Sony G90 manual Revel Ultima Speakers From 2 to 7.1 Channels, Episode One The Ancient Enemy

Page 32

R E V I E W S

Revel Ultima Speakers – From 2 to 7.1 Channels

Episode One: The Ancient Enemy

t is a conflict as old as good vs. evil. It is the war that came

with the realization that no set of dimensions is perfect. The

before wars between peoples. It is the battle between

perfect room does not exist. Revisit Robert Greene’s “What

humankind and its environment and it is being fought to

You Should Know About Bass” in Issue 24. Every room has

Ithis day in your house.

modes that arise from its dimensions. The most obvious – and

While not so noble as a life and death struggle between a

the most significant – are the axial modes. These are the fun-

Jack London hero and the elements, your battle to extract

damental acoustic resonant modes (and their harmonics) that

good sound from the room in which you listen to

are created between two opposing surfaces, such as front

music and watch movies is as challenging. Your

wall and back wall, side to side and floor to ceiling. In addi-

victory is not to be measured by survival,

tion to axial modes there are tangential and oblique

but satisfaction. And when the tools

modes. Tangential modes arise from four surfaces (e.g.,

of war cost many thousands of dol-

the side, front, and back walls) and oblique modes arise

lars, satisfaction is survival.

 

Know thine enemy: The

The Revel Ultima Salon

Room. Do not think of it as a help-

ful collaborator or even an inno-

loudspeaker and

cent bystander. It, more than any-

thing else, will determine the

Sub-15/LE-1 subwoofer

overall quality of sound you

system face an implacable

extract from your system. A bad

room will put a foot on the throat

enemy of sound, with

of your speakers, choking off

some help from the RPG

their musical life.

 

From hard experience I have

Room Optimizer software

learned these lessons. I built a

and, at the last moment,

room – from scratch. And I vowed

it would be a great room, unlike

the SigTech T1100 Room

any other. In my hubris, I thought

Correction System.

this was truly possible and that I

would do it. Now my comfort

 

comes from knowing that humili-

 

ty brings education and, with edu-

from all six surfaces. Your room’s modes will create

cation,

satisfaction

is, indeed,

audible gaps within (nulls) and boosting of (nodes)

possible.

 

the sound at different frequencies, destroying the

This article and the ones that

tonal uniformity that is necessary for uncolored

follow

trace my

experiences

music reproduction. The best you can hope for is to

installing the Revel Ultima speakers

avoid modes piling up on top of one another, since

and Proceed electronics multi-channel sys-

that will greatly exacerbate the non-uniformity of the sound.

tem into this enemy mine. We begin here with the

Programs now exist into which you can input the dimen-

Revel Salon loudspeaker and the Revel Sub-15/LE-1 sub-

sions of your room and calculate the room’s modal character-

woofer system. Future episodes will include the Revel Voice,

istics. A “simple” Excel spreadsheet, properly configured, will

Embrace, and Gem models. Other players in this first episode

do the trick. It’s nothing more than math. But don’t let that

include the RPG Room Optimizer software and, briefly, the

deceive you into thinking it’s simple. Such programs assume

Cambridge Signal Technologies T1100 Room Correction Sys-

accurate dimensions that form a uniform lossless rectangle –

tem. Each of these companies has faced the enemy with their

that is a perfectly rigid room. But building a rigid, uniform room

products, offering hope that victory can be had.

doesn’t solve your problems; it only helps make them more pre-

Meet My Enemy

dictable. There is even some thought that a rigid room isn’t

preferable because it actually intensifies the low-frequency

Now that you have a blank sheet of paper,

modes because none of the bass can be atten-

what’s next? Choosing the dimensions. Start

uated by leakage through walls that flex.

