Sharp HTSB200 2.1 Channel Sound Bar
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
If you are looking for an alternative to having loads of speakers in your lounge, with the mess of wires that come with them... then check this out.
Product: Sharp HTSB200 2.1 Channel Sound Bar
Price: £129.99
Supplied by: Sharp UK
Contact: 0800 262 958
Check out TestFreaks for more reviews of this product.
Labels: Home Theatre, Reviews
Sharp TU-TV322H Digital TV Recorder Review
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Sharp TU-TV322H Digital TV Recorder has Freeview built in. This smart looking unit really does deliver on its promise. Check out the full review below.
Product: Sharp TU-TV322H Digital TV Recorder with Freeview
Price: £169.99
Supplied by: Sharp UK
Contact: 0800 262 958
Labels: Gadgets, Home Theatre, Reviews
Velodyne CHT-15R Subwoofer Review - Wobbly Legs
Friday, December 14, 2007
When it comes to leisure time, a lot of us enjoy playing a console game or watching a good movie. Gone are the days when the latter means leaving your house for a night out at the cinema. The preferred way of watching a movie nowadays, is at home on your LCD or plasma TV, complete with surround sound. You might be content with your set-up, but the addictive nature of wanting the best picture, and the most awe inspiring sound, will soon have you wanting to upgrade certain parts of your kit. On the sound front, a good set of speakers is essential, but to add that earth shattering bass levels of sound, that shake your booty to extreme levels, you need to look at something above the level of the sub/sat systems that are on the market today. There are plenty of subwoofers available that do a grand job, but to take things to the next level you need to move air, and here we take a look at the Velodyne CHT-15R.There are many models available in the CHT range, the 8R, 10R, 12R, right up to the 15R on test here. Available in a range of colours, dependent on model, you can pick from black, silver or cherry finishes. The black finish on our CHT-15R is really nice, the quality is faultless. Before I kick off with the review good and proper, I should warn you, the 15R is big, not just in performance, but in physical size. It measures approximately 21x21x18 inches and weighs 75 pounds. If you need something a little more lounge friendly then you should look further down the range. All have pretty much the same features, they just differ in performance levels, especially the frequency response and power ratings.
Back to the CHT-15R, this brute packs 1,000 watts of continuous power and a 4.4 pound magnet on the speaker unit. The driver is a massive 15-inch forward firing beast, which delivers a frequency response down to a trouser shaking 23Hz. This is very very low, and the amount of air that is moved when you get powerful in-movie sound effects is quite worrying. You need to appreciate that the 15R delivers the type of movement and rumbles that you can only really experience in the best cinema set-ups... and I am referring to the cinema that you have to travel to, not a home based affair.
Setting up is really easy, and once you have calibrated the 15R with your main speaker levels, you can sit back and enjoy. The included remote control gives you access to the DSP control unit. You can remotely adjust the volume (which aids in balancing the overall sound to blend in with your main speakers), phase adjustment to further match the timbre to your speakers, mute, a night mode (which tones down the output to keep your neighbours happy), plus it gives you access to various presets. The presets available are Movies/R&B, Rock/Jazz, Classical and Games. I am not a great fan of such things, but I must admit they worked admirably. Switching to ‘Games’ seemed to add some extra punch to explosions and sound effects, whereas ‘Classical’ seemed to trim in the settings, to give a more focused and natural bass response.
If your main vice is movies, then the CHT-15R will not disappoint. Testing with the likes of Fifth Element, showed the tight, yet awesomely low frequencies that were being delivered. When you start to ‘feel’ the sound, you know that your sub is really shifting some air. The film U571 has some really loud explosions, and the 15R brought those into my test room with the type of presence I had never experienced from my home cinema system before.
In summary, if you are serious about movie watching and you want the best subwoofer money can buy, then splash your cash on a Velodyne CHT-15R, you will not be disappointed. Just remember to leave enough cash for some rubber bands to tie around your trouser legs.
