October 7, 2008
Nice Shot
In July, Danish camera manufacturer Phase One announced a new camera that will surely be one of the most highly sought after professional-grade digital cameras when it hits the market by the end of this year. Phase One’s P65+ is the world’s first digital camera based on actual full-frame medium film format. It captures images with an astounding 60.5-megapixel resolution, creating files as large as 180 megabytes and at speeds as quick as one frame per second. With an image viewing screen nearly two square inches in size, the $41,990 P65+ provides the largest live-capture digital back available—a feature for which Phase One cameras are known. Established in 1993 by a Danish inventor, Phase One is a household name amongst professional photographers, though discerning amateurs are quickly catching on. (www.phaseone.com)
—Bailey S. Barnard
Photo credit: Peter Svenson
|
September 23, 2008
Exclusive Screening
Audio enthusiasts revere electrostatic speakers, even though the rest of humanity seems baffled by these tall but slender creations. The best-known proponent of electrostatic speakers is MartinLogan, which celebrates its 1983 founding with the $25,000-per-pair MartinLogan 25th Anniversary CLX. Like other electrostatics, the CLX eschews the usual cone woofers and dome tweeters in favor of a large polyester membrane of vanishingly low mass; many audiophiles feel the lightweight diaphragm better reproduces the faint details of high-quality recordings. However, while most electrostatics rely on a conventional woofer to reproduce bass tones, the CLX uses electrostatic panels exclusively. This unusual configuration ensures that bass instruments and deep-voiced singers receive the same natural reproduction as higher-pitched tones. The 25th Anniversary CLX has an aluminum frame, while the standard CLX has a veneered frame and retails for $20,000 per pair. (785.749.0133, www.martinlogan.com)
—Brent Butterworth
|
September 9, 2008
Stretching Sound
Streaming MP3 music from a computer to multiple rooms of your home is easy—except that it requires a computer. Until now. With the Philips Streamium Wireless Music Center, no computer is necessary. Slide in a CD and the Streamium copies it onto its internal hard drive. From there, it can be played on the base station or on as many as five wireless extension units in other rooms. Color display screens on the base station and extension units allow easy browsing of your music collection by artist, genre, album, and song title. The screens also allow access to full-color album art and Internet radio stations. In the base stations and the extensions, Philips’ Super Sound Panel speaker technology delivers midrange and treble frequencies right through the units’ transparent front panels, and a woofer provides extra bass. A single base station with one extension unit retails for $999; additional extension units are $299 each. (888.PHILIPS, www.philips.com)
—Brent Butterworth
|
August 26, 2008
Picture This
When it comes to photography, Swedish camera manufacturer Hasselblad is the alpha and the omega. Originally established in the mid-19th century during the early developmental stages of the camera itself, the company will release a digital single-lens reflex camera in October. It epitomizes high-quality picture taking by generating a 50-megapixel image resolution. Hasselblad’s H3DII-50 is the company’s fifth-generation medium-format camera and will deliver 33 captures per minute and produce image files as large as 150 megabytes. The $39,995 camera will house a two-gigabyte CompactFlash card capable of holding 30 images. The camera will offer users the ability to capture images from eye- or waist-level with interchangeable viewfinders. Hasselblad’s Natural Color Solution and Moiré Removal technologies—not to mention the company’s vast array of software and accessories—grant users the capabilities necessary to capture images as a professional would, regardless of experience. (www.hasselbladusa.com)
—Bailey S. Barnard
|
August 12, 2008
Surround Sound Supreme
The Krell Evolution 707 may represent the first truly high-end product designed to meet the technical demands of the dazzling new Blu-ray movie discs. The $30,000 Evolution 707 surround-sound processor serves as the “brain” of an elite home theater audio system. It can decode all of Blu-ray’s advanced surround-sound formats, including Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It also upconverts all incoming video signals to 1080p resolution and outputs them through its HDMI 1.3 digital video circuitry to ensure that all of the movies, TV shows, and even home videos you watch will look their best. Although any audio amplifiers can be used with the Evolution 707, it is best mated with Krell’s own Evolution amps. The processor can be linked to the amps through Krell’s proprietary Current Audio Signal Transmission (CAST) technology, which the company says eliminates signal degradation caused by cabling. (203.298.4000, www.krellonline.com)
