DVD, say your prayers. Blu-ray Disc, better get your affairs in order. Judging from the new A/V receivers Pioneer introduced on Monday at the W Hotel in San Francisco, one could easily conclude that the old "hard" media formats have pretty much played out.
Technologies that distribute audio and video around a home are incredibly cool—if you can afford them, if you can tolerate complicated installation, and if you can figure out how to use them once they’re in.
A crowd of movie-industry folk, film students, and press assembled last night for a preview of clips from the upcoming Transformers: Dark of the Moon — the first in the series to be shot in 3D — as well as a lengthy and surprisingly technical discussion between Transformers director Michael Bay and Avatar director James Cameron.<
Everybody knows that four subwoofers are better than one. But are four little subs better than a single big one or two midsizers? Only a blind test could tell.
There are times when prejudice is forgivable. One can hardly be blamed for assuming that store-brand whiskey, truck-stop coffee, or music by a lite-jazz artist who goes by a single-letter surname is going to suck. Likewise, one might reasonably presuppose that a little cube-shaped speaker isn’t going to please serious listeners.
On my first gig as an electronics journalist, way back in 1989, the magazine’s senior editor introduced me to the technical editor with the explanation, “He’s in charge of all the black boxes.” Twenty-two years later, little has changed.
We seem to be going through a mini-renaissance in the hallowed tradition of the American hi-fi show, what with this year's burgeoning crop of existing shows and welcome upstarts.
