In this issue of Sound & Image

Features

Australia’s Best Installations

Two spectacular Sydney homes this issue, including an award-winning historic beach house rebuild and a stunning three-storey hilltop retreat with all the smarts

What is a Smart Home?

Confused by the endless possibilities for integrated entertainment, smart lighting and climate control in the home? We show how to construct a solution from the many possible pieces of a smart home

Taipei Hi-End Show

They were scraping audiophile drool from the carpets of Taipei’s Grand Hotel after this high-end hi-fi show, its corridors tramped by our intrepid reporter Greg Borrowman...

Lip sync

Image processing in the latest TVs can delay video by a fifth of a second. Unless you set things up correctly, things can rapidly become unwatchable...

equipment reviews

Philips Cineos 42-inch TV

Philips releases a full-HD LCD TV with superbly smooth picture processing — then announces it will leave the Australian TV market at the end of the year. Bummer.

Baumann Meyer 46-inch TV

Full-HD performance from this HD1080 LCD TV with riveting colour performance from a company that cares...

Samsung Series-6 46-inch TV

Samsung may be promoting the red-resin external aesthetics of its latest full-HD LCD TVs, but the true beauty lies in their stunning picture performance

Focal Electra loudspeakers

All the hi-fi boxes are ticked by the fine sound emerging from these gorgeous French floorstanders, the Focal Electra 1027 S

Olin Blu-ray player

Australia’s first Blu-ray player under $500 proves itself no slouch in the performance stakes, despite the attractive price tag

Earthquake Supernova sub

Built to impress, Earthquake’s Supernova subwoofer promises depth, power and accuracy for your home theatre thrills. We set up the seismic sensors...

Eltax Summit 5.1 speakers

Nice lines and impressive sound at the price from this Danish 5.1-channel speaker package

Pioneer Susano amplifier

Our cover star and Pioneer’s massive $10,999 range-topper is named after the Shinto God of sea and storms. We find out why...

InFocus X10 AV projector

It’s a full-HD projector, and by using a different DLP chip, the company has hit a price of just $3699. Performance reduction also? No way...

Strong HD set-top box

Excellent HD performance from this simple HDTV receiver at just $239

Swans Speakers 5.1 speakers

Not only great sound, this 5.1-channel speaker package has beautiful construction using piano-gloss baffles on clear glass surrounds

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Departments

Ed Lines

The Editor ponders the many levels of beauty beyond common aesthetics

News

Digital radio delayed; Blu-ray players under $500; Swedish and Swiss minimalism from Geneva; Sony goes big on home networking; Samsung introduces LED Smartlighting TVs; new top-end speakers from Azlan and Legend Acoustics; plus the latest news from IFA Berlin

Sound Off

Newsflash: forgotten French genius beats Edison to make the first recording of a human voice. Sadly he couldn’t play it back again...

listening & viewing

CD reviews

The Redsunband’s second truly indie release impresses reviewer Lesley Sly as she loads up an eclectic CD set including Joseph Tawadros’ modern oud compositions, Bach works from Roger Woodward, plus the latest from Adem, Holly Throsby, The Telltales, and Cassandra Wilson

DVD music reviews

Radiohead’s Best Of DVD leaves us wanting less abstract imagery and more of the actual band; the Genesis 3-DVD set of their European tour proves they still can’t dance; and we bravely endure what should be the world’s shortest DVD the best of Country Music Channel 2008...

Blu-ray reviews

We farewell Paul Newman with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, plus The Sixth Sense, The Golden Compass and Cloverfield