Category Archives: Equipment

Philips releasing (at last) a hard disk DVD recorder, plus the largest LCD TV in Australia

Posted on August 26, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Philips Electronics flew me up to Sydney today to have a look at some of its forthcoming products. It was focusing on its new, expanded, Flat TV lineup, but there were some other interesting products there as well. The Flat … Continue reading →

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DVD Recorder hard disk drives getting bigger

Posted on August 20, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Sharp has released the DVHR350X DVD recorder with a built-in hard disk drive (RRP: $AUS1,769). What’s interesting here is that this raises the hard disk size. Previously all DVD recorders incorporating hard disks have used 80GB models, but this one … Continue reading →

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DVD recordable prices continue to fall

Posted on August 18, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

The other day someone in the hi fi industry was telling me about concerns regarding the longevity of recordable DVDs. Some cheap brands, he said, are not properly UV finished so they can go off in a relatively short time … Continue reading →

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Amplifiers and Speakers in The Herald Sun

Posted on August 18, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve switched over from ‘Livewire’ in the Thursday edition of Melbourne’s The Age newspaper, to ‘Connect’ in the Wednesday edition of the Herald Sun. Today’s ‘Connect’ cover story is mine: how to get lots of volume from your speakers without … Continue reading →

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What does that subwoofer ‘phase’ switch do?

Posted on August 16, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Most subwoofers have a switch on the back that’s labelled ‘Phase’, and has positions of 0 and 180 degrees. What this switch does, electrically, is the second easist thing to understand on a subwoofer’s wiring (the easiest is the ‘on/off’ … Continue reading →

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The problem with DVD+R

Posted on August 11, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Whenever I’m writing a short piece on consumer DVD recorders, I have to pick and choose what I will actually talk about. That means leaving out some of the things I consider are probably of less importance to the target … Continue reading →

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Home theatre receiver power output measurements

Posted on August 10, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Since I outlined my measurement methodology in the entry below, here are some recent results found using that methodology (1kHz output only reported). Model Specification Power output per channel (1kHz continuous) 7 5 2 1 Denon AVC-11SR 7 x 125 … Continue reading →

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How — and why — I measure home theatre receiver power output

Posted on August 10, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

A reader, Tony, suggested a couple of months ago, that I write an article on ‘The Steve Dawson method of testing Receivers’. I don’t think it’s worth an article as such, but I would like to outline my process, and … Continue reading →

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HDMI versus component video

Posted on April 23, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

I have previously given my thoughts on the quality differences between a digital and an analogue video connection, but here’s an example of just one difference between them. The occasion was the combination of the new Pioneer DV-S969AVi universal disc … Continue reading →

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Weird Panasonic DVD recorder resolution

Posted on April 16, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve been doing a bunch of DVD recorder reviews lately and, just now, have noticed something decidedly odd about Panasonic DVD recorders. First you should understand that the native resolution for DVD Video is 720 pixels wide by 576 pixels … Continue reading →

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