Features

Telluride Film Festival 2010

Passes were nearly sold out at this year's festival but getting around and getting into movies seemed a quite a bit easier than in past years. This might have been dumb luck or it might have been that a bunch of people were trying to see James Franco in person at screenings of 127 Hours. Usually we get five movies per day...don't miss the Telluride presentation about the past and present of 3D.

High Definition Music Album Downloads for the Audiophile – October, 2010

Sales of high definition (high resolution, or "high rez") music on discs has floundered, and producers are in a difficult bind because it is expensive to master them, and with profits on low sales being low, they are looking for a different outlet. Well, downloading high rez music is the answer. The music studios, as well as independent musicians, can simply transfer the original high resolution masters (usually 24/88.2 or 24/96) to websites that specialize in selling music by download. The high rez disc does not have to be created, packaged, or distributed by the studio. It costs them nothing to put the music on a website store. The consumer downloads the music and burns it to a disc or plays it from a computer. The reviews here represent our first set of high resolution albums that were downloaded and burned to DVD-A. Most are 24/88, but one is 24/96, and another is 24/44.1. I burned them all to DVD+R media and listened to them with an OPPO BDP-83/NuForce universal player, Lamm LL1 preamplifier, McIntosh MC1201 power amplifiers, and Carver Mark IV ribbon speakers.

CEDIA 2010 Show Coverage from Atlanta

CEDIA 2010 is underway in Atlanta.......The SECRETS Team has arrived and is reporting......with continuous coverage from the floor over the next few days.  The Secrets Team.....Piero Gabucci, Chris Eberle, Jim Milton, Chris Heinonen, Jim Clements and Mark Vignola....... will be attending numerous press conferences and booth tours over the next few days. Check out the reports, pictures and videos from the team and check back often for updates.  John and Cynthia are attending as well....check out John's CEDIA summary early next week!!  Reports are live from Jim Milton, Jim Clements, Chris Heinonen and Chris Eberle!  Piero, is that an iPad??

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – September, 2010

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)

A Video Interview with Andy Ton from Win Analog

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.

DIY Handcrafted Speakers – Winner of CAVE Contest OPPO BDP-83-NuForce Edition Universal Blu-ray Player

Congratulations to the winner of the OPPO BDP-83/NuForce Edition Universal Blu-ray Player, Niko Coromelas.  Niko's story about his experience building these beautiful speakers was posted in the CAVE and we are featuring them here.  What a great project and Congratulations Niko!!

Well I don't know how many of you have tried your hand at making your own speakers but recently I set out on a project for a 3-way system and thought I would share it with everyone. My goal was to build a system that would be pleasing for both listening to Music as well as watching Movies with my projector. In the end, I was looking for a respectable set--namely better than what I could buy at a typical store. I didn't want it to cost me a fortune or never finish the project, I had that experience once before. Anyone who has gotten into a project knows what I'm talking about. You start, it seems fun with all the neat stuff, so you keep going, finding new things to add, then rebuilding half way through thus repeating the cycle till you never seem to finish. Well...this wasn't a trap I wanted to fall into!

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – August, 2010

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)