Product: Velodyne CHT-15R Subwoofer
Price: £799
Supplied by: Redline Scotland Ltd
Contact: +44 (0)131 555 3922
Labels: Home Theatre, Review
New Compact Surge Protector from Belkin
Monday, July 02, 2007
Surge Protectors are an essential piece of equipment in every house hold and are often not the first product people think of when we mention design and style. However all that has changed with the launch of the new Compact Surge Protector from Belkin. Designed to have a small foot print and modern, sleek look the new Compact Surge Protector can accommodate up to six sockets spaced far enough apart that the unit can be filled to capacity even with over sized power blocks. The unique design means that all sockets are easily accessible whilst the unit remains as compact as possible.Against a baseboard, mounted on a wall or on the floor behind a desk, couch or bed the Compact Surge Protector takes up minimal space and the solid, simple design reduces clutter and maintains a modern yet inconspicuous look. The unit comes with available Phone/Fax/Modem and Coaxial protection and a single indicator lights clearly shows that the unit is powered on and protecting your equipment. This unit is available for £24.99 from Belkin stockists.
Labels: Home Theatre, Mac Peripherals, PC Peripherals
PureAV Isolator - filter your power
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The Belkin PureAV Isolator Surge Protector does so much more than just provide eight surge protected power sockets. Designed for the home theatre market, it is just as suited to computer use, we take a look at what it has to offer.Nowadays, it seems like we live in a totally wired world, with many manufacturers now striving to bring us an UNwired world. Even if we manage to get rid of most of the wires in our set-ups, it is a forgone conclusion that all of our gadgets, whether home theatre, computer or gadget related, will all need power. Wireless power will never happen, as this is a bit dangerous :-)
There are a lot of surge protector products available, and even from Belkin, you can buy a cheaper product with up to 9 sockets. The PureAV Isolator offers that little bit more, on top of the eight sockets available. For a start the sockets are clearly labeled with the most popular devices your may have, so this makes for easy identification. The unit is also very heavy and well made, a mix of metal and plastic construction that really feels high quality. One of the first things I noticed and liked was that it has built in cable management, so the excess mains cable (which is 3m long) is wrapped around the body of the unit and tucks neatly away.
The PureAV also uses power filter technology (PFT) which isolates any noise coming through the mains channel. You would be surprised, that even with new mains cabling in your house, it can still be quite contaminated with noise. It also protects against electromagnetic interference and radio frequency interference. Sounds very techy, and it is, but all you need know is that the high quality components are helping to deliver the cleanest and smoothest electricity to your equipment.
You can also run through two phone lines and your satellite, cable, or regular antenna, so these are protected too. The unit comes supplied with three 1.8 metre cables for telephone, gold coaxial and aerial, so you have those extra leads available from the offset. To keep things neat there are some cable tidy wraps and wall mounting screws, so it seems like Belkin really have thought of everything.
The build quality, the lifetime product warranty, the unlimited connected equipment warranty, and the fact that this product delivers the highest level of protection you are likely to need, all adds up to a very sensible purchase. Yes, you can buy cheaper, but I doubt at this price point you could buy better.
Product: Belkin PureAV Home Theatre Surge Protector
Model: 8 socket (F9G823uk3M)
Price: £79.99
Supplied by: Belkin UK
Contact: +44 (0)1933 35 2000
Labels: Home Theatre, Mac Peripherals, PC Peripherals
205-inch Technovision Luxio LCD HDTV
Monday, March 19, 2007
Technovision is showing off their 205-inch LCD at CeBit, that makes the formerly buff Sharp 108-inch LCD feel downright pathetic. That's enough space to park two mini coopers on, side by side. Wait...TechnovisionWho?via Gizmodo read more | digg story
Labels: Home Theatre
Griffin XpressCable review - optical goodness
Monday, February 26, 2007
Griffin Technology, better known for their iPod accessories also make a variety of cable solutions. Previous reviews of their products have revealed great quality, so I was very interested to learn if their Xpress Cable would keep up the good work.The Griffin XpressCable is a digital optical audio cable, coloured white with grey accents to the tips, it measures in at three meters long. So straight out of the packaging you can use it for connecting various audio equipment like a DVD player or your XBox 360.