T O M M I I L L E R

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Contents Sony G90 Size Does Matter Ingly just beyond reach Than ever we needed in strange, dark cavesExperience before he finds a little of It Sound and vision at the same time every timeKubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut HP Bergman’s The Seventh Seal DVDFollies & Frolics Barco Vision WatchEditors will respond next issue Can All That Counts Be Counted? a Forum BeginsII Janet’s Index EditorIf The Perfect Vision is to push Problem with DVD Digital ArtifactsTargeting 14-Year-Old Boys? Azine Widescreen Review perhaps? Down Primrose Path Toward Perfect Vision Forever?At all. So it doesn’t take Hdtv or What Not To See on DVD Digital Cinema The Good Bad of ItJohn Eargle Lossy Data Compression & DVD Sound TV Is TVI L L E R Series such as Star Trek The Next Generation . EachE G Movie TriviaDVDs Gaining Momentum S I C & M U L T I M E D I a E G S a N D O WM M a R T I N Panasonic DVD-L50D PalmTheaterViaTV VC 105 Videophone R R Y R a W L I N S O N EncounteredInfocomm Report Significant New Products and TrendsWorld of displays To recreate the theater experience in the home Ogy near its limit and its days are numbered. The displayLight projected on the screen. These considerations have Tunately, there are trade-offs for the small size of ultraAn Ideal Cinema? Real movie where there was none before, or at least Ometimes I think that every position on aMoviemaking crew comes with its special privi Leges, its perks, as it were. If you’re the script superOne way or another when it comes to working with Ity between when they are and whenAssistant directors, service people, FootageCertainly a serviceable way to edit MoviesLikely to get you Directors seem to trust me to use my Into any troubleAllowing for camera setups, lighting, and rig Takes and setups meaning the masterIt’s a funny thing about matching in editing. Most lay Enjoy prelaps to pull the narrativeSion? In Understanding Media, McCluhan R L E Y Lexicon MC-1 ControllerSonic Flavors To Slake Every Thirst Listening to Movies Logic 7 Digital Signal Processing for Movies and MusicLexicon’s Music Surround Modes Listening To Music Surround Conclusion Ing the Denon Anechoic Orchestral Music Recording CDControllers DSP and the Future-Proof Controller Two-Channel Bypass ModeSurround Decoding and Digital Signal Processing DSP THX-Certified Controllers Bass ManagementHigh-Resolution Digital Audio …the controller representsRadical new path to Future…After DSP Digital to Analog Conversion InterFacing the UserRevel Ultima Speakers From 2 to 7.1 Channels Episode One The Ancient EnemyMeet My Enemy M M I I L L E RDeploying the Troops RPG Room Optimizer Software 59 byRevel Ultima Salon Noble Warrior Start and go get a beer, or twoYou wanted to cross over your subwoofer at 40 Hz Tion coefficient for the surfaces that is comparable toOur noble warrior against the ancient enemy Likewise for the 15-inch woofer in the Sub-15Essary to achieve the Revel design team’s led by Kevin Research effort to quantify in-room speaker behaviorDirect radiator to bloated. The Salon’s soundstage com By Keith Johnson for Reference RecordingsNal processing in controllers hadn’t made subwoofer Speaker? Removing the bottom octave from the Salon’sFormance. Orchestral music, for example, is performed Woofer, when it is well integrated with your main speakersCians often use emphasis in the intensity Cy, phase, and time. It then develops adaptive filters that Battle Summary Stand-offEpisode Two a War On Two Fronts Get that the fight for the lowlands was far from overLINN-AV5103 Aktiv Multi-Channel System Search of the Mythical BeastCompany of the Beast Quest BeginsWorking the Environment Remote InterfaceNAD T770 Audio-Video Receiver Just the Basics, Done WellSumming Up I L G a D E RDas Boot, The Director’s Cut Wolfgang Peterson, director Gaines’ Stormy Monday I’ve Got the T-Bone WalkerSteering in DD mode is precise and smooth Manufacturer’s CornerRPG Diffuser Systems Inc., Room Optimizer Designs go, the NAD T770 is all steakI D I W a L E S O N Want My DVDMajor Labels’ Plans for Classical Music on DVD Tan Opera Guide to Opera on Video and executive direc Audience, he says. We fed that information to the rear Tion from the main mikes as well as the spot mikesFrom the two main mikes and brought it to the rear ones Have been considered typical indeed, good for aSee review, this issue Quering technology issues, Moorhead says. Most of ourFall was so high. This was an elaborate joint Computer and TV combinedStars. God, was I skeptical Made for DVDOriginal, so they’re not going to fake it for DVD Dramatic confrontation, in the second scene of Act Two Must answer three riddles. If his answers are correct, sheTo Turandot’s collection the Chinese nation, ruled by an Ple either turning cynical, or lusting for more bloodTurandot. And why would there be? Yes, Puccini conscien Preoccupation like that made more sense, butTucks into a tiny corner of the staging. Hordes of Chinese Moon onstage we see a corps of Chinese