"It Might Get Loud" is definitely one of the best rock documentaries I've seen in a while. Thankfully, it doesn't have a narrator spouting somber lines about the importance of it all. You don't have to suffer through inserted clips of celebrities and other musicians babbling about how great Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White are.
The filmmakers cover the three guitar greats individually doing their things, but the film is at its best when the musicians get together on a film sound stage to talk shop and jam.
There's a great little scene in the beginning where White hammers together a one-string electric guitar on a 2 by 4 hunk of wood. He plugs the contraption in to an amp and wails, and it's very, very cool. Filmed interviews with Page are pretty rare, so it's especially nice to hear his side of the Led Zeppelin story.
Oh, and there's a cool clip of a very young, maybe 12- or 13-year-old Edge playing with his band. White teaches a 9-year-old actor (who is playing the 9-year-old White) how to bash away on guitar. Sounds goofy, but it totally works. My favorite scene: White and the Edge sit there, dumbstruck, watching Page rip through "Whole Lotta Love." If you love their music, that clip alone is worth the price of the Blu-ray.
Two discs serve up five-plus hours of prime Zeppelin.
The film's pacing isn't so hot, and there's not enough of the three masters actually playing together. Still, there's lots to like. By the way, all of the deleted scenes are actually better than a lot of stuff in the movie proper.
The Blu-ray looks and sounds great.
After "It Might Get Loud" I watched some of the "Led Zeppelin" two-DVD set, which is jam-packed with more than five hours of music. Page and the boys at their prime in the '70s are still flat-out amazing.
Tell us about your favorite music documentaries in the Comments section below.
For those of you with older receivers lacking HDMI connectivity, or perhaps for audiophiles with stereo home theater systems, the Oppo BD-83 Special Edition player is for you.
You see, the new Oppo player handles the digital-to-analog conversion at a higher standard than the original--and still available--BD-83 player. So rather than use its HDMI connectivity you hookup the Special Edition's eight analog (7.1) outputs to the multichannel inputs on older receivers or sound processors. Don't worry if your receiver is limited to 5.1, the Special Edition will work perfectly well with those systems. The Special Edition would be the go-to player for HT 2.0 (stereo) systems.
(Credit:
Oppo)
The BD-83 is known for its exceptional audio and video performance, the BDP-83 Special Edition is upgraded with an all new analog audio stage and improved power supply.
The Special Edition uses the Sabre32 family of Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs) from ESS Technology. Stereo lovers take note: the player's dedicated stereo output uses another 8-channel Sabre32 DAC chip by stacking multiple DACs for the left and right channels "to achieve even greater audio performance" in stereo. The Special Edition's HDMI output bypasses all that good stuff, so it would be a waste of money to use it that way.
The 7.1 analog outputs are the reasons to buy the Special Edition player.
(Credit: Oppo)Just like the BDP-83, the Special Edition is a Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player featuring bitstream and full decoding capability for Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio.
(Credit:
Marantz)
Marantz currently offers a full line of stereo and home theater components, but in the 1950s, the company was one of America's most prestigious hi-fi brands. Early Marantz products were designed and built by Saul B. Marantz in his home in Kew Gardens, New York. Those hand-built components now fetch huge dollars on the used market.
So naturally, I was interested in what Home Entertainment magazine's Richard Ames had to say about the Marantz UD9004 "universal" player. The $6,000 machine spins Blu-ray, SACD, DVD-Audio, and CDs.
The UD9004's rear panel.
(Credit: Marantz)It certainly looks the part: the Marantz UD9004's copper-plated chassis, thick aluminum/resin front panel, and aluminum-and-zinc die-cast parts are many steps above the build quality of mainstream Blu-ray players. The UD9004 tips the scales at a hefty 42.3 pounds, more than many receivers.
The rear panel hosts two HDMI outputs, so you can send the audio to the receiver without having to route them to the TV. On the analog side, you get XLR balanced outputs for the main left/right, and eight channels of RCA outputs for surround.
Inside, there are 32-bit Analog Devices SHARC processors for the HD audio decoding and up to 192 kHz/32-bit digital-to-audio conversion on all channels.
The luxury feel of the disc drawer, and the way it silently slides in and out, doesn't happen with most Blu-ray players.
Ames found the sound to be "incredibly lifelike; you can hear the notes reverberate though the recording space, not just the initial notes."
Some may quibble about the "need" for a $6,000 Blu-ray player, but the same guilt trip could be laid on any number of luxury products. No one needs a $122,000 Porsche Panamera 4S to drive to work, or a $7,000 Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III digital SLR camera to take a picture. But some people who can afford the best buy it, and the Marantz UD9004 is for them.