Also supplied is a pair of 3.5mm mini-jack adapters. These can be plugged onto either or both ends of the cable, converting the toslink connection to a 3.5mm stereo jack. This allows you to take advantage of some Apple Mac's digital audio outputs, such as the Mac Mini, PowerMac G5, Airport Express, not forgetting the later Intel based Macs, oh and before I forget, the iPod Hifi.
So, a cable is a cable, yes? Well, a lot of people say that digital signals are already digital, so a £5 cable will work as good as a £50 one. I strongly disagree with this misconception. The XpressCable is well constructed, the plugs seem to have longer bodies to them, so you get a real solid connection. I have experienced optical cables before that just fall out of my XBox 360, but there was no such problem with the Griffin Cable. Audio delivery was crisp and clean, definitely on par with optical cables costing double the money. If you want a well constructed cable that delivers great audio, without breaking the bank, then look no further... oh and I almost forgot, it is white in colour, so it will match your Mac gear to a tee.
Product: Griffin Technology XpressCable
Price: $19.99
UK Street Price: £12.00
Supplied by: Griffin Technology
Contact: +1 (615) 399-7000
Labels: Home Theatre, Mac Accessories
Lindy Premium Gold Flat Scart Cable Review
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Lindy Premium Gold Flat SCART cable promises to deliver a "Superior quality connection for your Home Cinema equipment", well it certainly is a unique looking cable, so let's take a look at what you get for your hard earned money…To kick things off, if you have plenty of cables and things are maybe looking a bit messy, you know the normal spaghetti junction, then this flat design may well help things out. It can easily be routed through tight spaces, even underneath equipment if that makes it easier to hide things.
The gold plated connectors are absolutely fantastic, some of the best quality I have experienced. When inserting into the back of equipment, I found the connection to be very easy and more importantly secure.
I tested the Premium Gold Flat Scart Cable with two different devices. A Pioneer DV454 DVD player and a Panasonic DMR-EX85 HDD recorder. The Pioneer showed the biggest improvement over the standard supplied scart cable. The easiest way to describe it in layman terms is that there was less interference and the picture picked up a definite sharpness (whilst still looking very natural). The Panasonic delivered a good picture anyway, but I still saw a slight improvement in detail.This cable from Lindy UK is available in a variety of lengths, with the 1m version on test costing £21.99. For this very reasonable amount you get a really high quality scart cable. A lot of people shun spending money on things like this, but if you put this up against the scart cable that came with your kit, you will be amazed. If you are just starting out, then put aside £40 or £50 at least for a couple of these, you will not regret it.
Product: Lindy Premium Gold Flat SCART Cable (1m)
Price: £21.99
Supplied by: Lindy UK
Contact: +44 (0) 1642 754000
Labels: Home Theatre
Lindy Premium Gold HDMI Cable Review
Friday, February 16, 2007
If you have found yourself investing in new HD technology lately, then you best treat yourself (and your kit) to something that will give you the best out of your investment. Everything is moving into the High Definition age, and connections are changing. Scart is out and even component video connections, which for a long time were considered to give the best picture available, are being replaced by HDMI.In the same vein that a scart cable bundled with a DVD player was pretty useless, this new HD kit either comes with a very flimsy cheap HDMI cable, or more often than not, none at all. The Premium Gold HDMI cable from Lindy UK offers a really robust looking cable, with some high quality construction, without asking ridiculous prices…
The cable is of a striking blue colour, it is triple shielded and comes with 24K gold plated connectors. The connector on each end is of a unique RF-BLOK patented design, which provides increased EMC shielding and reduces interference. Now, whilst I could not test for this interference in my set-up, I should add that the clarity of image delivered by the Lindy cable over the one bundled with the Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player was nothing short of phenomenal. The colours were vibrant, there was no fringing and just the overall feel of the cable construction oozed quality.
