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Reviews

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5010e LCD Projector

Chris Eberle

For several years now, Epson has been the undisputed leader in the LCD projector market. They took a technology that seemed forever destined for boardrooms and churches and improved it gradually, until it became hard to tell apart from high-end LCoS and DLP designs. Enthusiasts who would have never considered an LCD are now taking a serious look at Epson's offerings. One of them might be the 5010e, reviewed here.

Projectors

NAD T 187 7.1 A/V Processor & T 975 Seven-Channel Power Amplifier

Chris Eberle

NAD, which stands for New Acoustic Dimension, was founded in 1972 with one simple goal: to reproduce sound as faithfully as possible. Eschewing bells and whistles, NAD products are all about simplicity, value and performance. From their earliest components, like the legendary 3020 integrated amplifier, to today's multi-channel amps and preamps, they have never wavered from this mantra. Here, we review separates: the NAD T 187 7.1 A/V SSP and the T 975 seven-channel power amplifier.

Processors

Runco LightStyle LS-100d DLP LED Projector

Chris Heinonen

For a truly immersive home theater experience, nothing compares to a large image that fills your field of view.  Unfortunately many of us don't have a room that will work for a projector due to space and throw limitations and are forced to make do with a far smaller plasma or LCD display.  Runco has a solution for those challenging situations with their LS-100d, a short throw, LED-based projector capable of producing a 100" image while being placed right up against the wall.

Projectors

Optoma HD8300 3D DLP Projector

Chris Eberle

Now that 3D has become commonplace in HDTVs, projectors are following suit. Most of the new models introduced at CEDIA 2011 incorporate 3D into their feature set. While 3D has not lured me into upgrading my reference equipment just yet, I can't help but wonder when I might really want to watch Avatar in 3D. So, I managed to obtain the new Optoma HD8300 DLP projector which just happens to have 3D capability.

Projectors

Wireless HDMI Round Up

Chris Heinonen

Now that our TVs are thin enough we often want to hang them on a wall, and manufacturers keep pushing the limits of thickness year after year. CES this year saw the advent of OLED TVs that are just millimeters thick as they no longer need backlighting systems, and serve double duty as a cheese slicer with their razor-thin profiles.

Wireless

Accell UltraCat HD HDMI Extender

Sumit Chawla, Ph.D.

During CEDIA 2011, one technology that caught my attention was HDBaseT. It provided a solution to the all too familiar cable clutter problem. Below is a picture that I took at their booth which shows a set of cables whose signals could all be transmitted over a single Cat5e/6 cable at distances up to 100m.

Wireless

Velodyne vPulse In-Ear Headphones (Earbuds)

John E. Johnson, Jr.

With the prevalence of portable music players to the point that you must be from Mars if you don't own one, there is a huge aftermarket for high quality earphones (headphones is the category, with over-the-ear headphones, on-ear-headphones, in-ear headphones, in-ear-earphones, and in-ear earbuds being the specific type of headphone one is referring to). Velodyne, renown manufacturer of subwoofers, not to be left out of this trend, has released a set of in-ear headphones called the vPulse....and best of all, they sound like Velodyne all the way . . . a.k.a. very, very good.

Headphone and Earphone Reviews

Anthem P2 Two-Channel Power Amplifier

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Anthem's statement multi-channel power amplifiers are called the P series. They come in two versions, a five-channel (P5) and a two-channel (P2). My home theater test lab has a 200 watt x 5 amplifier which works great for the majority of applications, but it is driving electrostatic speakers (ESLs), and for a handful of Blu-ray movies, the amplifier will go into protect mode when at high volume, because ESLs typically have a very low impedance (1 ohm) in the high frequency range.

Power Amplifiers

Rein Audio X-DAC with USB Input

John E. Johnson, Jr.

USB DACs are hot items now because you can play music from your computer through them and into a set of headphones or to your main hi-fi rig. Some of these DACs only have a USB input, (no S/PDIF inputs) because their main purpose is for use with a computer. Of course, all computers come with audio ciruitry on the motherboard, and if you have a sound card installed in one of the PC card slots, it may very well have an S/PDIF output. However, their quality is often questionable due to the typically low cost of the sound card. Rein Audio, a German manufacturer, makes the X-DAC, which is a 24/192 DAC with both coaxial and Toslink optical S/PDIF inputs, but also, it has a USB input (24/96) to be used with your computer, giving you better sound quality than you would get from your computer's audio circuit.

DACs

ZVOX Zbase 555 Speaker System to Place Under Your Flat Panel HDTV Pedestal

Jim Milton

So here is the problem. Actually, there are two problems. Problem one: the new HDTV flat panels are getting thinner and thinner. The speakers inside those panels are also getting thinner and thinner. The sound from those speakers…well...

ZVox comes to the rescue with a powered speaker system that sits underneath the pedestal of your flat panel HDTV. Called the Zbase 555, it retails for only $399.

Center Channel Speakers

PSB Imagine mini-Monitors

Piero Gabucci

For the audiophile world to take seriously a small bookshelf speaker, let alone a "mini"-monitor there has to be some significant backing and/or history. Much has been said and written about the NRC, or National Research Council located in Ottawa, Canada.

Bookshelf Speakers