John E. Johnson, Jr.

Marantz SA-7S1 SACD Player

John E. Johnson, Jr.

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.

SACD Players

Cambridge Audio DacMagic

John E. Johnson, Jr.

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.

DACs

ButtKicker BK-Kit-4 Wireless Tactile Transducer

John E. Johnson, Jr.

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.


Shakers

Earthquake Sound iQuake IQ-52B iPod Dock

John E. Johnson, Jr.

There are plenty of iPod Docks out there for you to plug in your iPod and listen to your music using speakers instead of earphones. Some of them are very inexpensive and others somewhat more, but what sets the Earthquake Sound iQuake IQ-52B apart from the rest are its sound quality and features. Read our review to see how flexible this little package really is.

Portable Audio

Squeezebox Duet Wireless Music Streamer

John E. Johnson, Jr.

UPDATED November 16, 2009 - We have all noticed the proliferation of media servers on the market over the past several years. The problem is, they are quite expensive, usually in the thousands of dollars, and some in the tens of thousands. Well, finally, there are some products that will let you play your music in any of those rooms you want, by ripping your CDs to a music directory on your PC and using a wireless "Streamer" in the room where you want to listen to them. There are several music streamers on the market, including Squeezebox, which has several models. Their newest entry is the Squeezebox Duet, which is the subject of this review.

Please take a particular look at the end of the review where I updated my opinion about this product on November 16, 2009.

Media Streamer

Movie Renter’s Guide – January, 2009

John E. Johnson, Jr.
Hancock (Blu-ray), Swing Vote (Blu-ray), The Bourne Trilogy (Blu-ray), The Express (The Ernie Davis Story) (Blu-ray), King Kong (2005) (Blu-ray), Universal Soldier (Blu-ray), My Best Friend's Girl (Blu-ray), Max Payne (Blu-ray), Saw V (Blu-ray), Space Buddies (Blu-ray), Bangkok Dangerous (Blu-ray), Righteous Kill (Blu-ray), Dexter: The First Season (Blu-ray)
Movie Reviews