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