Recently Published AV News

Today, the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals unanimously denied Fox Broadcasting Company's petitions to re-open the issue of preventing DISH subscribers from using the PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop features available on the company's Hopper Whole-Home HD DVR. Back in July 2013 Fox attempted to block DISH from allowing its customers to easily record primetime shows on up to each of the four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox).

Krell announced their new iBias technology to be integrated into their amplifier line at the CES 2014 show. iBias seeks to maintain the dynamics of the Class A design while reducing the size and heat often associated with Class A. The new line includes a monoblock, two stereo, and one each three, five, and seven channel offerings. Ranging from $7500 to $11,500 (price more closely tied to the watts per channel rather than the number of channels), these are actually pretty affordable for Krell offerings. The question is whether then fans will turn off too many potential consumers.

We are proud to apply Hugo’s vast knowledge and expertise in internet marketing into the Audioholics business model. Having a passionate and dedicated expert handle online advertising and marketing efforts will allow us to better focus on our content delivery, including offering Audioholics premium content via a membership service, which is scheduled to launch by the end of Q1, 2014.

While some might write off Dolby Atmos as a gimmick to help drive ticket sales, a behind the scenes sneak peek from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire with director Francis Lawrence and sound designer Jeremy Peirson sheds some light on how the new format is viewed from an insider's perspective. What do these gentlemen think of the potential for this new format, and its potential for an improved movie-going experience? Keep reading (and watching) to find out!

Thonet & Vander, a German loudspeaker manufacture, has announced their plans to start selling their offerings in the U.S. We take a close look at their speaker and headphone line. All of their speakers are self-powered though don't think they are limited themselves to a desktop. They have offerings with multiple drivers, integrated iPod docks, 2.1 configurations, and even a studio monitor. While pricing on these products has yet to be released, we're excited to see how the Thonet & Vander offerings sound.

As I was flying back from a recent event, I was thinking that I had several movies and shows stored up on my DISH Hopper back home. Of course, I could stream that content using the plane's Wi-FI and my laptop, but what about people who don't already have DISH? What if they don't have a Hopper or a means of accessing something good to watch? Have you flown across the country with nothing good to watch? Ugh...boring doesn't begin to describe it.

Audio Precision announced a new Loudspeaker Production Test suite, offering a new high bar in audio test quality for loudspeaker driver production test and final QA for integrated products such as soundbars, pro-audio powered speakers, smartphones and handsfree devices. We look forward to adding this feature to our trusty APx585 Audio Analyzer to expand out measurement capabilities for loudspeakers.

While it is well known that human perception of sound wave amplitude, volume, is nonlinear, it has long been assumed that frequency and temporal information are perceived in a linear fashion. New research shows that this assumption is not true and human hearing is far more accurate than previously thought. While the golden-eared audiophile is sometimes a mocked concept, if he or she perhaps is a musician or has musical training, there may be something more to it than we currently understand. What do you think?

Love it or hate it, HDMI is here it stay and it's continuing to evolve with the newly announced Version 2.0 of the HDMI specification. HDMI 2.0 will support 4k (2160p) video, 32 audio channels with up to 1536kHz sampling frequency, and dynamic auto lip-sync. HDMI 2.0 is backward compatible and work with all high speed HDMI (category 2) cables. Streaming multiple video and audio streams off one system - the sky is the limit.

Yamaha just announced a nice firmware update for their current lineup of AV receivers and their new CX-A5000 AV processor. Now you can Spotify your Yamaha. Spotify is a digital music service that gives you on-demand access to over 20 million music tracks. So get ready to take your new Yamaha AV receiver to the next musical streaming frontier.

You may not be familiar with the service, but GetGlue is one of the only platforms successfully merging social media with TV watching. The platform boasts 4 million users with 800 million total check-ins, ratings, and reviews. Time Warner is among one of their investors and they have over 100 network and studio partners in addition to the 30 media companies that utilize GetGlue's API...Make that 31. DISH just added GetGlue to their DISH Explorer second-screen app for iPad. With this, DISH customers can "check-in" and connect with their favorite TV shows, movies and sporting events.

Southwest Air has always been a favorite of ours, but now they have an even bigger draw: free television. Beginning today (and for Southwest Customers exclusively) passengers can use their iPhone, iPad or other Internet-ready device to get free access to live TV and up to 75 on-demand shows. This new amenity is available on all of the airline's 400+ Wi-Fi-enabled planes.

Want to stream the movies you already own to nearly any device? Vudu and Walmart are making that happen for $2 a disc with their Disc to Digital service. Just package up the eligible discs, bring them to Walmart, and you can get a digital copy that will be available though the Vudu app. If you want your SD copy (from a DVD) converted to Vudu's HDX (1080p/Dolby Digital Plus surround), that'll cost you $5. Now, you can also forgo the trip to Walmart and convert your discs from home provided you have a PC with a Blu-ray drive.

The WiSA Association is an industry group committed to bringing reliable, high performance, interoperable wireless surround sound audio products to the home theater market. Today, they have taken a big step forward and announced the opening of their first authorized test center in Sunnyvale, CA. Read on for more information regarding this important milestone in wireless audio.