David Ranada

JVC GR-HD1 HDV Camcorder

Home movies never looked so good as with the world's first high-definition camcorder

By David Ranada
Posted July 30, 2003

So there I was, in the middle of a crowded and hectic Times Square, right when all the Broadway shows let out, shooting all the bright lights and action with this ultra-brand-new $3,500 camcorder.

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Denon AVR-2803 Digital Surround Receiver

By David Ranada
Posted July 15, 2003

Photos by Tony Cordoza As much as we'd all like to own a flagship model receiver, they aren't for everybody. Though well equipped and high powered, they tend to be massive and extremely expensive. If you set your sights just a little bit lower - especially when it comes to power - you can get an awful lot of receiver for substantially less money.

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Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5 Speaker

It /is/ rocket science!

By David Ranada
Posted August 20, 2003

My first encounter with the BeoLab 5 was on an international audio-press tour of the Bang & Olufsen factory in Streuer, Denmark. It's out in quiet, flat, farm country something like the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. But our introduction was anything but staid.

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Super Recorders

DVD decks from Sony, Panasonic, and Philips send your VCR packing

By David Ranada
Posted September 23, 2003

Photos by Tony Cordoza You know a recording medium is going in or out of fashion when you can't find any blanks on the store shelves. Such a revelation hit me in the aisle for blank DVDs and CDs at a Best Buy here in New York City. There were shelf labels for all five recordable DVD formats - DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM - but precious few of the discs.

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Shopping Made Simple: DVD Recorders

Stressed over which format to buy? Relax. Our guide will help you find the deck that's right for you.

By David Ranada
Posted October 20, 2003

Photo by John Wilkes Visiting a local Circuit City recently, I saw several customers in front of the display of DVD recorders, mulling over the three or four models shown. Unfortunately, that's all they were doing - mulling. Although each of them probably yearned to replace an aging VCR with a shiny new DVD recorder, nobody had the gumption to lay down the bucks.

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Samsung DVD-HD931 Upconverting DVD Player

By David Ranada
Posted October 27, 2003

Photos by Tony Cordoza You can get a hint of what's up with Samsung's top-of-the-line DVD player from its model number. The "HD" in DVD-HD931 signifies that it has a special output for "upconverted" DVD video signals that closely match the capabilities of high-definition TVs.

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Test Bench: Denon DVD-2200 Universal DVD/SACD Player

By David Ranada
Posted December 2, 2003

Click here for PDF

The CD: 16 Bits and 20 Years

The compact disc's remarkable legacy

By David Ranada
Posted December 9, 2003

The introduction of the compact disc was the greatest single leap forward in the history of recorded audio after Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877 and the introduction of electrical recording in the late 1920s. By 1983 the long-playing (LP) record had entered what the late Peter Mitchell, my prime audio mentor, aptly referred to as its Baroque period.

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CES04 Live: Higher-Tech DVD

Sorting out the technical—and political—issues as recordable high-definition discs get closer and closer to reality

By David Ranada
Posted January 11, 2004

The first piece of A/V equipment you encounter after passing through security and entering the main hall of the CES is decidedly not high-tech.

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Pioneer DVR-57H TiVo DVR/DVD Recorder

By David Ranada
Posted January 20, 2004

Photos by Tony Cordoza Modern consumer electronics is so modular in design and construction that you could almost invent a new component category using the old Chinese-restaurant formula: choose one technology from column A and another from column B.

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