—Brent Butterworth
|
July 29, 2008
A Miniature Media Library
Wall-mounted flat-panel TVs look so sleek, it seems a shame to sully them with additional components. Kaleidescape seems to have had the flat-panel TV aesthetic in mind when it designed the Kaleidescape 1080p Mini Player. Like the other players in Kaleidescape’s line, the $2,995 Mini Player can access any movie or album stored on a Kaleidescape Server through one of the friendliest and most dazzling on-screen interfaces ever seen on a home entertainment device. Yet it is small enough to attach to the back of most wall-mounted flat-panel TVs, or to be tucked out of sight behind books or bric-a-brac. It also upgrades video from DVDs so that the picture looks crisp on a high-definition TV set. With your entire media library available at a touch from a nearly invisible component, you may not want to bother with cable or satellite. (888.352.5343, www.kaleidescape.com) —Brent Butterworth
|
July 15, 2008
Tube Top
Although vacuum tubes fell out of favor with most audio manufacturers decades ago, enthusiasts still praise them for their warm, natural sound. McIntosh Labs’ MC2301 amplifier is surely the most impressive tube amplifier ever crafted by this storied audio company—and it may be the most impressive tube amp ever period. The MC2301 is one of only a few tube amplifiers ever made with a fully balanced design, which essentially uses two amplifier circuits per channel: one for the positive half of the audio signal, the other for the negative half. The result is faster response and lower noise. Each MC2301 delivers 300 watts, a tremendous amount of power for any amplifier, much more so for a tube amplifier. The MC2301’s monophonic design means one amp is needed for each speaker, so a stereo system will require two, and a home theater system will require five or seven. Talk about a wall of sound. (800.538.6576, www.mcintoshlabs.com)
—Brent Butterworth
|
July 1, 2008
Mobile Couture
Christian Dior entered the cell phone market not to lend the brand’s name to a gadget, but to bring a couture approach to an everyday device. The Diorphone is sold with a miniature version of same phone that can be clipped to a woman’s purse or worn on a pendant, making digging through a handbag to find a phone a thing of the past. A deluxe edition of the phone―studded with 640 diamonds and sold with an accompanying alligator sheath―is $27,000; the standard version is $5,100. The phones, created by the same team that designed the Christal watch with John Galliano, debuted in Dior boutiques worldwide in June. (www.dior.com)
—Alexandra Foster
|
June 10, 2008
Vertu Answers the Call
It is at the Plaza New York and the Wynn Las Vegas, Vertu’s two newest Stateside boutiques, that the British luxury mobile phone brand reveals the unique components that set its products apart from mere communication devices. Among them are crystal sapphire screens, the same material used for high-end watch dials; genuine ruby bearings that are placed beneath the number keys to add strength and durability; and Liquidmetal, which Vertu says is twice as hard as stainless steel, which forms a protective casing around the phone. An added bonus: Every Vertu phone connects directly to a Vertu Concierge, available 24 hours a day to offer advice on travel, accommodations, restaurants, and entertainment. Prices start at $6,300. (www.vertu.com)
―Alexandra Foster
|
May 27, 2008
Compact Home Control
For years, Crestron has been engineering automation products that allow control of an entire home’s light, climate-control, home-entertainment, security, and other systems from a single panel. Seldom, though, has it done so as discreetly and gracefully as with the new Isys TPS-6L Wall Mount Touchpanel. For $2,400 plus installation and programming fees, the TPS-6L provides all of the control functions of Crestron’s larger screens, but it mounts inconspicuously in approximately the same space occupied by three conventional light switches. In addition to providing complete home control, the 5.7-inch screen can display video from security cameras or home- entertainment systems. The look of the screen can be customized as you wish and can even include family photos. Six buttons on each side of the screen may be added for those who are more comfortable with somewhat less modern controls. (800.237.2041, www.crestron.com) —Brent Butterworth
