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By the time you read this, I will have officially been serving as Editor-In-Chief of Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity for about two weeks. Taking a literal cue from the David Bowie song referenced in the title, this wasn’t where I was expecting to be if you had asked my high-school or college-aged self. As a trained animator, illustrator, cartoonist, sculptor, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none artist, this is a bit of a surreal and slightly bizarre career change to be taking on at the wistful young age of 53. What began as an amusing “side-hustle” ten years ago, after I answered a “call for writers” posting (I was already an avid reader of the site), to now running the “front of the house” has been a heck of a fun, often unexpected, and fanciful ride.

“Turn and face the strange changes,” indeed.

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So, what got me to this point, to where I’d even entertain doing something like this on a full-time basis? Midlife crisis you suggest? Hardly. I’d like to think it comes from something that all of us who frequent this site must share, and that’s a very deep love for good music and great gear. I have memories as a child of hanging out at a HiFi shop just up the block from my uncle’s grocery store on Eglinton Avenue West in Toronto. The store was run by two Jamaican brothers, and I would make a beeline for it every Saturday morning when we’d go grocery shopping. The combination of the gear, the music, and the good company appealed to me at a core level even then. Continuing on that thread, as I got older, at any point in my life where good gear, good music, and good people seemed to cross paths, wonderful experiences and memories would ensue. Valuable moments in life that I’ve both laughed at and learned from. That, more than anything, has probably culminated into putting me in the position I currently find myself. It goes without saying, I particularly need to acknowledge and thank John E. Johnson Jr., Susan Johnson, and Cynthia Johnson St. Denis for their trust and faith in me and my ability to continue and expand the website as we move SECRETS into the future.

SECRETS, as it stands, is a rather unique entity. I sort of view it as the “Baa Baa Black Sheep” of Audio/Video websites. Founded by a highly educated and skilled individual with an appreciation for music, JJ started this website when nothing else like it was around on the fledgling internet. He eventually assembled what can only be described as a rag-tag bunch of talented yet disparate individuals who just happen to share the same passion for music and gear, and over time molded them into a fairly cohesive group. At Secrets we all love music, and we all have that extra chromosome that biologically compels us to want to experience it on quality gear. Some of us like to bench test, and others react to measurements like Dracula does to garlic. As such we are an accurate embodiment of the audio community at large. Passionate folks who can disagree, and on occasion be slightly dysfunctional, but in the end, we are a kind of family. SECRETS has always felt like a family-run operation during my time here, and I hope to see that continue under my tenure as EIC. I hope we will continue to earn your time and respect.

What’s Coming Next?

Well, CES has come and gone, and while we weren’t there covering it in person (there is almost no more Hi-Fi on display there anymore) we did get a chance to do some remote interviews with some of the key remaining HiFi players at the show. We have edited them together, and you can find them here on our CES coverage page.

Dirac Active Room Treatment

Probably the most important announcement at the show from my perspective is DIRAC ART (Active Room Treatment). This is the direct descendant of an automotive-based product called Unison that DIRAC demonstrated at CES 2015. I heard the demo of Unison at that show, and even well after the demonstration, I remember thinking that this could be a game-changer when it’s ready. I went back over my notes from that experience, and all I can say is if DIRAC ART sounds at least as good as Unison did, this could potentially be the biggest leap in sound quality for the average home theater since Audyssey Room Correction first came on the scene.

Dirac Active Room Treatment Equipment

Storm Audio will have an exclusive on DIRAC ART until Q4 of this year and we will do whatever we can to get our mitts on a Storm DIRAC ART-enabled processor to give you the scoop on how it sounds and performs. From a video perspective, the big panel display players, LG and Samsung, had their latest and greatest out for the show, and we were inundated with all the requisite press releases for them. JVC, a master at LCOS projector technology, cracked into the more affordable $3,500 price bracket with a just announced 4K laser projector that supports gaming at 1080P with a 240Hz refresh rate. It is called the JVC LX-NZ30, and it has caught the attention of our Co-Editor (and video guru) Chris Eberle. We are looking to get Chris a sample to review just after this thing hits the streets in March. Gaming was a big deal at CES. So big that Sony decided not to announce any new displays at the show, and focus primarily on gaming, AI, and gaming-based motion picture announcements. A highly unusual move to say the least.

Getting the band back together?

In an announcement that seems to have largely gone unnoticed, as it came right before the onslaught of CES, PAC (Premium Audio Company) who are the umbrella group for Klipsch, Jamo, Onkyo, Integra, Pioneer, etc., announced the departure of their current COO Oscar Bernardo.

