Welcome to the Secrets Fall 2009 Newsletter. I am sure that, as readers of Secrets, you have heard the term "voice coil" and most of you know its function. But, perhaps you are not aware of all the details of how it is designed and manufactured.
State of Play (Blu-ray), Sex Drive: Unreated and Cream-Filled (Blu-ray), Moonraker (Blu-ray), The World is Not Enough (Blu-ray), Duplicity (Blu-ray), The Edge of Love (Blu-ray), Race to Witch Mountain (Blu-ray)Â
Emotiva's new USP-1 stereo preamplifier, at $399, sets a new standard in performance in low priced components. Besides the standard full range outputs, this preamp offers a split output where you can adjust the low-pass frequency for one (which goes to your subwoofer) and the high-pass frequency for the other (which goes to your main power amplifier). This allows you to essentially bi-amplify, and with the low frequencies removed from the high-passed output, your power amplifier will run more efficiantly, not having to waste power on low frequencies that your speakers cannot reproduce. And, they toss in a phono stage that has both MC and MM settings. This may mark the beginning of phono stages being a standard part of stereo preamplifiers, rather than having to purchase an outboard phono stage. Long live LP's! Oh, there's a headphone jack too.
Earthquake Sound has just introduced the Titan Telesto floor-standing speakers. They are 50" high and have a unique horn-loaded tweeter as well as a conventional dome tweeter. Two 4" drivers handle the midrange, with a side-mounted 8" woofer dealing out the low frequencies. They are beautifully finished in black piano lacquer and are priced at $4,999 for the pair. Earthquake also sent their Supernova MKVI 10" subwoofer, because I had been so impressed with the 15" version, and I wanted to see how the smaller one performed. Well, it performed! And so did the Telestos . . . .
Panasonic's AG-HSC1UP High Definition Camcorder has 3 CCDs, records at 1080p in the AVCHD format, and comes with a portable hard drive to transfer your videos when you fill up the included SD memory card that holds about 1.5 hours of video recorded at the highest quality (13 Mbps). It has a 12x optical zoom, and is very compact.
With SVS' release of the STS speaker series, they have made a concise statement that they are definitely in the speaker trade as well as subwoofers. The STS follows on the MTS series, and according to their website, a high-end speaker series is slated for late 2009. In the current article, we review a pair of STS-01 floor-standing speakers along with a pair of PB10-NSD 10" subwoofers and their new AS-EQ1 equalizer that is made specifically for subwoofers. The listening tests as well as bench tests show that SVS is a company to be reckoned with. Their products continue to perform at a very high standard, and yet, they are priced so that anyone can afford them.
Marantz has been a renown audio company for a better part of the 20th century. Although it changed hands several times over the years, the quality never wavered from being superb. The average consumer these days may think of mass market receivers when the name Marantz is mentioned, but they also build some of the best high performance products in the consumer arena. The SA-7S1 is Marantz' top-of-the-line SACD player. It is fully balanced throughout - thus having XLR outputs along with the standard RCA unbalanced outputs - and has some of the lowest distortion bench test results I have ever measured. It sounds as smooth as satin whether playing SACDs or standard "old fashioned" CDs, and is built to make sturdy equipment racks creak when you place it on the shelf. Last, but not least, it is beautiful to look at whether it is playing or not.
Friday the 13th: Part 3 in 3-D (Blu-ray), Knowing (Blu-ray), The International (Blu-ray), The Pink Panther 2 (Blu-ray), Push (Blu-ray), Echelon Conspiracy (Blu-ray)
Cambridge Audio has come up with a product that has wowed everyone: the DacMagic. For $479, you get a DAC that is fully differential (a stereo DAC on each of the two channels), upsampling to 24/192, very low specified distortion, and selectable output filters. Does it perform as claimed? Read our review to see for yourself.
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (Blu-ray), Direct Contact (Blu-ray), Ronin (Blu-ray), Defiance (Blu-ray), Confessions of a Shopaholic (Blu-ray), The Code (Blu-ray)
Welcome to the Secrets May 2009 Newsletter. Recently, I had to one of my reference two-channel preamplifiers, a Balanced Audio Technology VK-5i to a different room for a certain project.
Seven Pounds (Blu-ray), Doubt (Blu-ray), Incendiary (Blu-ray), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Blu-ray), Taken (Blu-ray), The Matrix 10th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray), Driven to Kill (Blu-ray), The Uninvited (Blu-ray)
ButtKicker has been making tactile transducers (shakers) for several years now. These are devices that make your chair, couch, or floor vibrate when low frequency material is playing. They were always very powerful, and in fact, more intense than many consumers wanted. You could always just turn down the volume, but then, you were paying for high power shaking that you were not using. So, ButtKicker decided to produce a shaker that is smaller, with less maximum shaking potential, and include a smaller amplifier. The BK-KIT-4 is the result.
The Wrestler (Blu-ray), Slumdog Millionaire (Blu-ray), Marley & Me (Blu-ray), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) (Blu-ray), Valkyrie (SD DVD), Frost/Nixon (Blu-ray), Punisher: War Zone (Blu-ray), Sin City (Blu-ray), What Doesn't Kill You (Blu-ray)
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. John E. Johnson, Jr. founded Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity in 1994, shortly after publishing a hardcopy book of the same title. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity until 2022. John has been involved in audio and video for more than 50 years, having built radio transmitters, amplifiers, turntables, and speakers from scratch. He was also one of the founders of the Northern California Audio Video Association, now The Bay Area Audio Society.
John holds four university degrees, including a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, and has published numerous scientific books, along with dozens of scientific articles on biomedical research topics as well as imaging technology. He was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of two medical/scientific journals for 20 years. John holds several patents, including one on high resolution image analysis and one on a surgical instrument. He has been affiliated with NASA, The National Institutes of Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Stanford Research Institute, and The University of California at Berkeley. He is President of the consulting firm Scientific Design and Information, Inc., which is based in Redwood City, California.
John resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife and multiple kitties! His daughter, Cynthia, who was an integral part of SECRETS for many years, resides in San Francisco.
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