No, the Goldmund Eidos Reference Blu-ray player is not made of gold.
(Credit: Goldmund)It sure looks expensive, and at $135,000, the Goldmund Eidos Reference Blu-ray player is definitely in the upper crust of Blu-ray players in terms of cost.
Hand-built in Geneva, the Eidos Reference Blue is a truly rarefied design. Limited in production to 50 units, dawdlers will be left having to make do with a plain vanilla Denon or Sony Blu-ray player.
Will the Goldmund outperform the Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player we raved about a few days ago? I have no idea, but I do know that a $20 Casio watch keeps time just as well as a Patek Philippe Ref. 5102G that costs, gasp, $181,650!
My point: buying decisions for ultraexotic products aren't based solely on performance; they're more about a company's long heritage of building luxury designs and backing them up with extraordinary service.
The rich and famous still buy Ferraris that are no faster than a Corvette that sells for a fraction of the Ferrari's price. But Ferrari buyers want more than just speed--they want to be, well, special. They buy it for its looks and how it's made. It's the same deal with uber hi-fis.
(Source: Ultimate AV Web site)
I bought a ticket and was ready to go to Woodstock; however, my ride chickened out and I missed the seminal musical event of the 1960s.
The thing is, over the course of those three days in August 1969, I, even a 20-year-old, was glad I missed it.
Sure, three days of peace and music sounds nice, but Woodstock was an instant media legend. Granted, great bands were there by the helicopter load; but the sound, as best as I could tell, was awful for the crowd gathered. Unlike today's high-powered concert sound systems that can easily play sound loud enough to cause hearing loss, the Woodstock system was probably pretty low intensity volumewise. Then again, I'm sure most of the 500,000 Woodstock Nation attendees were grooving under their own power.
That, combined with the rain, mud, and less than stellar lavatories would have made me pretty miserable.
I bought the "Woodstock: Music from the original Soundtrack" LP when it came out, and I saw the film--in 70mm in Manhattan. For me, those were a lot better than being there. I listened to the best music of the three days and didn't have to endure the rest of ordeal.
Think about it: The edited, perfected versions of the event are the ways most folks have experienced Woodstock. Most people were either too young to go in the first place, and most boomers, like myself, didn't get there. For us, Woodstock is the movie or music.
I just wonder for those who were there, have the movie and soundtrack albums replaced their memories of the actual event? There seems to be an endless stream of Woodstock titles coming out.
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For long-term satisfaction, speakers trump video every time.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)A good friend of mine is still fuming over picking HD-DVD over Blu-ray. He's held the grudge so long he just recently dumped the player and even some of the discs and bought a Blu-ray player.
I know another guy who's steamed that his $2,000 6-year-old receiver doesn't have HDMI switching, so to get Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio he plays his Blu-ray over the receiver's 5.1 channel analog inputs. Fine, but the receiver doesn't do any sort of bass management over its analog inputs. The sound isn't so hot.
Do you know anybody who bought a plasma TV in 1999 for around $10,000 who still uses it as their primary display? I don't, but I'd bet most of those buyers are on their second or third display by now.
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The box is jam-packed with stuff, but is a little short on unreleased musical content.
It's pricey. The "Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972" Blu ray box goes for $349; the DVD is $250; and the CD set a mere $100. The Blu-ray box contains a sprawling 11-disc collection. Young's been working on this set for what feels like decades; was it worth the wait?
There's a beautifully bound, embossed-"leather," covered book with tons of cool pictures. Hard-core fans will love it, everyone else will look through it once and be done with it.
There's only one unreleased live disc, "Live at the Riverboat 1969." The Blu ray box also includes "Live at Canterbury House" (not a Blu-ray, just a DVD and CD), "Live at the Fillmore East 1970," and "Live at Massey Hall 1971," which have been individually released over the past couple of years. I already bought them, as I'm sure many fans have. What a rip off to make us buy them again.
Most discs have music running times of under 60 minutes, so why oh why didn't Neil fill up more of the discs' capacity, or did he just need to justify an exorbitant MSRP? $350 for 11 discs? Strange, Hollywood movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make retail for under 20 bucks a pop, so why does Neil charge $31 for a disc for music he made nearly 40 years ago? Rip off.
The Blu-ray features ultrahigh resolution 24-bit /192 kHz stereo sound, which you can play over some newer AV receivers, but I'm not so sure that any high-end electronics can access the superduper-sounding PCM tracks. Surround sound? Only one disc has surround. Blu-ray sound quality is about the same as the previously released 24 bit/96 kHz sound on the DVDs that came out years ago. Don't buy the Blu-ray box for the sound; the DVDs are fine.
