In This eNewsletter:
• AV Receivers vs. Separates by Thomas J. Norton
• Stuck at the Post? by Shane Buettner
• DVDs of the Month by Thomas J. Norton

By Thomas J. Norton

In the two-channel audio world, separates have long been considered the way to go if you want the best performance. Splitting the main amplification chores into a separate preamp (for control and low voltage stages) and power amp (for generating the high power required to drive loudspeakers) has long been the audiophile's preferred route to great sound.

The separates phenomenon got its start in the early days of tubes. The heat generated by those little toasters made life difficult when everything was in the same box. By the time the solid-state revolution came around, and heat became far less significant as a design consideration, this separates arrangement was already firmly entrenched.

The real revolution did not come until Japanese manufacturers popularized the solid-state stereo receiver (AM/FM tuner, preamp, and amps all on one chassis) in the 1960s. But at the enthusiast end, separates still ruled. To audiophiles those early receivers were nasty sounding, solid-state, mass-market junk. The reputation wasn't entirely deserved (though there were plenty of designs to confirm it!) but it stuck.

Ironically, in the past few years many small, high-end companies have introduced integrated two-channel amplifiers. The audiophile market has rediscovered the advantages of the one-box approach: size, price, weight, convenience, and the elimination of one set of expensive (in the high-end world) interconnects.

Move up to a multichannel home theater system, however, and heat problems remain a concern for the one-box approach. Ever look inside an AV receiver? Many of them are packed to the heat sinks, and a cooling fan is not unusual. Most AV receivers we've reviewed are also ratings-limited to a speaker-load minimum of 6 ohms because the heat generated by the higher current demanded by 4 ohm speakers can deny them UL approval. While most of the better receivers will willingly drive speakers whose impedance drops to 4 ohms, they may run very warm and, under the most difficult conditions, shut down. There's no way to determine if you'll have a problem without actually trying the specific receiver/speaker combination with the most demanding program material you're likely to play, at the loudest level you can imagine using. AV receivers do have certain advantages over separates, many of which they share with those two-channel, integrated amps. There are many good receivers to choose from in the under $2000 price range. Combining everything on one chassis generates economies of scale that separates cannot match. While a few separates out there may be had for under $2000 (for both preamp-processor and power amp), you'll have to be ready to spend around $3000 before there's a significant variety to choose from.

Until you get into the higher power regions of the most expensive, monster designs, AV receivers can usually be unpacked and installed by one person. But the reason for this is that even a 100Wpc, seven-channel power amplifier is usually more ruggedly built than even the best receiver with a similar power rating.

Separates do have some undeniable advantages. Apart from their rugged construction, they offer more setup flexibility. You can, with a little ingenuity, and perhaps more than one amp, place the amps closer to the speakers than a receiver allows.

You can also mix-and-match with separates, choosing a preamp-processor loaded to the gills with features together with a simpler, more modestly powered five-channel amp. Receivers don't often offer this sort of option. Manufacturers package all the frills and power together in their flagship product, with the simplest (and easiest to use) ergonomics in their budget lines.

Separates also lend themselves to selective upgrading. You can replace the pre-pro as technology advances, but keep the obsolescence-resistant power amp far longer. Software upgrades are also much more common for pre-pros than receivers.

And last, but not least, separates have long had a reputation for better sound. The reasons for this are many, but come down to everything from the flexibility offered to designers by their higher parts budgets to the sound-oriented sensibilities of separates manufacturers. Most of the latter are smaller companies known for providing quality sound in their two-channel products. They won't sacrifice that reputation just to grab multichannel market share.

AV receivers, with few exceptions, are manufactured by huge companies with huge overheads. They have to sell in quantity to turn a profit. That often results in cost shaving. Whether or not such economies result in degraded measured performance and/or sound quality is a separate issue that varies from model to model and price to price. Judging the tradeoffs each manufacture makes is an exercise best reserved for our reviews. In the next year we plan to look at more receivers than ever before on www.ultimateAVmag.com. But we won't shortchange separates, either. They're still at the heart of the high-end home theater market, and at their best set the standards against which AV receivers must be judged.

