Coming February 14th: ..Jerry Pomeroy presents the latest Blu-ray Disc sound quality.... AudioletterAudioletter A PUBLICATION OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST AUDIO SOCIETY • FEBRUARY 2008 JANUARY 10th MEETING RECAP Text and Photos by Bruce Brown ince CES fell on the date Dick and Renan played that evening. about ALL genres of music is as- that our meeting was being I have known Dick for quite a few tounding. He was pulling out all held, our own Jazz Journal years and had been trying to open kinds of CD’s and LP’s of people S writer, Dick Mueller, held my schedule up to get over to his that I had never heard of. the meeting. place. I’m a jazz aficionado and I sat in the sweet spot and the hairs With the help of Renan, Dick pre- really thought I knew quite a bit on the back of my neck and down sented us with some great Jazz bands about the genre. Hey, I even saw my arms would stand up like little of the past 50 years. It’s not often Woody Herman play at my college toy soldiers. How was such great that we just sit and listen to some in ’78 and have his autograph! music coming from these big Snell great music at our meetings, with all Right before the January meeting I speakers? Dick has done a fine job of the politics and stuff. This was cer- had the opportunity to hang out with tweaking his system to get the tainly a treat for every jazz lover out Dick for an extended afternoon. To last .5% out of it. As the afternoon there and would encourage everyone say I was humbled is an understate- went on, I tried so hard to remember to track down some of the music that ment. His wealth of knowledge (Continued on page 2) Pacific Northwest Audio Society, P.O. Box 435, Mercer Island, WA 98040 www.audiosociety.org some of the recordings that I had gen at a later date, if he could give a Woody Herman Central heard. I’m just glad it’s Dick that’s demonstration of his speakers and Park West Concord writing the Jazz Journal and that I’m tell us more about its design. Heritage Series/1993 sure on behalf of the other members would encourage him to keep writing The music played for the evening and teaching us about the great musi- was: BREAK cians of our past and present. There might just be a little Mr. Mueller in Gerald Wilson Dave McMurdo all of us. Out of This World With A Song in My Heart Everywhere/1969 Live/1992 At the end of the meeting we had a Maynard Ferguson Bob Brookmeyer little treat. One of our newest mem- Round Midnight Lovely bers approached a couple of the offi- MF Horn 3/1973 Get Well Soon/2003 cers and asked if he would demon- Carl Saunders Charlie Smith Circle strate his speakers. Well since most Never Always Ahead and Behind of our meetings have been planned Bebop Big Band/1999 Ahead and Behind/2003 well in advance, the only opportunity Rob Parton Kim Richmond we have sometimes is either before How Deep is the Ocean Variations or after the meeting. Two Different Refractions/2003 Peigen Jiang has a startup company Days/2004Rob McConnell Kenny Wheeler Winter (www.eficion.com) developing loud- Embraceable You Sweet Siren’s speakers. The unique feature about Brassy & Song/1997 these speakers is that they utilize a Sassy/1992 Jim Knapp honeycomb structured ribbon One O’Clock Lab Band This On Going Home Desk tweeter. LAB On Going Home/1995 Under less than optimal listening 2002/2002 conditions, they actually sounded pretty good. I would encourage Pei- 2 Pacific Northwest Audio Society Audioletter February 2008 By Jerry Pomeroy t’s the beginning of February, tion please let one of the officers days are considerably longer know. Members may nominate and animals are starting to themselves for any office at the loose there winter-coats, March meeting. Isounds like late winter in Seattle. It The position of editor is not an is time to start planning for summer elected position but is recognized as projects. What will it be? a hot tub, a committee head, so the person hold- music Server, paint the house. How ing this position is also a member of about changing the acoustical signa- the Executive committee. Joe ture in your listening room, new fur- Pittman has served faithfully as Edi- nace, water-heater and potentially tor for the last couple of years. His the best thing will be a new electrical business occupies more and more of service. Maybe I will go for a new his time and would like to pass this phono cartridge rather than the hot position on to someone else wanting tub it’s less maintenance. Now