|
May 13, 2008
Contrasting Statement
Although home-theater enthusiasts have always loved video projectors for the generously large images they create, many of today’s compact projectors produce insufficient contrast to deliver realistic, film-quality images. Parts of a picture that are intended to be black instead look gray, which takes the scare out of Hostel and wrecks the special effects in sci-fi movies. This problem should not trouble owners of JVC’s DLA-RS1X projector, which boasts a contrast ratio of 15,000 to 1—or twice the range typical projectors deliver—without resorting to optical or electronic trickery that can degrade images. The $5,995 DLA-RS1X features a lens that can be shifted to compensate for off-center mounting and zoomed to accommodate screens as large as 16 feet across. Resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels assures you see every detail of high-resolution TV broadcasts and Blu-ray discs. (973.317.5000, www.pro.jvc.com)
—Brent Butterworth
|
April 29, 2008
Blu-ray Rising
Now that the Blu-ray high-definition video disc format has vanquished rival HD-DVD, elite manufacturers are beginning to launch high-end Blu-ray players suited for the world’s finest home theaters. The first of these players to emerge is the Goldmund Eidos 20 BD player, which benefits from the same Swiss manufacture and precision engineering that makes the company’s other products such a privilege to use. The $16,900 player boasts a proprietary AC power-supply circuit; mechanical grounding technology that Goldmund says isolates the player’s drive mechanism from floor-borne vibration; and a magnetic damper the company claims reduces data errors. Goldmund cautions, though, that while the Eidos 20 BD does play DVDs and CDs, its conventional DVD/CD players deliver superior performance with those legacy formats. (888.GOLD.001, www.goldmund.com)
—Brent Butterworth
|
April 15, 2008
Slim Possibilities
No one wants to accessorize a sleek new TV with a portly audio system. So as flat-panel TVs get thinner, speaker manufacturers struggle to trim inches from their products too. At least one contestant seems to have won this battle of the bulge: Leon Speakers’ 414-LCR-X-A. This “sound bar”-style speaker fits beneath a flat-panel TV, and measures only 3 1/4 inches deep—not as willowy as 2008’s thinnest TVs but slimmer than most. Despite its inconspicuous presence, it manages to incorporate speakers for the front left, center, and right channels of a surround-sound system. Each $2,495 414-LCR-X-A is bespoke―sized and finished to match your flat-panel TV. Audiophiles may wonder how Leon Speakers’ engineers managed to squeeze three tweeters and six woofers into such a slim box. The rest of us can simply enjoy the enveloping sound they produce. (888.213.5015, www.leonspeakers.com)
—Brent Butterworth
|
April 1, 2008
Media Master
Many technophiles now center their home entertainment activities on their computers, but monitors and speakers still cannot deliver a rich entertainment experience for an entire family. Thus, the media center was born—a computer designed to interface easily with large TVs and surround-sound systems, with software focused on home-entertainment functions. One of the most graceful designs in this category is the Maingear Axess HD, which incorporates a DVD or Blu-ray player, a digital high-definition TV tuner with TiVo-like functions, iPod-like music-server capability, and display of your favorite photos into an elegant, minimalist chassis. With as much as two terabytes of internal data storage available, practically any CD and photo collections can be stored, along with hundreds of hours of HD TV programming. All of it can be accessed through an ordinary-looking remote control. Prices start at $1,395; a fully loaded model commands about twice that. (888.MAINGEAR, www.maingear.com) —Brent Butterworth
|
January 29, 2008
Sparkling Sound
Interest in Thomas Heyerdahl Jeweller’s diamond-draped iDiamond iPod shuffle reportedly is so keen that the Oslo jeweler felt compelled to perform an encore. Hence, Heyerdahl has announced the iDiamond ear, a pair of ear buds crafted by Diaro Digital Design in 18-karat white and rose gold, etched by lasers, and encrusted with 204 diamonds totaling 1.65 carats. Heyerdahl says only 1,000 pair of the $6,400 iDiamond ear will be made. But that is mass production compared to the unique iDiamond shuffle, the sole example of which is scheduled to be auctioned for charity in March. (+47 22552525, www.heyerdahl.no)
―Scott Wasser
|