By Shane Buettner

It's been a heckuva month for the two competing next-generation, high-definition disc formats. The only form of consistency that's been maintained by either camp is a penchant for delays. The bottom line with both of these formats is that they aren't ready for prime time, and the time and energy that the two format's supporters are spending battling one another and setting deadlines they can't meet should be spent looking at the numerous other forms of delivering movies to consumers that are sprouting up all the time.

March began almost auspiciously for Blu-ray, with the announcement of a release date for the first Blu-ray titles, May 23rd. The first titles announced were just enough to make me really excited about the titles that might be available for the holiday shopping season. The first Blu-ray titles consist of a bizarre mixed bag of catalog titles, and a complete lack of compelling new or even relatively new releases. We're talking old warhorses like Fifth Element and Terminator 2. . .zzzzzz, sorry I couldn't even get through writing that one out in full. I didn't expect to see Star Wars announced on Blu-ray this summer, but how about Spider-Man? Maybe they're saving that one to bundle with PlayStaion3. . ..

Beware the ides of March indeed. Sony in mid-month finally announced what everyone already knew, pushing back the official launch of the Blu-ray based PlayStation3 game console until November of this year. PS3 is a big part of the Blu-ray launch as Sony has said it will subsidize the player to the point of getting its cost to consumers down to about as much as a fully-loaded iPod- right in the $400 neighborhood.

This is a big loss for the Blu-ray team as the standalone players announced by Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba and others start at $1000. Toshiba is offering an HD DVD player at $500, and is actively pitching the low-priced player as a "how can you lose" proposition with consumers.

Just as the folks over at Toshiba were about to start dancing a jig over the PS3 news, Warner dealt HD DVD its own low-blow, announcing it could not meet the format's March 28th launch date with software titles. Toshiba by this point was well into its nationwide tour in support of the new format, hitting big chains with demonstrations of players and clips from demo discs touting the format. Whoops!

Days later, Toshiba announced it was pushing back the availability of its players to synchronize with Warner's April 18th release of its first "wave" of HD DVD movies. Wave is in quotes in the previous sentence because the format launch on April 18th now consists of exactly three HD DVD titles, Million Dollar Baby, Phantom of the Opera, and The Last Samurai. That sounds more like a ripple in the pond than a wave, but I guess I'll cut HD DVD some slack here. If memory serves, back when DVD launched in 1997 I seem to recall the initial disc offering consisting of about five Warner movie titles, and a handful of IMAX titles. Many more titles, including some recent hotties like Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, are due to follow.

Following word of the PS3 delay, Sony announced at its annual line show that its own standalone BD player wouldn't be available until July. Now, it was bizarre enough to begin with to think that Samsung, not Sony, was to be the only manufacturer with a Blu-ray Disc player available when the first titles appear. But we didn't have to contemplate the significance of this for long, as Samsung announced in early April that it would delay its player into late June in order to perform QC with actual production discs.

This "race" to market embroiling the HD DVD Blu-ray camps has the companies involved so focused on combating one another that they're not stopping to consider their potential customers, who are also being offered a lot of other ways to watch movies right now. Perhaps the only company involved with the next-gen formats who is thinking about the consumer at all is LG Electronics, which has committed to trying to bring a universal player to market later this year that will play both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

What are these alternative means of acquiring and playing movies that are out there? Let's just look at the last couple of months. In February we saw the re-birth of MovieBeam, an on-demand service that uses over-the-air "datacasting" in conjunction with a set-top box and a small antenna. The hardware costs around $200, and then movies, some of which are in HD, can be rented for a 24-hour period for fees ranging from $1.99-$4.99.They plop right onto a built-in DVR in the set-top box from the little antenna. Disney is a part owner of MovieBeam, and while films available from other studios through the service will observe the 30-45 day window between DVD release and on-demand, films from Disney, Miramax, and Touchstone will be on MovieBeam day and date with the DVD release.

