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Gossip&News<br />
Gossip&News<br />
DLP Rear Projection<br />
DLP stands for Digital Light sor. Invented by Texas Instruments, it’s<br />
Procesa<br />
tiny digitally-controlled mirror which<br />
throw light on a screen. Of course you<br />
need thousands of <strong>the</strong>m to make up a<br />
high resolution video image. The DLP<br />
first turned up in those light but potent<br />
front projectors, such as <strong>the</strong> ones from<br />
DreamVision.<br />
Now <strong>the</strong> DLP is popping up in<br />
rear-projection HDTV monitors. We<br />
were surprised to find <strong>the</strong>se new sets<br />
from Samsung, because Samsung’s<br />
Was it <strong>the</strong> victim of its own overconfidence?<br />
Recoton became known for<br />
audio and video accessories, from cables<br />
to universal remotes. But it also had an<br />
appetite for big-name loudspeakers, and<br />
swallowed such famous brands as NHT,<br />
Jensen, Advent and AR.<br />
As <strong>the</strong> wheels began falling off last<br />
year Recoton sold NHT (to Rockford)<br />
to pick up some badly-needed cash. But<br />
rear projection TV’s (using cathode<br />
ray tubes) had disappointed us when we<br />
were selecting our own reference monitor.<br />
They were built for brightness and<br />
punch, to run in what some critics call<br />
“torch mode.”<br />
The new DLP sets are something<br />
else again. At <strong>the</strong> demonstration we<br />
had, <strong>the</strong> range of colors and tones was<br />
impressive indeed. Reds did not drift<br />
toward orange. Indeed, on <strong>the</strong> larger of<br />
<strong>the</strong> two sets it had occasional flashes of<br />
hot pink. What is perhaps more impressive<br />
is that yellows actually<br />
come out yellow. That’s our<br />
favorite benchmark<br />
We looked especially<br />
closely at <strong>the</strong> blacks, since<br />
that is reputed to be <strong>the</strong><br />
weak spot of <strong>the</strong> DLP. No<br />
problem here. Not only are<br />
<strong>the</strong>y dark, but <strong>the</strong> sets dig<br />
out a lot of detail from <strong>the</strong><br />
shadows.<br />
The smallest of <strong>the</strong><br />
three (109 cm) will cost<br />
C$5000 (about US$3650),<br />
less than double <strong>the</strong> price<br />
of a CRT-based rear projection<br />
set. Perhaps more<br />
significant is that you don’t<br />
have to mortgage your<br />
home to replace <strong>the</strong> lamp<br />
that lights up <strong>the</strong> screen. A<br />
new one costs just C$375.<br />
Goodbye Recoton<br />
this year <strong>the</strong> axles fell off too, and <strong>the</strong><br />
company was put on <strong>the</strong> auction block<br />
by a bankruptcy trustee.<br />
The winner of <strong>the</strong> auction (for US$40<br />
million, plus $5 million accumulated<br />
debt) is German car radio and budget<br />
electronics maker Audiovox. Audiovox is<br />
especially interested in Jensen’s car products,<br />
but says it will continue marketing<br />
<strong>the</strong> home speaker brands.<br />
Woof!<br />
You think making a subwoofer is<br />
tough? You need good designers. Oh<br />
yeah, and you need good lawyers too.<br />
That’s what Canadian company<br />
Audio Products International (Mirage,<br />
Energy) discovered when it was working<br />
on some new small subwoofers. It got<br />
sued by Carver, maker of <strong>the</strong> best-known<br />
very small subwoofer. Carver said o<strong>the</strong>r<br />
small subs infringed on its patents, and<br />
API would have to pay Carver a licensing<br />
fee. As some companies already did.<br />
Or it would have to go to court.<br />
Which API did. In <strong>the</strong> United States…<br />
before a jury…just when US media were<br />
bad-mouthing Canada over some little<br />
war somewhere.<br />
The result? Although <strong>the</strong> fine points<br />
of subwoofer design may seem a little<br />
esoteric for nontechnical jurors, API<br />
won. The jury agreed with <strong>the</strong> defence<br />
that API’s designs predated <strong>the</strong> 1999<br />
Carver patent.<br />
The “Moon”<br />
Turns 30<br />
Perhaps <strong>the</strong> best-produced rock<br />
recording in history was Pink Floyd’s<br />
Dark Side of <strong>the</strong> Moon. Produced in 1973<br />
on a mere 16 tracks, it spent <strong>the</strong> next 15<br />
years on <strong>the</strong> Billboard chart.<br />
For its 30th anniversary, EMI has<br />
re-released it as a hybrid SACD. The<br />
5.1 channel surround was supervised by<br />
<strong>the</strong> original engineer, James Guthrie,<br />
working with <strong>the</strong> original multitrack<br />
tape. Mastering was by Doug Sax, well<br />
known for his work at Sheffield. The<br />
famous prism artwork has been redone<br />
too, with a purple-toned painting replacing<br />
<strong>the</strong> original black background.<br />
EMI has also re-released it on vinyl.<br />
That especially grabbed our attention,<br />
since — by pure happenstance — we<br />
used <strong>the</strong> original 1973 LP for two of<br />
<strong>the</strong> reviews in this issue.<br />
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY <strong>Magazine</strong> 69