Home Theater

Rob Sabin

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30 Years Later, Moving Pictures "Rushes" To Blu-Ray

Filed Under: News

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Apr 05, 2011 • 1 comments

Moving Pictures is finally on Blu-ray—not the kind of pictures you watch, but Moving Pictures, the seminal Rush album that went quadruple platinum in the U.S. and will be released April 5th in a new, fully remastered audiophile edition.

The new 30th anniversary Deluxe Edition reissue from Universal Music comes in a dual-disc package, combining a digitally remastered version of the original CD mated with either a DVD or Blu-ray Disc. Both the DVD and Blu-ray include high-resolution 96kHz/24-bit stereo taken from the original analog master, as well as 96/24 5.1-channel PCM surround audio mixed down from the original multitrack assets under the careful supervision of Rush lead guitarist Alex Lifeson.

Amp of Ages: Why Power Matters

Filed Under: Editor's Eye

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Dec 26, 2012 • 11 comments

Editor-in-chief Rob Sabin reminisces about a meeting with superstar amplifier designer Dan D’Agostino and lessons learned from a demonstration he'll never forget.

Anatomy of an Install: Your Steps To Home Theater Nirvana

Filed Under: AV Interiors DIY

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Feb 03, 2012 • 3 comments

Any room with a TV, a surround sound audio system, and a mess of wires snaking across the floor can become a home theater once the lights go down. But a truly integrated room that fits your lifestyle and makes you proud to show it off takes some work. Whether you do it yourself or bring in a pro, the steps to get there are always the same. This article will help you understand the process. Building a home theater isn’t rocket science, but it does require a broad mix of knowledge and skills, and a willingness to do your homework before you begin. If after reading this, you’re not confident you can handle the job, you should strongly consider hiring a pro who does this day in and day out.

Another Good One: Why I Love Our Top Picks of the Year

Filed Under: Editor's Eye

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Jan 04, 2013 • 1 comments

I love the walk down (short-term) memory lane that accompanies the preparation of our annual Top Picks of the Year feature. At the forefront of that is the great pride I take in revisiting all the hard work our reviewers and edit/art staff have put in throughout the prior 12 months.

As Usual, CES is a Zoo

Filed Under: CES 2012

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Jan 10, 2012 • 0 comments

This bouncy little guy got to curl up at the DISH press conference, and seemed reasonably bored despite the 4,000 camera flashes he had to endure. But those of us in the CES press corp looked and acted more like cattle as we were herded through a marathon of dog-and-pony shows at the Venetian hotel and the Las Vegas Convention Center yesterday. Celebrity sightings included Justin Timberlake at the Panasonic press conference promoting the new MySpace app in this year's HDTVs, and Will Smith with director Barry Sonnenfeld were at Sony's event to promote Men In Black 3. Sony closed it out with an acoustic guitar-accompanied performance by Kelly Clarkson. But the best news out of the day for Home Theater was the announcement of pending OLED and/or 4K sets from LG, Samsung, and Sharp. The real show begins today; check back for our reports from the floor.

B&W Zeppelin Air iPod Music System

Filed Under: Personal Media Device Reviews

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Oct 02, 2011 • 0 comments

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

Price: $600 At A Glance: Excellent tonality • Good imaging • Cumbersome WiFi setup

I've never been a big fan of paying for brand names for their own sake. Build quality? Yes. Performance? Absolutely. Aesthetics? Sure. Ease of use? Certainly. Each of those has value, and it often makes sense to pay more, even a lot more, for any one of them. But sometimes, in the course of shopping for whatever, you encounter an entry from a well-respected or even elite brand that at first glance seems so outlandishly priced you have stop and wonder: what am I really paying for here?

Suffice to say that was me when Bowers & Wilkins first suggested I take a little ride with the Zeppelin Air, the company's $600 iPod dock...

Been Throttled?

Filed Under: Editor's Eye

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Aug 25, 2011 • 8 comments

Have you been throttled lately? If you have, Home Theater wants to hear about it.

Okay, I'll explain.

In this brave new world where streaming media from the likes of Netflix, Vudu, and Hulu have virtually eliminated video rental stores and threaten to carry away our beloved reference-qualty Blu-rays on a river of rushing bits, the notion of "internet access" takes on new meaning. The capacity of the data pipeline running into our homes affects both the quality and quantity of the video content we can download, not to mention our ability to upload, store, and share our personal media in the Cloud.

And on this front, I'm afraid all is not well in Streamville...

Behind The Scenes at the Grammys

Filed Under: Editor's Eye

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Feb 10, 2013 • 0 comments

Thanks to a kind invitation from The Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing, I was lucky enough this week to get a backstage tour of the Staples Center in Los Angeles just as rehearsals for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards were getting underway. This was Thursday afternoon around 2pm, a little more than three days before tonight’s broadcast of what’s become known as “Music’s Biggest Night.”

It was quite the scene over there and the energy level was already pretty high...

Bryston HDMI Processor Debuts at CEDIA

Filed Under: CEDIA 2011

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Sep 11, 2011 • 0 comments

Canadian audio manufacturer Bryston Ltd. was showing off its soon to be released SP3 surround processor at CEDIA 2011. Taking a purist approach, there's no video processing to potentially muck up the audio signal, but the unit provides convenient HDMI v1.4 video pass through from each of seven HDMI inputs, and should a higher HDMI version ever be required, modular construction insures that a factory upgrade can do the trick. The prototype on display was a 7.1-channel model that decodes all the latest Blu-ray codecs and steers the audio to either balanced or RCA outputs. There's also a pair of AES/EBU inputs and a USB input along with the usual mix of analog and digital stereo inputs. Bryston sales VP James Tanner said the SP3 uses all discreet Class A circuitry in its analog stages for optimal sound quality, and great care was taken in the circuit topology to keep incoming video signals away from the audio, including dedicated power supplies for the video and audio circuits with no shared common grounds. Price is expected to be $9,500 when the SP3 ships at the end of September.

CES 2012 Anthem M1 Class D 1000 Watt Amp

Filed Under: CES 2012

By: Rob Sabin • Posted: Jan 13, 2012 • 0 comments