The two metre cable we tested here costs £48.99, which is not cheap, but you will be hard pushed to pick up this length and quality of HDMI cable anywhere else. You can buy the Premium Gold HDMI Cable direct from Lindy UK in lengths from 0.5m to 15m, and you get a 25 year warranty thrown in for good measure. Remember to add one of these to your 2007 High Def shopping list.
Product: Lindy Premium Gold 2m HDMI Cable
Price: £48.99
Supplied by: Lindy UK
Contact: +44 (0) 1642 754000
Labels: Home Theatre, Reviews
Octava 5x1 HDMI Switch Review
Monday, February 05, 2007
The Octava HDMI Switch that we are testing at Geekanoids was kindly supplied to us by The Media Factory, who supply a number of home theatre solutions. Anything from cabling right up to a top of the range plasma screen.The Octava HDMI switch offers a solution to a problem that we will all no doubt encounter over the coming months. With the introduction of so many high definition products onto the market, that all use an HDMI connection, screen manufacturers are often slow to keep up. Take a look at the back of your screen, if you are lucky enough to have a high definition screen, you may have one or two HDMI sockets at the most. Well, the PS3 is just around the corner, your upscaling DVD player already takes up one, another for the SKY HD box, oh and don't forget that new XBox 360 version 2, which is bound to be HDMI... you see the problem !
Basically, the idea of the Octava HDMI switch is to offer a number of inputs and outputs for high definition devices. There are four versions available from The Media Factory, a 3x1, 3x2, 4x1 with digital audio switching, and the 5x1 version that we are looking at here. For £149.95 plus delivery, you get five HDMI inputs and one output that you feed to your screen. Five inputs should see you right for the foreseeable future, so the asking price really does represent great value for money…
The unit itself is an all metal affair, powder coated in silver paint, and really does feel well built. On the front of the unit there are five blue LED's which show you the input you are viewing. The front also sports the infrared receiver (for the supplied remote) and a Smart Scan button.
When you switch the unit on the LED's cycle and you are ready to go. The Smart Scan feature is on by default and it really is SMART. When you switch an HDMI source on, for example your HD DVD player, the switch senses this and changes to the correct input. If no devices are on, the switch goes into standby mode. Smart Scan can be switched off with the button on the front if you need to do so.
The supplied remote control also allows you to manually select inputs, which is handy if a device does not trigger the Smart Scan. In our tests this feature worked perfectly and the Octava switch really was transparent to the system we were testing.
Each device we used was first tested without the switch in place. The Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player which delivers a superb, crystal clear picture was unaffected by introducing the Octava switch. Onto the Panasonic DMR-EX85, which is an HDD recorder with upscaling features, and again the picture was very clear with or without the switch in use.
The Octava HDMI switch uses a proprietary design called Clear Eye, which claims to improve the digital video signals. Although this really needs to be measured properly, with the naked eye I was certain that the Toshiba picture did take on a little sharper appearance. Over longer cable runs I would expect this technology to improve things even more.
The big question is if this is a good buy? Well, if you need an HDMI switch then yes, it is a great piece of kit, and very well built too. The 3x1 version costs just £119.95, so for the extra £30 you are getting two very valuable extra inputs. I would definitely buy the 5x1 version if funds allowed. The fact that it supports up to 1080P resolution, and that it works so easily and transparently, it comes very highly recommended.
Product: Octava Automatic 5x1 HDMI Switch (HDS5-UK)
Price: £149.95 + delivery
Supplied by: The Media Factory
Contact: +44 (0)1968 661 803
Labels: Home Theatre, Reviews
The Authors
Dave
Dave has been in the graphic design industry for 14 years. Long time reviewer of technology related products, he is Owner/Editor of Geekanoids.
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This site covers all the latest Macintosh, technology & gadget related news. We also bring our readers thorough, unbiased reviews of computer software, hardware & peripherals, with some alternative products thrown into the mix.
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