Earthquake Sound SWAT 2.4 Wireless Transceiver

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Earthquake Sound has introduced the SWAT 2.4 Stereo Wireless Transceiver, which consists of a small transmitter and receiver that operate wirelessly up to 100 feet, sending a stereo audio signal, via the 2.4 GHz wireless network band. It is an ideal solution for sending a stereo audio signal from your receiver's Zone 2 stereo output to a hifi system in another room of the house, and it can also be used for the rear channels of your home theater setup, such that you no longer need to run a set of speaker cables to the rear of the room.

It comes with all the connecting cables necessary, as well as two 5 volt DC wall warts for power.

Wireless

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – May, 2010

John E. Johnson, Jr.

The African Queen (Blu-ray), The Young Victoria (Blu-ray), Traffic (Blu-ray), It's Complicated (Blu-ray), The Lovely Bones (Blu-ray), Goldfinger (Blu-ray), Leap Year (Blu-ray), Collateral (Blu-ray), The Blind Side (Blu-ray), Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Blu-ray), Children of Men (Blu-ray), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Blu-ray), Double Identity (Blu-ray), Out of Africa (Blu-ray), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Blu-ray), Sherlock Holmes (Blu-ray), The Last House On The Left (Blu-ray), The Last Starfighter (Blu-ray), Minority Report (Blu-ray), Tombstone (Blu-ray), Spy Game (Blu-ray)

Movie Reviews

Sony BDP-N460 Networked Blu-ray Player

Kieran Coghlan and Adrian Wittenberg

“Convergence” is a buzz-word in the consumer electronics industry that we have heard a lot about over the last two years. The idea is that eventually, all our media and information needs will be handled by just one super-appliance in the home. Sony's PS3 was possibly the first significant step toward an off-the-shelf convergence device. Home Theater Personal Computers (HTPCs) are custom built boxes that also approach the convergence ideal.

Blu-ray Players

Sundance Film Festival 2010

Rick Schmidt

Attendance was reported to be down a little at this year's Sundance. It seemed that way but since we attended for the second half only it wasn't perfectly clear. There were still sold out movies but in general the lines seemed a little shorter. This is still an industry festival and so it's a great place to take the pulse of the industry. The pulse is a little weak.

Show Reports, Film Festivals and Concerts

McIntosh MCD500 SACD Player

John E. Johnson, Jr.

McIntosh has been producing dedicated SACD players for several years, and their latest edition to the line is the MCD500. This iteration has a much lower noise floor than previous models, which allows for the presentation of greater detail in soft musical passages. Our bench tests proved this to be the case, as the measured noise floor was at least 20 dB better than the MCD201 that we tested a few years ago.

SACD Players

Yamaha RX-V2065 7.1 A/V Receiver with MusicCast System

Chris Heinonen

One thing that you'll notice if you ever attend CEDIA is that certain types of equipment are far more common than you would expect because of the type of Expo that it is. Since it's geared towards the custom installer market, whole home solutions for audio and video are everywhere, offering a variety of ways to get your media anywhere that you want. One system that proved very interesting to me at the time was the MusicCast system from Yamaha. In this review, we take a look at the RX-V2065 7.1 A/V receiver, along with the MusicCast system.

Receivers

Innovolt HEM-X1000 High Capacity Power Protection (Surge Protector)

Piero Gabucci

While attending CEDIA 2009 in Atlanta I was introduced to Innovolt Inc. a company founded by Georgia Tech professor Dr. Deepak Divan in 2005 to develop surge protection for all types of applications. Although they make a variety of products including LED lighting fixtures, I was most interested in those that applied to our hobby of audio/video. Their HEM-X1000 is a high capacity surge protector, and if you don't think a good surge protector for your home theater components is a wise investment, you should reconsider before disaster strikes.

Surge Protector/UPS