dancers, wearingClassical DVD Sampler DVD-nessMent of that, and when I listened, I found I’d choose With the sound either way, or with the sound of the ScalaFull of pomp and circumstance, but much less lifelike PerformancesRole mostly as a force of nature, powerful but blank Start of each one, there’s Karajan on screen, his faceLike institutional persona, Herr Music Director of All That’s simply ravishing This performance is broadRoger Reynolds Watershed Mode 70, DVD SurroundedJargon Experiment in a New MediumAre so new that we all need orientation Though, is that Reynolds is way too impressed withYes, theorists can find all sorts of relationships among Areas of music rhythm, loudness, and tone color, forMusical score Maybe, succeeded by metallic effectsBut in rhythms he himself creates. In practice, these, to That, while Otto is allegedly creating syntax by movingPop With a Twist B G E N D R O NMents of a Clockwork Orange What Ever Happened to Baby Performance we see on DVD begins with a filmPerfect timing and careful choreography Below-average vocal performanceSon’s Dead to the World. Nope Horizon, probably to his death. It is a scene that demandsDVD, with its digitally clear resolution Tabloid, because of its sensational purInsignificance of the media and with a Ly slurs the tune’s climactic line,WhatDent films Gods and Monsters, Cookie’s Fortune that Godzilla, Armageddon, Instrument is better thanWith 1991’s In on the Kill D R E W Q U I N T Close EncounterVoices of Light/The Passion of Joan of Arc Special presentation of Voices of Light/The Passion of Joan Obvious. The movie is about as complete as it can be. Other instances, were not merely happy coincidences, norEach other. Seen together, they seemed inseparable yet By much of the sound reinforcement heard in BroadwayAn Introduction to Digital Video Part 2 Video Color ConceptsPhysics of Color Human Color PerceptionColorblindness Color Concepts for Video Additive ColorLuminance Hue and SaturationCIE Chromaticity Diagram Display Color Accuracy RGB Primaries The Color TriangleColor Measurement Color Bars White Reference Color TemperatureGrayscale Color Temperature Other color signals will also Color errors.Are used in some circumstances Instrument known as a color analyzer or a spectroAvia Guide to Home Theater pro AdjustmentsColor and Hue E G R O G E R S Sony VPH-G90U Multiscan ProjectorPhysical Installation and Set-up ConnectionsScan Rates Operating FunctionsPerformance SummaryDescription SpecificationsRunco DTV-930 Multiscan Projector Inputs/Outputs Convergence Labs Test Report Greg Rogers Formats can be selected directly from the remoteHorizontal and vertical scan frequencies and other source Be noticedRange Combination is about the reasonable limit to achieve anLine Doubling = Deinterlacing Remote ControlIEV Turboscan 1500 Line Doubler Video outputs. As a progressive video reference, I used a Creates progressive video without deinterlacing artifactsIcs-grade front projector 3Dfusion do each in different ways. The TurboscanL L C R U C E Pioneer Elite DVL-91 Combination CD/LD/DVD PlayerLook and Feel Up menus allow you to configure such things as onscreen lan Meaning clearDVD Performance LD PerformanceLy, the remote of the DVL-91, like that Wrong one in the darkDvdo iScan Plus Line Doubler Celebrate Film Classic Comedy’s Second Coming Roberto Benigni L M & M O V I E SThough a number of films in which Benigni Quently escape was Benigni’s first American and EnglishRoberto on the Internet Cute cameo which perhaps hints at a sequel Aspect ratio and running time incorrectlySound Original Pink Panther film go figure. Sad to saySpecial Editions Kubrick and The Space Monsters First wave of anger and incredulity. The DVD set wasNo thanks to Warner’s folks Small wonder Set consists of Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001 aBoth Clockwork and Full Metal Jacket exhibited pinkish Special Editions Few Weird Thoughts What Dreams May ComeWorth a Look Relatively Recent Arrivals Navigator a Medieval Odyssey, the other is Map Human HeartHow beautiful she was when she was married to Roger Movie would have had the solid foundation it neededTo say that the film is developing a cult following some Smooth as could be and given the importanceBiopics Three British Royals Love.1 AsOtranto Man in the Iron Mask 1939. But it is his Old Dark House 1932, The Invisible ManHP Comments Ic in this context in cloud cuckooland, with their You have an idea of what’s really going on in the filmMon with The Shining than with any other Kubrick opus Food-storage roomFrom Art to Cult N a T H a N V a L I NOnly later goes on to give them human dimensions. Even Such blatant symbolism can sustain an entire movieNot content to present us with an allegory of the eternal Face the questions that vexed and hauntedIssues 111 Back Issues Website Change of Address Questions About Your SubscriptionLetters to the Editor Editorial SubmissionsA S S I F I E D a D O R D E R F O R M Name Company Address CITY, State , ZIPVision Watch
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