Category Archives: Testing

Frustration, for want of a numeric keypad

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

This past week or so I have had sitting in my office, too large to lightly put aside, a 55 inch Samsung LED/LCD TV. It looks lovely with its aluminium bezel, and its extraordinary sub-8mm panel thickness (over most of … Continue reading →

Posted in Rant, Testing | 1 Comment

Blue Collar Writing

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

When you are a sole operator in any kind of business you need to be kind of a jack of all trades. So while I have the ‘dream job’ of playing with gadgets and watching movies and listening to music, … Continue reading →

Posted in Admin, Testing | Leave a comment

It’s nice to be right sometimes

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

The next issue of Sound and Image should contain my review of the Panasonic 50 inch 3DTV. In that review I wrote: The very first TV for which I formally measured the power consumption using the international standards was the … Continue reading →

Posted in Eco, Equipment, Testing | 1 Comment

Why do they do that?

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Some years ago I reviewed Sony Minidisk deck. Nice unit, but I was confused in that it had more optical connections than it was supposed to, and fewer coaxial ones. Later it was revealed that the device I had in … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Equipment, Testing | 1 Comment

From the archives – 1998

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve just submitted my review column for this Monday’s The Canberra Times (the Panasonic PT-AE4000E full HD projector, if you’re interested). As I glanced through the folder containing these reviews, my eye fell on one I did back in late … Continue reading →

Posted in CD, Testing | Leave a comment

Fine music and fine wine

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Sometimes I think the art of listening to hifi — not for the music, but for the performance of the system — is somewhat like the art of tasting wine. Long time readers would realise from that association that I … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Giveaway, Imperfect perception, Mysticism, Testing | 4 Comments

Saturday morning equipment abuse

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

TNT carriers seem to be a bit short staffed at the moment. Half an order for some review products failed to arrive with the other half, and another full order simply hadn’t arrived as this last week drew to a … Continue reading →

Posted in Equipment, Rant, Testing | 6 Comments

Blu-ray reviewing – verity or result?

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

In comments on an earlier post, Peter draws attention to another negative review of The Fellowship of the Ring. This gives 3/5 stars for video quality. The other review suggests 2.5/5. Once again, the finger is pointed at digital noise … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Cinema, Rant, Testing | 6 Comments

Testing and cheating

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Has LG Electronics been naughty? Apparently it had installed a ‘circumvention device’ in a couple of its refrigerators. This, it is said, turns down the fridges when it senses they are in a 22C environment. The aim was to reduce their … Continue reading →

Posted in Testing | 1 Comment

The flexible eye again

Posted on February 26, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

From another old post, but I thought I’d actually include the picture this time, since the source website says ‘These checkershadow images may be reproduced and distributed freely’. The squares marked A and B are the same level or brightness … Continue reading →

Posted in Imperfect perception, Testing | Leave a comment