Spin Master Technics Brings Back the Sl-1200 and Reinvents the Best-Selling Turntable of All Time
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A BETTER BOOKSHELF HOW ’BOUT A BIT OF “CHAMBER” MODE? Definitive Technology Brings It With The Demand Series Yamaha’s RX-A2070 AVR Is A Real DSP Champion TESTED ELAC DISCOVERY MUSIC SERVER P66 Where Technology Becomes Entertainment ™ • soundandvision.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 NATIVE 4K FOR $5K: Sony Breaks A Barrier With The VPL-VW285ES SPIN MASTER TECHNICS BRINGS BACK THE SL-1200 AND REINVENTS THE BEST-SELLING TURNTABLE OF ALL TIME CHEAPER TOP THAN YOU PICKS THOUGHT EPSON’S SHORT-THROW OF THE LS100 PROJECTOR AND ELITE’S AEON SCREEN YEAR GET YOU 100+ INCHES THE VERY BEST FOR A PRICE YOU GEAR FROM 2017 WON’T EXPECT DEMAND PRECISION WE DON’T CHASE TRENDS, AND ARE NEVER CONTENT FOLLOWING — ALWAYS BETTER WITH CONTROL IN OUR HANDS. Demand Series bookshelf speakers are proof of this ethos, conceived and executed under Southern California’s golden hue of innovation. Laterally offset tweeters engineered for the most precise imaging that eliminate symmetric diffraction. Upward firing bass radiators to ensure every aspect of that deep low end is clean, heard and felt within and around you. An extruded aluminum front baffle whose look forever embodies our timeless aesthetic. This and more — because, like you, we demand it. This is what obsession sounds like. DESIGNED IN LEARN MORE AT: CALIFORNIA DEFINITIVETECHNOLOGY.COM 'HƓQLWLYH7HFKQRORJ\//&LVDZKROO\RZQHGVXEVLGLDU\RISound United Inc. 'HƓQLWLYH7HFKQRORJ\LVDUHJLVWHUHGWUDGHPDUNRI'HƓQLWLYH7HFKQRORJ\//& FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 Volume 83 No. 2 ON THE COVER Spin Master: Technics’ new SL-1200GR LOG ON TO soundandvision.com and sign up to receive our turntable. Additional gear from Definitive Technology, Elite ON THE new, free eNewsletter for first-rate, up-to-the-minute reporting Screens, Epson, LG, Sony, and Yamaha. Screen image: Sony WEB of everything that’s hot in the world of home theater. 36 50 42 Flashback: It was 1958, two- channel was new, and we were there. COLUMNS Rob Sabin Track One: How Retro Can You 2017 Top Picks of the Year The year’s best Go? 8 gear. by Rob Sabin 36 Ken C. Pohlmann Signals: It Takes a Licking Straight Steer on Stereo A look back at our and Keeps On Ticking 26 humble beginnings. by Robert Cobb 42 Michael Antonoff Apptitude: Time Lords of YouTube 28 58 Al Griffin Ask S&V: Audio for Video 30 John Sciacca The Connected Life: Installing In-Wall/Ceiling Speakers: Part 2 32 DEMAND MORE DEMAND SERIES™ LEARN MORE AT DEFINITIVETECHNOLOGY.COM &GƂPKVKXG6GEJPQNQI[..%KUCYJQNN[QYPGFUWDUKFKCT[QH5QWPF7PKVGF+PE&GƂPKVKXG6GEJPQNQI[KUC TGIKUVGTGFVTCFGOCTMQH&GƂPKVKXG6GEJPQNQI[..% 66 24 62 REPORTS TEST REPORTS P46-67 Sony VPL-VW285ES LCOS Projector DEPARTMENTS Shift-free 4K. 46 by Thomas J. Norton Letters Theories behind what’s sparking the resurgence of vinyl. 16 Definitive Technology Demand Series D11 Speaker System Perfect Focus 22 Supplying demand. 50 New gear, top news, how to, and more. by Mark Fleischmann New Gear A look at the hottest new A/V gear and gadgets. 34 Yamaha Aventage RX-A2070 A/V Receiver DSP champion. 54 by Dan Kumin Entertainment Baby Driver, Captain Underpants, Warm Bodies, and more on 68 Ultra HD Blu-ray. Technics SL-1200GR Turntable A new lease on life. 58 Premiere Design Sennheiser Ambeo by Michael Trei Smart Headset 74 Epson Home Cinema LS100 LCD Projector and Elite Screens Aeon CLR Screen Go short. 62 54 by Al Griffin Elac Discovery DS-S101-G Music Server Music on tap. 66 by Al Griffin 46 68 Visit The “How We Test” link on our Website for a soundandvision.com ON THE detailed explanation of our testing regimen and a list of WEB our reference gear. soundandvision.com AMPLIFY EVERY MOMENT NAD PUTS YOU IN THE MOMENT, EVERY MOMENT. fT 777 V3 – 7 x 80W Continuous Power, 4 / 8 Ohms (NAD Full Disclosure Power); 7 x 140W FTC fT 758 V3 – 7 x 60W Continuous Power, 4 / 8 Ohms (NAD Full Disclosure Power); 7 x 110W FTC fHi-res multi-room with BluOS®, expandable to 64 zones fIndustry leading Dirac Live® room correction fModular Design Construction future proofs your investment fAward-winning, renowned NAD amplification nadelectronics.com/hometheatre TrFebruary/March a c 2018 k One HOW RETRO CAN YOU GO? As we turn 60, it’s all about analog. Who’da thunk? There’s some real irony in this issue, and their ability to feel a surge of adrenaline or the sweet caress of it wasn’t planned. Well, a little maybe. I goose bumps when some freshly minted speakers mentioned last month in this column unexpectedly brought them a notch closer to the