Carlton Audio Visual - Hi Fi & Audio Visual Store, Melbourne Australia blogs

Cat sat on the amp

Sat, 11 May 2013 16:48:56 +1000

Just a reminder to stop your cat from sleeping on your amplifier, even though it's lovely and warm. This is the result of one of our lovely customers who's feline friend spent 2 consecutive winters using his hifi system as a bed...

NASA boom room

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:39:51 +1000

In order to evaluate the effects of sonic booms NASA have built a room that is something of a wet dream for an audio enthusiast. Comprising 52 JL Audio subwoofers amongst other transducers the room is capable of emulating the overpressure and SPL of different degrees of sonic boom shockwave whilst appearing to be an ordinary American middle class living area in order to evaluate the tolerance of households to potential regular supersonic aircraft.

Joy of source

Tue, 07 May 2013 09:13:55 +1000

Occasionally I am reminded of the old Ivor Tiefenbraun of Linn fame philosophy that he used to create the charisma of the original Linn Sondek LP12 turntable in the UK in the late seventies.

Kirfed

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:30:32 +1000

Have you been Kirfed lately?

Oh what difference a (couple of) year(s) makes.

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 16:17:27 +1100

I’ve come back to Carlton AV after leaving some 2 years ago. I’ve spent the intervening time in a career that makes listening to music with people in a HiFi store seem like a real job, but that’s a different story. What is really interesting is to see the change of direction in the HiFi industry after paying very little attention to it for a few years.

Competitive Strategy

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:57:45 +1100

Michael Porter's seminal treatise was a study of how to sustain market position and viability without losing money … it works up to a point.

It’s a bit like Quantum Physics you know, there comes a point where things are small enough where they are neither particle or wave, matter or energy. In small business in Australia the forces of competition and customer discretion are so intense that normal sales and purveyance practice is distorted in the same way that a gravity well in the heart of a large star distorts our physics.

Fourier analysis and humans and music

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:51:33 +1100

I don't pretend to understand mathematics and harmonic analysis to the level required, however the mystery of how our brains perceive sound has been deepened of late and it appears that musicians ... yes all you chaps who stay up late in cloudy rooms making loud noises ... are capable of smashing through mathematical limits on sonic perception imposed by this famous algorithm.

RIP George Aratani

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 16:35:54 +1100

Mr Aratani passed away aged 95 this week. He was the founder of Kenwood Electronics and the Mikasa ceramic brands. A remarkable individual who was interned as a Japanese American during the war.

Sonos Playbar release

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:21:19 +1100

The official Australian dealer release for this product was this evening for Carlton Audio Visual. A delightfully low key and geek style presentation for a hallmark product. If this had been a tier one brand they would have rolled out the free drinks and canapes and inflicted us with merciless powerpoint presentations.

2013 CES washout ... Winners and losers

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:31:35 +1100

The Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show is the great Mecca for our industry. It attracts the best and worst of manufacturers and distributors and is noted as being the place for both opportunity and betrayal in our business sector.

David Bowie walking the dead ...

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:56:04 +1100

At 66 years old Mr Bowie was thought to have retired quietly in New York. Instead he has just released this very self reflective material with a video walking the streets in Berlin.
The new album will be released in March.

And so this was Christmas

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:18:54 +1100

Christmas in consumer electronics is a double edged sword. On the one hand we look forward to seasonal upward variation in the happy sound of the till going ching. On the other we suffer the slings and arrows of everything that breaks down the day before Xmas and the lack of a proper day off other than Jesus birthday.

Brand Provenance

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:42:18 +1100

It remains the single most requested piece of information at the beginning of a clients' consortation with a product; ”Where is it made?”
The manufacturing origin of a product is often treated as a dirty little secret hidden behind layers of repetitive advertising, and it is particularly relevant to consumer electronics these days.

A bad day down t'mill

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 23:39:08 +1100

When a 100 year old Japanese giant puts out a statement saying that it has "material doubts" about it's ability to survive one is reminded of the Emperor Hirohito telling his countrymen to endure the unendurable ...

Neil Young and Steve Jobs and music

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 12:18:48 +1000

When Mr Jobs passed away last year it transpired that he and musical icon Neil Young had been working on a high def download music format that could bring back some of the warmth and embodiment of the analogue LP recordings so beloved by the man from Apple.