Recent Home Theater Editorials

The Endless Trend to Upgrade Components and Ignore the Obvious

Ask anyone to define the word "Art" and you are guaranteed to not get the same answer twice. Definitions will be as broad as deeming art to be any human creation, from an oil painting to a chromed out motorcycle engine.

Walmart is now selling the world's first Progressive Scan DVD player that uses preprogrammed filters to seamlessly skip over passes in a movie that contain violence, sex, swearing, drug use, or other undesireable content.

"Those boys can get the ball in the hoop, but they can't play basketball."

It usually comes as a surprise to even the most sophisticated of moviegoers that the sound effects in the films they watch are usually recreated and added after the film has been shot. All of this happens during a process known as post production. These sounds are typically not recorded on the set. Our minds are trained and used to the storytelling medium of the movie. We trust its realism and detach ourselves from the fact that it's a staged production. We allow ourselves to be transported and we believe what we see on screen. So much so, that often we only notice or consider such elements as sound effects in their absence, but rarely do we ponder their presence.

Not unlike the home theater industry, there exist manufacturer and consumer perpetuated "equipment envy" in the world of pro audio for music or film. Shiny boxes with fancy specs, fancy wiring and very fancy price tags. I have avoided many expensive preamps and portable hard disk recording units as a result. Not because they aren't good, but for me, they are not necessary. The bottom line is perception: does it sound good? This is always the desired result. My approach to sound is simple, and while much of the tech talk and geek speak has merit on paper, the bottom line is what comes out of the speakers.

Editorial: Why I Hate Going to the Movies! by Toby Dalsgaard 03/24/2004 I hate the movies.…

Anxiety got the better of me. The other evening, I requested the company of some close friends to embark on a historic journey of epic proportions, to tap an extremely rare and hard to find, bottle of Sam Adams Utopias dated 2003. Only 8000 bottles were produced. We set forth on this monumental event by sampling three different years of Sam Adams Triple Bock (1994, 1995, and 1997) as delightful aperitifs.

If you are a Mead enthusiast, home brewer, wine lover or fellow beer drinker, then this article will help you learn to make and appreciate Meads. Anyone with the advanced savvy required to use a stove is capable of creating award winning Meads.

Due to the awesome generosity of Matt Glass at the Winter Park, Florida Hops, I was able to enrich my meager homebrewing skills by helping brew my first 3.5-barrel (99 gallon) batch of beer. In keeping with my 11-year tradition of home brewing Pumpkin Ales, Matt kindly asked me to collaborate with him on creating our own micro-brewed Pumpkin Ale.