sunfire

Sunfire TGR-401: Finally, a powerful AV receiver

Today's audiovisual receivers are jam-packed with features, but the rarest feature is real power.

Power in the range of 100-to-150 watts or so is all you get, even in the high-end models. Models with 200 watts are rare, so we were excited to hear about the TGR-401, Sunfire's latest 200-watt receiver. Sunfire's in-house genius Bob Carver has a knack for designing high power amplifiers. Carver, in fact, designed the world's first consumer high power amp, the legendary 350 watt by two channel Phase Linear 700 stereo amp in 1972.

Carver's latest, the TGR-401 ($4,000), is a 200 watt by seven channel AV receiver that sports three HDMI version 1.3a inputs.

Hidden behind a viscously damped, brushed aluminum door the front video connections may be assigned as Y/Pr/Pb/optical for HD gaming, or composite/S-Video/analog for camcorders with a simple press of a button.

The TGR-401's Auto EQ provides a simple, automatic process to equalize all seven channels plus the subwoofer. For the installing dealer, who would like to perform hands-on tweaking, there are detailed manual adjustments available for each channel pair.

Also onboard is Sunfire's remarkable Sonic Holography circuit. Invented by Bob Carver in the 1980s, Sonic Holography creates a wide and deep soundstage from stereo recordings. … Read more

Hard-Fi: the joys of turning it up to 11

Playing music and movies really loud is a lot of fun, too bad most of you are missing out on that part of the experience. Obviously, the speakers built into TVs aren't up to the job, and that's the way 80% of you experience TV. HTIB owners are likewise out of luck. Yeah, they may boast of having "1,000" watts on tap, but if you believe that, well, puhleeze! That 8 pound amplifier may, on a good day, squeeze out a few hundred watts.

If you really want to feel something when you're watching … Read more

Sunfire CRM-2 Cinema Ribbon: The biggest sounding tiny speaker you can buy

Nowadays it seems like everybody wants tiny speakers. Catch is, most small speakers sound small--they squash dynamic range, can't play at all loud, and produce a lot more distortion than large speakers. I've always been frustrated by the sound of really tiny speakers--until I reviewed Sunfire's CRM-2 satellite ($800 each) in the May, 2007 issue of Home Theater magazine .

With its grille removed you notice something unusual: the CRM-2's front baffle is almost completely covered by a 6-inch "ribbon" tweeter (essentially a lightweight aluminum foil, suspended between neodymium magnets). The ribbon's ultra-low moving … Read more

A power tube amp for the arch villain

We've long had a weakness for tube amplifiers, partly because they remind us those bolts of electricity flying around Frankenstein's laboratory. But the latest model from Ayon Audio updates that retro look with a chrome finish that's more Dr. Evil than Dr. Jekyll.

Proving that it's not just a pretty face, the hand-built "Sunfire" provides 30 watts per channel along with its brushed aluminum chassis. Audio Junkies says there may be some trademark issues involved with its name, but we'll leave that to the lawyers. This thing looks like it could pulverize its … Read more