lamm introduces their LL1 Signature preamplifier, which is the partner to their ML3 Signature power amplifier. Both the LL1 and ML3 are cost-no-object products using only the finest parts that can be found anywhere in the world. The design is based on Vladimir Lamm's 50 year career in design of tube components that perform at the extreme limits of sonic perfection. The LL1 is a $43,000 four-chassis, 114 pound, state-of-the-art masterpiece.

Preamplifiers

Editorial: MP3 Music and Undersaturated Movies

John E. Johnson, Jr.

I received an interesting e-mail today, from a reader who was concerned about all the movies that have been released over the past few years with little to no color in the image.

I have been planning to write an editorial about why I think young consumers are into MP3 music and don't really care about the high quality of lossless digital music that the rest of us have been trying to get them to switch over to, or at least give it a listen.

Editor's DeskEditorial

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – July, 2010

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Shutter Island (Blu-ray), The Book of Eli (Blu-ray), The Unborn (Blu-ray), Ladybugs (Blu-ray), The Man With No Name Trilogy - A Fistful of Dollars (Blu-ray), Darkman (Blu-ray), 12 Monkeys (Blu-ray),  The Man With No Name Trilogy - For A Few Dollars More (Blu-ray), Coach (DVD) , The Seventh Seal (Blu-ray) , Dog City: The Movie (DVD), The Man With No Name Trilogy - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Blu-ray), Green Zone (Blu-ray) , The Illusionist (Blu-ray)

Movie Reviews

Anthony Gallo Acoustics Reference Strada Speakers and TR3 Subwoofer

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Anthony Gallo Acoustics has been known for many years to make very unique, high performance loudspeakers that can deliver world-class performance at reasonable prices and in everyday rooms. I was so impressed with their Reference 3.1 speakers when I reviewed them in 2007 that I bought the review pair. In the past several months, Gallo has significantly upgraded their reference line. The Reference 3.1 has just been replaced with the much more expensive Reference 3.5, but a new speaker system has taken up a new position in the Gallo line at a price point very close to the old Reference 3.1.

Bookshelf Speakers