The April 10th home video release of Peter Jackson's King Kong in the UK is being used as a springboard to launch a new movie download service. Universal UK teamed up with the UK online movie rental firm LOVEFiLM on the download-to-own service, which offers customers a single-disc DVD version of a movie along with two Window Media Player files (one optimized for portable devices, the other for desktop PCs) for a single fee. Universal says this service is a preview of what is to come available soon in other regions, and cited specifically that its agreement with LOVEFiLM is non-exclusive and that something like the iTunes store would be an obvious vehicle for such a service.

Just this past week, two download-to-own movie services started up here in the US of A. Movielink is owned by Warner and has already inked deals with Sony Pictures, MGM, Paramount and 20th Century Fox and has 300 tiles on tap as an initial offering. CinemaNow is currently contracted to sell films from Sony Pictures and Lion's Gate. Their initial offering is 85 titles strong, and will priced between $9.95 and $19.95. Movies from CinemaNow are restricted to use on one PC, while Movielink will allow movies to be downloaded to two other computers and streamed throughout a home network. Movielink also permits a backup DVD to be burned, but claims that its DRM software prevents the disc from being played on a standard DVD player. These services are open for business on Monday, April 10th.

The bulk of these services are standard definition only, but we shouldn't forget that two wonderful sounding, high-resolution audio formats were tried and failed (in mass-market terms) during the iPod revolution. When confronted with higher resolution than the Compact Disc, consumers went with formats that were orders of magnitude lower in resolution than the CD because the new choices better fit their lifestyle.

The companies tying themselves in knots over HD DVD and Blu-ray should take a look around. They might be arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, pulling up a chaise right next to DVD-A, SACD and the BetaMax.

Three for the Road

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (Single disc, standard widescreen edition).
Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Tilda Swinton. Directed by Andrew Adamson. 2005. 2.35:1 (anamorphic). English 5.1 Dolby Digital Home Theater Mix, DTS 5.1 Digital Surround Sound. Dolby Digital 2.0 (French and Spanish). 134 minutes. PG. Walt Disney Home Entertainment 40987. $28.95

Picture: ***1/2 (out of 4)
Sound: ****
Film: ***

King Kong (2-Disc Special Edition))
Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Jamie Bell, and Andy Serkis as Kong. Directed by Peter Jackson. 2005. 2.35:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1 (English). 183 minutes. PG-13. Universal Studios Home Entertainment 29945. $30.98

Picture: ***1/2
Sound: ***1/2
Film: ****

Brokeback Mountain
Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal. Directed by Ang Lee. 2005. 2.35:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1 (English, French). 135 minutes. R. Universal Studios Home Entertainment 26315. $29.98

Picture: ***
Sound: ***1/2
Film: ****

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, based on C.S. Lewis' classic story, tells the tale of three children whisked off from London to a country mansion during World War II for safety from German bombing raids. There they discover a magical entry into the alternate universe of Narnia—a world filled with talking animals, mythological creatures, an evil White Witch who fancies herself queen, and the titular lion, Aslan, who is the true ruler. The witch has cursed Narnia with eternal winter. Led by Aslan and the children, Narnia's inhabitants battle the White Witch to free their land from her icy grasp.

The film is beautifully shot, with superb special effects, a good cast, and plenty of action. Fans of the book will love it, right down to its purported Christian allegory (which folds so seamlessly into the story that many viewers won't even notice it.) I found the film enjoyable, but curiously distant emotionally. Worth your time, but for me it came across as "Lord of the Rings light."

I did enjoy the film more on the DVD than I had in the theater. The transfer is visually stunning. Apart from some obviously soft long shots, the image is generally crisp and detailed, the colors bright and true, and the shadow details in dark scenes pristine.

The sound is even better, with active surrounds, deep, powerful bass, and clear dialogue. But most of all, there's a terrific score from composer Harry Gregson-Williams. It's beautifully recorded as well, including a magnificently heroic main theme. (Recording engineer Shawn Murphy was involved, along with others, and the recorded perspective in many of the orchestral cues clearly demonstrates his style—open, spacious, enveloping, and deep.)

