The effect of cables on sound quality is one of the most contentious debates in all of audiophilia that applies most commonly to analog cables. Manufacturers make extravagant claims about how different cable materials and geometries affect the sound—and they charge extravagant prices for these innovations.
One can measure things like impedance, capacitance, inductance, and other electrical properties of cables, but if two different cables exhibit the same measurement results, will they necessarily sound the same? Or might there be unknown—and thus unmeasured—properties that affect the sound?
Of course, most audiophiles don't have access to sophisticated measuring equipment, so they must rely on their own ears to determine if different cables make a difference to the sound for them. Swapping cables in and out of a system is a huge hassle, but many have done it to see if they can hear any differences. Have you heard exotic/expensive cables improve the sound quality of an audio system?
Vote to see the results and leave a comment explaining your choice.
Most visitors to UAV are into watching Blu-ray or DVD movies on their home-entertainment system, be it a 32-inch flat panel and its internal speakers, a full-blown home theater with front projector and 7.1 surround sound, or anything in between.
If you live alone, of course, you can watch whatever you want. If it's just you and your spouse/partner, you probably have to do some negotiating, but hopefully your tastes overlap at least somewhat. On the other hand, if you have young children, they most likely have the final say and you play a lot of kids' titles—over and over and over ad nauseam.
We are dedicated to providing reviews of Blu-ray movies that help you separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of both content and audio/video quality. To fine-tune that effort, we'd like to know what movie genre you watch most at home. Of course, you probably watch many different genres—perhaps a roughly equal number from several genres—in which case, please indicate your favorite.
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice. If you vote "Other," please tell us what genre you're referring to.
At the heart of all home theaters is a central signal switcher/processor to which all the source devices are connected and one or more power amps to drive the speakers. These functions can be performed by separate components or combined into one unit called an audio/video receiver (AVR) or, in some 2-channel audio systems, an integrated amp.
Most enthusiasts agree that a separate preamp/processor (or pre/pro) and one or more power amps provide the best possible sound. On the other hand, such a system is more expensive and more complex to set up than an AVR, and the performance of AVRs has steadily improved over the years. On the third hand, if any function of an AVR fails, you must replace the entire thing, whereas a failure in a system of separates means replacing only the defective device. And even if there's no failure, separate components can be upgraded in a piecemeal fashion rather than all at once as with an AVR or integrated amp.
All of this leads me to wonder: Which do you prefer, the convenience and economy of an AVR/integrated amp or the ultimate performance and flexibility but greater hassle and expense of a system based on separate components, and why?
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice.
This is the perennial question for all TV shoppers. Both types of flat panels have their pros and cons, so you must decide which pros and cons are important to you.
Plasma TVs have inherently sharper motion detail, though 120Hz and 240Hz LCDs narrow this gap, albeit at the expense of creating a "soap-opera effect," which makes movies look like they were shot on video. Also, plasmas have been traditionally cited as having deeper blacks, though LED-illuminated LCDs—especially LED-backlit models—often do much better in this regard than conventional CCFL (cold-cathode fluorescent) backlights. The one advantage of plasmas that LCDs can't match is viewing angle. If you move away from the center of an LCD, the picture quality suffers from color shifts and reduced contrast (as seen in the bottom two images above), while plasmas look pretty much the same (as seen in the top two images above).
LCDs have the upper hand when it comes to sheer light output, which makes them better in a well-lit room. Also, many LCDs have a matte screen, which reduces the appearance of reflections compared with a plasma's shiny screen. (Some LCDs, such as those from Samsung, have shiny screens, negating this advantage.) Finally, LCDs tend to consume less power overall, and their power consumption is more constant over time than a plasma's.
So which do you prefer: plasma with its sharper motion detail, often better blacks, and superior off-axis performance, or LCD with its brighter image, often less-reflective screen, and more economical power consumption?
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice.
This debate has been raging since the invention of the transistor over 60 years ago. Tubes are big, hot, and delicate, while transistors and their solid-state progeny, integrated circuits, are small, relatively cool, and robust. Also, tubes are finicky, and they must be replaced periodically, which is becoming more difficult and expensive as the number of sources for these glass throwbacks continues to dwindle. Finally, tube-based power amps typically generate a fraction of the power offered by most solid-state amps, though this isn't really a problem with high-efficiency speakers.
Despite all their apparent drawbacks, tubes have retained a loyal following among audiophiles because of their characteristically warm sound. By contrast, solid-state audio gear is often described as sounding much more "analytical," which many consider to be a more accurate representation of the source content.
Which leads me to this week's question: Which do you prefer, the warmth of tubes or the accuracy of solid-state audio electronics? Keep in mind that I'm talking about analog electronics here—mainly preamps and power amps—not digital or class-D amps, which are a different story altogether.
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice.
It used to be that all television was delivered wirelessly over the air for free—well, you have to wait through commercials, but you don't pay any money for it. Then cable companies started offering a much wider palette of programming via wires, charging a monthly subscription—and on many channels, the commercials are still there. Satellite service returned to wireless broadcasting but retained the subscription fee and commercials on many channels.