I had a rough time navigating the Blu-rays' stupidly designed menus and accessing some of the "bonus" material and "hidden" tracks. Hey, I paid my money, why do I have to go round and round to find the music I paid for?
As for video "content," I don't know about you, but watching an LP playing on a turntable or reel-to-reel tapes spinning gets old really fast. Reading pages of text off my TV is also less than entertaining. The photo galleries are nice.
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Sony got it right with the CD.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)Betamax was one of Sony's biggest blunders.
The videocassette format was introduced in 1975, and initially sold well. But when JVC's VHS tape cartridge was introduced in 1978, Betamax quickly lost its lead. The media loved Beta for its superior picture quality, but Standard Betamax tapes were only 60 minutes, and VHS 3-hour tapes could record more TV shows.
VHS was more popular, but Betamax refused to die. Production in the U.S. ended in 1993, and the last Betamax machine in the world was produced in Japan in 2002.
Ah, but the Compact Disc was a hit from the get-go. On August 31, 1982, an announcement was made in Tokyo that four companies, Sony, CBS/Sony, Philips, and Polygram had jointly developed the world's first CD system. Talk of the CD's demise are premature, sales are still in the hundreds of millions of discs a year.
The MiniDisc was introduced January 12, 1992. The recordable music format was originally based exclusively on ATRAC audio data compression, but the format never caught on in the U.S. MiniDiscs were popular in Japan and Asia as a digital upgrade from cassette tapes.
Which reminds me, Sony's ill-fated Elcaset came out in 1976. Like Betamax, Sony was trying to make a higher quality tape format, in this case better than the Philips Compact Cassette. Elcaset was better, but it was too large and cumbersome. Elcaset was a flop.
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If CDs really are on their way out, Sony is ready with their replacement: Blu-spec CDs.
Although details about the new format, launched in Japan in November, are somewhat scant, we do know that users won't need a new player for Blu-spec CDs.
"The Blu-spec CD format boasts a new approach to the faithful reproduction of music by utilizing the leading-edge blue laser diode technologies optimized for the manufacturing of Blu-ray," according to CDJapan. The new discs' polycarbonate plastic, optimized for Blu-ray discs, is used "to ensure accurate reading of the data."
Sony doesn't claim that the Blu-spec CD sounds any better than a CD or how the new discs compare with Sony's previous and nearly dead super-CD format, Super Audio CD (SACD).
Although Sony made its Blu-spec PR splash in Japan, a few titles to the United States. The site lists Blu-spec CDs from Aerosmith, Jeff Beck, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Weather Report. While most Blu-spec CDs carry a list price of $25 in Japan, Amazon.com is selling them for $35.49 here.
Another CD format, SHM-CD, seems to be similar to Blu-spec CD, but with non-Sony artists.
Have you heard a Blu-spec CD or SHM-CD yet?
So much to watch, so little time.
What are the chances you'll actually watch a DVD/Blu-ray more than once or twice?
I know a lot of folks who never watch most of the discs they buy. They've already seen the film when it was in theaters, and enjoyed it, so they buy it. Sure, little kiddies can watch a flick over and over again, but if you're over 12 it's a rare film that bears repeated viewing.
Box sets are even worse. OK, it's one thing to buy a three-disc box like Law & Order - The Second Year, but who's gonna watch all 33 DVDs in The Sopranos - The Complete Series, or the 32 discs in Seinfeld - The Complete Series? These shows are still on TV virtually every night for free, but I'd bet HBO is raking in tons of loot with the Sopranos box, it retails for $400 (and around $260 online)! I wonder how much they'll charge for the complete Blu-ray box.
I guess people buy these things to prove their love. They're physical keepsakes of their memories, and maybe the boxes look good on the shelf. Oh, and this time of year they make great gifts.
Gifts are one thing, but the question is, why do we continue to buy these things, why not just rent 'em? I'm the audio guy, so I'd like to point out the money you would save not buying discs would add up, and you could invest that dough in better speakers and/or electronics. Something you would actually use on a daily basis.
CDs on the other hand are repeatable pleasures. When I buy something new that I like, such as the Paul McCartney/Fireman Electric Arguments CD, it stays in heavy rotation, with 10 or more plays within two to three weeks. After that, I'll probably slow down, but I'm still playing Beatles LPs and CDs I bought decades ago on a regular basis.
I watch concert DVDs and Blu-rays over and over again, so it's not like I have something against the formats.
Maybe I'm missing something here, please tell me why you buy movie or TV show DVDs or Blu-rays.