Extras (on the single-disc set reviewed here—the 2-disc version has far more) include a blooper reel and two commentary tracks.

King Kong, an ambitious remake of the much-loved 1933 classic, has drawn mixed reactions from those who have seen it. But for me the various criticisms—too long, too overblown, an unlikely "love story"—are either irrelevant or misguided.

If you don't know the plot—ambitious movie producer sails to exotic, undiscovered island to shoot his masterpiece, discovers more than he had imagined, rescues his beautiful star, and returns said star and Big ape to New York to make his fortune—you haven't been into movies very long.

For me, this was one of the best films of 2005. The technical aspects, the cinematography, and the acting all ranged from good to superb. The touching connection between Ann Darrow and Kong also makes this King Kong far richer than a straightforward monster movie. Yes, I can see flaws as well, but pointing them out here would merely provide spoilers for readers who haven't yet seen the film.

I have mixed feelings about the sound quality on the DVD. While it's never less than good, the bass isn't quite as powerful or as deep as I've heard from other recent action films. James Newton Howard's fine score is effective in the soft, atmospheric sections, but smothered by loud effects in much of the action footage. The surrounds are used effectively where appropriate, however, and the dialogue is solid.

The picture quality is very good, though on a big home screen it never blew me away. The photography is highly processed but the images generally looked sharp and crisp, though it does get noticeably softer as you move from close-ups to longer shots. It will take a high definition transfer of this film to come close to the stunning and nearly flawless images I saw in the theater.

Extras? You get hours of post-production diaries, a mocumentary on Skull Island, and a good documentary on New York during the Great Depression. There are no commentary tracks, no DTS track, and no trailers. For those anticipating one of Peter Jackson's fabled mega-disc, Super Special editions, either in standard definition or (preferably) HD, a standard, single-DVD release of the film, which appears to merely duplicate the first disc in the two disc set, is also available. But be careful to avoid the full-frame version.

Brokeback Mountain is the story of a lifelong love that develops between two young ranch hands when they spend the summer of 1963 tending sheep on the Wyoming mountain of the title. I approached the film tentatively. I wanted to see it just to judge all the fanfare it has received for myself, but I didn't really expect to like it. It isn't an easy film to watch, but so well done in so many ways that it's hard to come away from it unmoved. It surprised me on more levels than I ever imagined.

The acting is striking. None of the previous work of either of the leads suggests that they had these performances in them. Heath Ledger's work here is as deserving of a Best Actor nod as any performance I've seen in years. Though nominated, he didn't win, but should have.

Much of the film is slow and languorous, particularly the first hour when we have little going on besides a slow buildup: lots of clipped conversations between two not very talkative sheepherders, lots of gorgeous mountain scenery, and lots of sheep.

Then comes "the tent scene." I think the latter is the single misstep in the film. It's important to drive the story forward, but may put off a lot of viewers who might give up on the film then and there—which would be a shame. The point could have been made less graphically. But it's the only scene in the movie that's so explicit.

One other important point must be made for those who may be avoiding the film fearing it to be political or agenda-driven. To its credit, it's neither. It's just a simple, moving story of two people caught up in an ultimately untenable affair, longing to either advance it or end it, but fenced in by love on one side and by the social barriers of their time and place on the other.

The extras are limited a few respectable "Making of" featurettes. There are no trailers or commentary tracks.

There is some visible noise in the images, particularly in a few shots of the sky at dusk, but it isn't a significant factor. Overall, I found the transfer a bit soft, though close-ups looked much better than long and medium shots.

The sound quality here is first rate, though this is not a dynamic soundtrack by any stretch. It's primarily dialogue-driven, accompanied by a subtle, guitar-dominated score that fits the film perfectly. Yes, there is one rouser of a thunderstorm, with the most startling-soundtrack thunder I've heard in a long time. But it lasts about 15 seconds.

Some have commented that the film's dialogue is occasionally hard to hear. I had few problems with it, but did have trouble making out Ennis' final line. You can catch it with the subtitles, but even without them the expression on his face alone says it all.