you to develop their desktop publishing know what I’ll be up to this spring skills. and summer. As much as I have en- Deal with the administrative joyed serving the club over the last 5 ramblings, without it the club would- years I think my house remodel will n’t continue to present it’s all-star comprise the better part of my time meeting line up. If you haven’t and feel it best to announce I will not looked at the calendar yet the Febru- be available to serve as an officer ary meeting falls on Valentines day. over the next year. Dr Bottlehead was available to do We will be having elections for the Feburary meeting but we decided officers in March. Over the last sev- it best to slide till April 10th allowing eral years a reasonable sized execu- for PR and better attendance, this tive committee has been developed will probably be one of the best to share the load. Comprised of the sounding meeting this year. If you elected officers, the Editor and heads think this last statement to be bold, of committees, the executive com- try a Google search and see what mittee actually runs the club. people say that have heard the tapes. There are three elected offices; More info http:// President, VP and Treasure. The www.tapeproject.com/ primary responsibility of the officers The Feb 14 meeting will center are: the President keeps the club go- around video, material will be ing, VP keeps the notes from the sourced from DVD and Blu-ray meetings and historically has written Disc. I also plan to demonstrate the articles for the newsletter recapping difference between a compressed the last meeting, The Treasure is Dolby digital soundtrack and the responsible for the club finances and 24/48 linear PCM soundtrack avail- keeps membership records. These able on several HD disc. We will be people teamed with the committee using 3-channel audio this meeting. heads and the Editor set the schedule The March 13th meeting we’ll have for upcoming meetings and club several sets of speakers for you to activities. If you would like to have evaluate, all under $3K, you be the more input as to meeting subjects or judge. See Ya. have a vision for the club you need to convey this to the executive com- P.s. I just found out Holly Cole will mittee member or run for office. If be at Jazz Alley March 3rd. you are interested in running for an office or would like more informa- Pacific Northwest Audio Society Audioletter February 2008 3 by Jerry Pomeroy Tech Stuff from CES DVD. offer is still available. Panasonic: unveiled a 11’x 6.25’ Major studios in the different camps plasma TV, that is 150” diagonal. are: Kaleidescape; manufacture of the One of the best things about this HD-DVD Camp high-end video server system an- display is the resolution 4,096 x ♦ Universal, nounced it will bring to market a BD 2,160 known as 4K, that is twice as ♦ DreamWorks, capable machine in 2009. many vertical and horizontal lines as ♦ Paramount 1920x1080. Sony also displayed a ♦ Nickelodeon 3D TV at CES 4K set, just not as big. ♦ MTV Over the last 4 years at CES I have seen numerous versions of 3D video HD disc Blu-ray Disc Camp displays. Like usual most mfg have The HD disc format war isn’t over ♦ Buena Vista (Disney, claimed their system would make it yet but it looks like the Sony’s Blu- Touchstone, Miramax, to market. Samsung showed their ray Disc (BD) may win this round. Pixar) polarized plasma display requiring Toshiba, Microsoft and the DVD glasses. Source for the system were 2 ♦ Fox Forum have not thrown in the towel games, Need for speed Pro-street and ♦ Warner yet. In the wake of Warner’s an- NFL Madden 2008. nouncement that in May they would ♦ New Line Cinema Mitsubishi demonstrated a ver- no longer support HD-DVD and will ♦ Sony (Columbia/Tristar, sion of 3D that doesn’t require any exclusively release on BD the HD- MGM) glasses, to acquire the video they DVD promotions group canceled ♦ Lionsgate used 16 cameras, during playback their press conference at CES. The projectors were mounted in the same spokesman for Warner sited lower BD Players configuration. This system utilizes a Denon is shipping a BD transport than expect sales in both HD formats st special lenticular screen. This system and that having two HD formats has DVD2500BCTI, and by March 1 is obviously cost prohibitive for compounded the fear/reluctance of we should see a BD player DVD- home use but may be feasible in consumers not wanting to end up 3800BDCI; MSRP $999 & $1,999 commercial displays.