Oscar Bernardo
 

Omnipolar Speakers
So, why is this relevant you ask? Well, Bernardo is an ex-pat Canadian like myself, but unlike myself has 35 years’ worth of audio industry experience, originally with a few Canadian companies. Most notable of them is Audio Products International, the original maker of the Mirage, Energy, and Athena speaker brands, where Bernardo served in executive and management positions. Oscar Bernardo has apparently purchased the Mirage name from PCA (itself a subsidiary of VOXX International) with the intended purpose of resurrecting the brand. Mirage, for those who don’t know, was a revered Canadian speaker brand that designed and manufactured “Omnipolar” loudspeakers that created the illusion of a 360-degree field of sound. The flagship Mirage M1 won several accolades from both reviewers and audiophiles while it was in production and was part of the rapidly burgeoning Canadian Sound revolution which also included names like Energy, Paradigm, PSB, Image Concepts, Athena, and more. Mirage also benefitted from the talents of a number of up-and-coming speaker designers, namely Kevin Voecks and Ian Paisley in particular. As a Canadian speaker geek of old, this is absolutely exciting news and I hope Mr. Bernardo is able to thoroughly muster the resources and talent together to bring Mirage back to its proper place in the loudspeaker universe. I don’t envy him; it certainly won’t be easy, and I’d be crushed if this merely amounted to little more than a PR stunt. We will be watching how things progress with the potential return of Mirage with great interest and bated breath. Hopefully, they won’t resort to something like building a soundbar and calling it a day. Does anyone know what Kevin Voecks and Ian Paisley are up to these days?

And in other news…

Audio Expo
 

CanJam
In terms of upcoming audio shows, mid-February will see us covering two events back-to-back. They are the Florida International Audio Fest and then CanJam NYC. These have become two important shows on the calendar for us. Of course, we will continue to bring you our usual high standards of coverage that you’ve come to expect and let you know all about the latest and most interesting of what is out there.

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This month should also see the release of our latest Secrets Recommended Gear List for 2023. This is the latest edition of the list of audio and video equipment that we at Secrets have no qualms about recommending to you. The selections cover various price points and are distilled into four tiers of quality. Our aim is to continuously update the list every year with those components that meet and exceed the quality and performance criteria our Editors measure against. Be on the lookout for that coming out very soon.

Finally, there will be a new 2023 edition of our Secrets Audio/Video Showcase coming out shortly. We launched this new digital magazine-style method of product information and outreach last year and experienced a great response from our readers and industry friends with many compliments. Our second edition features all-new products and editorial content for your reading pleasure. We hope you enjoy scrolling through the oversize interactive pages and absorbing all the wonderful visual and technical content. If you are a manufacturer and want to be a part of the Secrets A/V Showcase, drop me an email at [email protected], and let’s talk about it.

That about sums it up for this month. As you can see, we have a lot of things going on at Secrets HQ. It has certainly been a bit of a whirlwind these last few months. As always, we are appreciative of your ongoing readership, attention, and support. As Secrets enters its 29th year of operation, for what it’s worth, I hope you continue to come along with us for the ride.

All the best… Carlo.

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A native of Toronto Canada, Carlo's interest in audio began at a young age when, unbeknownst to his mother, he started taking apart her numerous transistor radios to see how they worked. This desire for “knowledge through deconstruction” continued through to the family’s 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. Through that formative experience, Carlo developed an appreciation for good music and good sound reproduction. Also, as a budding graphic artist, the aesthetic aspects of a given piece of gear became increasingly of interest to his eyes. It was at about that time as well that Carlo began purchasing “Audio Magazine” on a regular basis and came to appreciate, in particular, the writing and reviewing of the late Leonard Feldman. Later on, he was also influenced by the writing and observations of the staff at Sound and Vision Canada, helmed at the time by Alan Loft. Carlo graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in Classical Animation and was subsequently employed by Walt Disney Consumer Products for 10 years as a Character Artist and Art Director. Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. Carlo started his own company and has been freelancing artwork, from his home studio, primarily for the toy and publishing industries since 2001. In 2013, on a bit of a lark, Carlo answered a “Call for Writers” ad from an AV website that he had been regularly reading for about 5 years called Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. He had come to appreciate the website’s combination of subjective impressions along with the objective bench-testing available in several of the reviews. The “B-Team” must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. Carlo has been continually writing, editing, traveling, listening, and learning on the company’s behalf ever since. Carlo currently lives in Granville, Ohio with his wife, two sons, and a very old, but chill dachshund.

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