music. that as we came upon this 60th anniv- We owe them some gratitude for building this platform ersary of our launch in February 1958 that has probably lasted longer than any of them might have as HiFi & Music Review, I had it in mind imagined. And we are fortunate to carry on their tradition to celebrate by tapping our archive for at a time when technology is moving so quickly ahead...and some tidbits that might remind us simultaneously backwards. Oh, BY ROB SABIN, EDITOR where we all came from. The first of well. Whichever way it goes, we’ll these flashback features, a primer from be there. Just like always. For six decades, that first issue about a brand-new thing called “stereo,” appears we’ve acted as obser- on page 42. As it turned out, we also happened to complete Our Top Picks of the Year list our review of the recently revamped and relaunched Technics appears in this issue, reflecting vers and advocates.” SL-1200, arguably the most popular turntable of all time with products we reviewed for print or more than 3 million sold since 1972, just in time to stick it on web in the 2017 calendar year the front page. It is, of course, a product that we reviewed in its (up to and including this February/March issue). I’ll spoil the original heyday, one which was undoubtedly much beloved by suspense here and tell you that LG Electronics’ late-generation our readership then and perhaps some portion of it now. How OLED UHDTV took the prize for our product of the year. You very retro, and fitting, to honor it with an anniversary cover can read about why it was chosen in our feature on page 36. that could easily be mistaken for an issue of our predecessor But it’s worth noting here that it’s the first 4K display to be Stereo Review from the early ’70s. given this honor, despite it being more than five years since the Then, as we put the issue to bed, I noticed other things launch of Ultra HD. Up through 2013, we’d typically given the popping up in the editorial mix that, coincidentally, harkened top spot of the Top Picks to the latest and greatest flat-panel to our yesteryears. Technology futurist Shaun DuBravac, display, which was, to that point, a plasma from either Pioneer interviewed for our Perfect Focus section, talks about the or, later, Panasonic. The introduction of each new generation resurgence of vinyl and “a number of retro analog tech- of those televisions was an anticipated event, and they never nologies.” Our own Ken Pohlmann, for this issue’s Signals failed to push the state of the art to new heights. When the column, arbitrarily chose to write what amounts to a love plasmas exited the market, it ushered in a kind of LCD waste- letter to his old analog audio gear. And the subject of vinyl land where even the best of what was offered never quite lived came up again in our Letters section this month as a reader up to what preceded it. In 2014, LG dropped the price of its went off about who’s buying records now...and why. entry-level 1080p OLED to something the mass market could I won’t read too much into this, but there’s something rich afford, and that caught our attention. But that set quickly in the fact that the phoenix-like rise of vinyl is topical at a became outdated as UHD took over the market. Then, from moment when this magazine, which did as much as any that moment on, every UHDTV we tested, regardless of its to popularize high fidelity from its humble beginnings, is image quality—even LG’s spectacular-looking OLEDs—was enjoying its 60th birthday. It’s more than the nostalgia and the at least partially obsolete from the second it got to the market. old “what goes around, comes around” thing. What makes it The industry’s snail-like, several-years roll-out of emerging special, for me anyway, is that as you look out today on all HDMI and HDCP copy protection standards and critical the other entities that report on consumer audio and video features like HDR and wide color gamut meant that an equipment, all the websites and the few remaining print pubs enthusiast couldn’t really purchase an expensive set with out there, aside from the U.K.’s HiFi News & Record Review cutting-edge image quality that he wouldn’t regret buying a (founded two years before us in 1956) none can lay claim year or two later. How could we get behind that? to being there at the inception. What we have done for six I’d be the last guy to tell you that 2018 sets won’t be better decades is act as observers and advocates, excitedly reporting than the 2017s, or that you wouldn’t be well served by wait- on developments that were each, in their own moment, new ing till the 2019 models and whatever they might bring.