Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

For the past six weeks since attending the New York Hi Fi show, I have taken time to reflect how the show has evolved to its current form. I will report on a couple of items at the show...

Readers of Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity are likely familiar with the names Stacey Spears and Don Munsil. They authored the Secrets DVD Benchmark and brought to light issues like Chroma Upsampling Errors, as well as our recent HDMI Benchmark for Blu-ray players. They also authored the Spears and Munsil HD Benchmark Blu-ray test disc. Version 2 of their HD Benchmark disc is now available, and reviewed here.

Frankie go Boom (Blu-ray), Jack Reacher(Blu-ray),Charles Swan III(Blu-ray)

As I mentioned, there wasn't tons of stuff going on for this year's Record Store Day that really blew my skirt up. I got off especially light on the long players. My priorities were the Big Star, White Stripes, and Willie sets that we've looked at already.

The New York Audio Show took the Palace Hotel and surrounding area shops by storm this weekend. I had the pleasure of attending the show on Saturday and am here with a quick show report of what I was able to see before things got too hectic.

I'd not paid a lick of attention to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds until 2008's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! That album rocked. Their latest does not. It's called Push The Sky Away, and it is fantastic. Like a lot of what's going on nowadays...

Hyde Park on Hudson is the story of FDR’s (Murray) special relationship with Margret Stuckley (Linney), a distant cousin!

The Salon Son and Image HiFi Show in beautiful Montreal took place this past week and over weekend....I covered the show for SECRETS..please enjoy my report and check out the images on the Google+ CAVE too....

Before turning to the review of the NHT subwoofer (review to be published next week) let me give you an overview of the merits of a subwoofer in a context restricted solely to music or restricted to music as part of a soundtrack.

Perhaps no record is as representative of what Ellington and his Band could do live as Ellington At Newport. Here, a little historical perspective is helpful. This recording was made in 1956, well after the band's...

Kansas-bred mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato seems to go from strength to strength. Not long after the release of her latest album for EMI Classics, Drama Queens, her video Homecoming - Kansas City Symphony Presents Joyce DiDonato, which was broadcast nationwide on PBS, received a 2013 Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Performance.

Wreck-It Ralph has spent 30 years playing the bad guy in the classic video game Fix-It Felix.  The other game characters don't like him and he's relegated to live in a garbage dump...

It doesn't seem like that long ago that Big Boi sat squarely atop the Hip-Hop world as one half of the inimitable OutKast. But time gets away from me, and I realize that their last vital release was almost ten years ago. Big Boi hasn't exactly been prolific in the interim...

After not seeing any of my favorite indie directors lined up with films at this year's Sundance and after having to settle for our second and third choice tickets I was pleasantly surprised that I thoroughly enjoyed almost every film we saw this year. I always tell people to go off the beaten track at festivals...

Victor Frankenstein is a young boy who mostly keeps to himself, making films starring his beloved dog Sparky.  Despite prodding by his parents, he's fine to keep to himself and work on his own projects instead of socializing with other kids...

CES 2013 has come to a close and we are happy to be home.....some final thoughts.....

Robert Kozel, Senior Editor, sums it up......The show had an enormous crowd of over 150,000 people. From an audio/video perspective, the new innovation was all around 4K displays. Every major manufacturer was showcasing 4K displays. The practical reality is that while the 4K displays were stunning, the general consumer will not be able to afford this technology for several more years at least until the prices come down to earth. The real stars of the show were the updated plasma and LED televisions that support the current HDTV standards. These new sets were gorgeous and offer the consumer some amazing technology and beautiful video quality at approachable pricing.

On the audio side of things...

It's a wrap!!  Do not miss the CES Show Coverage by our SECRETS Team....Robert Kozel, Senior Editor, has posted over 300 images....just enjoy!

Join Scott Wilkinson for a CES 2013 pre-show discussion on TWiT.TV, live on Friday, January 4 and replayed on Monday, January 7.  Guests include Piero Gabucci (Secrets of Home Theater), Tom Norton (Home Theater), and Chris Boylan (Big Picture Big Sound).

A buddy of mine whose taste I trust was freaking out about the newest Norah Jones album a while back. It's called ...Little Broken Hearts, and I thought for a while...