Now, a fourth delivery system is gaining significant ground. More and more viewers, especially younger viewers, are receiving their TV programming from the Internet. This approach frees you from the strictures of a broadcast schedule—no more Must See Thursday, though DVRs like TiVo remove this limitation from over-the-air, cable, and satellite as well (plus, they let you skip commercials). Even better, some content is free (for example, basic Hulu in standard definition) while premium programming typically requires a subscription fee ($8/month for Hulu Plus in 720p, $9/month for Netflix).
So I wonder: When you watch network TV—and I mean all networks, not just ABC, CBS, NBC, WB, and Fox—do you receive it mostly via terrestrial over-the-air, cable, satellite, or the Internet? Or do you eschew network TV altogether?
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice.
Graphic courtesy Steve Guttenberg
Here’s an old chestnut for you. These days, analog recordings are available almost exclusively on vinyl LPs, whereas digital audio abounds on CD, DVD-Audio, SACD, and multitudinous online sources. (Okay, "abounds" is probably an overstatement for DVD-A and SACD, but you get the idea.) And music lovers have strong opinions about which sounds better.
Steve Guttenberg cleverly explored this debate in his Audiophiliac blog with two separate entries—"Why does analog sound better than digital?" and "Why does digital sound better than analog?"—though in both cases, he clearly states that he prefers the sound of vinyl, at least when played on a good system. Of course, as Guttenberg points out, digital beats analog hands down in terms of measureable distortion and noise. But he maintains that analog has a certain je ne sais quoi that reaches the human psyche more deeply, which is why vinyl survives and encourages people to actually sit and listen to music rather than playing it in the background as they do other things.
So which sound do you prefer, the technical "perfection" of digital or the ineffable character of analog vinyl? Keep in mind that I'm talking about uncompressed digital audio here—CD specs or better—not MP3 or other compressed formats.
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice; I look forward to reading your thoughts on this one.
Anyone who owns a 120 or 240Hz LCD TV has seen frame interpolation at work, though they might not realize it. These TVs create new video frames and display them between the actual frames as depicted above to reduce motion blur. The problem is that this process has an unwanted side effect—it makes movies look like they were shot on video, just like soap operas. Most videophiles hate this "soap-opera effect" so much, they turn it off and live with more motion blur.
If you have a 120 or 240Hz LCD TV and aren't familiar with this effect, go into the TV's picture menu and turn frame interpolation on and off while watching a movie clip with some fast motion. (In most such TVs, it's on by default.) In many cases, this control is in a submenu called something like "Advanced," but don't be scared, you can't damage anything. Also, this control often has several settings like Low, Medium, and High; try them all and look for any differences.
The frame-interpolation function goes by different names in different brands; here are the names used by the biggest manufacturers:
- LG: TruMotion
- Samsung: Auto Motion Plus
- Sony: Motionflow
- Toshiba: ClearScan
- Vizio: Smooth Motion
Those who have seen frame interpolation at work usually have a strong opinion about it, so I ask you: Do you think frame interpolation is a godsend for reducing motion blur or the devil's spawn because of the dreaded soap-opera effect?
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice; I look forward to reading your thoughts on this.
Remember the old commercial—"Is it live, or is it Memorex?" The question of whether or not recorded music can be indistinguishable from a live performance has been bandied about since the first days of Thomas Edison's "talking machine," when many listeners claimed the recorded sound was identical to the original.
Of course, our modern ears are more refined than that, but so are modern recording and playback systems, so the question remains, and much has been written about it. Stereophile editor John Atkinson documented an interesting experiment in which he recorded a live piano recital and immediately played the recording for the same audience, and Michael Lavorgna addressed the issue in Stereophile here. Steve Guttenberg provides more food for thought in an article for Stereophile and his Audiophiliac blog on cnet.com.
So I ask you: Do you think it's at least theoretically possible for recorded music to be indistinguishable from a live performance, perhaps with a massively multichannel recording and playback system? Or is the question moot, since they are two different things altogether?
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice; I look forward to reading your thoughts on this one.
Aside from the high cost of active-shutter glasses, one of the biggest complaints about 3D TV is that watching it can make some people physically sick with eye strain, headaches, dizziness, nausea, or even convulsions. This phenomenon has prompted manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony to issue warnings about watching 3D content if you're drunk, pregnant—hopefully not at the same time!—tired, elderly, or prone to seizures. One possible explanation is that stereoscopic 3D is not the same as what we see in the real world, and the human brain responds differently.
I have never experienced any related symptoms while watching 3D TVs, and I realize that such warnings are mostly to cover the company's legal ass. Also, I suspect the incidence of these problems is greater with active-shutter glasses, which alternately open and close 60 times per second, than with passive glasses that are used in most commercial cinemas.
Still, I don't know how common "3D sickness" really is, so I ask you: Have you ever experienced any of the symptoms listed above while watching 3D content, and if so, under what circumstances?
Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice, especially if it depends on the program or where you sit. What programs or locations are best and worst?
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