Bucket Tech: Polk Audio Monitor XT & Signature Elite Series

 

If you're into high end sound systems, Polk Audio needs no introduction to you, as they are world renowned in producing high-end speakers at affordable pricing for the purists. Polk Audio are proud to announce two additions to the Polk Audio portfolio: the all new Monitor XT and the updated Signature Elite Series. The Monitor XT provides all listeners an entry point into Polk Audio's 50 years' worth of experience building iconic loudspeakers that deliver clarity, high-output and effortless bass. The Polk Signature Elite Series is the successor of the Signature E Series which has won numerous awards, is highly regarded by industry press, and is loved by thousands of owners.

POLK MONITOR XT SERIES  

The Monitor XT Series is the latest addition to Polk’s Loudspeaker portfolio targeting consumers who want to feel confident that they are making a good purchase decision. The Monitor XT Series offers two floor-standing towers, a slim and a full center channel, two bookshelf speakers, a Dolby Atmos enabled Height Module and a 12’’ Subwoofer. The Series is compatible with Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, & Auro 3D. Monitor XT’s Terylene tweeter is Hi-Res Audio certified. With playback up to 40kHz, MXT speakers create high-end energy and spaciousness you’ll not only hear but feel.

Available in Black vinyl finish, includes anti-diffraction grille.

POLK SIGNATURE ELITE SERIES 

Polk's Signature Sound goes Elite, offering music, movie and gaming with room-filling, high-resolution, cinematic sound and effortless base. Signature E has been relaunched in the global Polk portfolio to Signature Elite, this line-up now find's it place in the center of the Polk Speaker portfolio. It was designed with quality, timbre matched Polk components throughout to enable the mix and match models to build a dream home theatre or music listening environment consumers look fore. The Signature Elite Series offers three floor-standing towers, a slim and a full center channel, two bookshelf speakers and one surround speaker.

Available in Black and White finish.

Polk Audio is exclusively available via Homemation 

Bucket Seat: Ferrari F8 Tributo

Last week South Africa was introduced to Ferrari's latest iteration of its mid engine V8 Berlinetta, the F8 Tributo. After winning Engine of the year, for 3 years in a row, this 3.9 litre bi-turbo V8 crushed its competition by achieving 429 points in the above 650PS category, beating their own V12 engine from the Superfast by 612 points. Ferrari have always prided themselves as master engine builders but having the cars to suit the engines as well, this engine also featured in the 488GTB, 488 Spider and 599 Pista but tuned differently. 

The Tributo pays tribute to this award winning engine and encapsulates everything that is Ferrari in a car. From the design, to the performance, making it the most potent variant to date. It does 0-100km/h in just 2.9 seconds, 0-200km/h in 7.8 seconds and has a top speed of 340km/h.  The car is lighter and faster than the out going 488 GTB, the design which was done by the Ferrari Styling Center emphasizes the companies key characteristics of high performance and extreme aerodynamic efficiency. There is also elements of past Ferrari's in there, like GTB's of old and the engine cover which is similar to that of the F40. The design features a state-of-the-art aerodynamic system which is derived from the companies Formula One team, to minimize drag, maximize down force and make the driver feel one with the car. 

SPECIFICATIONS

Engine	3.9 litre bi-turbo
Gear Box	7 Speed dual clutch
Horse power	710 bhp @ 8000 rpm
0-100km/h	2.9 seconds
Price	R 5,500,000

Over the weekend I was lucky enough to get up close and personal with the F8 Tributo at the Durban showroom and was afforded the opportunity to photograph it as well as sit inside and start her up. I was left with goosebumps for the rest of the day. Here are some pictures from the shoot for you to enjoy. 

Pictures by @mvrc1988 

Bucket Scene: The Hussar Grill

When I first heard that The Hussar Grill was opening a branch in Durban I was over the moon, I've heard a lot of this legendary grill from my mates in Cape Town but whenever I find myself in Mountain-land, I never got a chance to experience dinning at one of their many branches. Like most men, I love my meat, and whilst there's many grill houses already in Durban, not many keep that consistancy. One can easily cock-up a steak and it's never a pleasant experience especially if you're paying top dollar for it. 

This is where establishments like The Hussar Grill come in, with over 50 years of experience, they're regarded as one of South Africa's Premier Grill Rooms and with good reason too. They have a loyal following and the reason they keep coming back is for their award-winning speciality steaks and wine selection, along with their superb service an warm ambience. 

This week myself a few mates decided to go give The Hussar Grill a try, with a booking made, it was time to see what all the fuss was about. Upon arrival I was warmly greeted by their gorgeous hostess at the entrance and then escorted to my table. The decor of the place is great, the low lighting sets the tone for a relaxed lounge feel and the restaurants theme sort of an old school library / wine cellar vibe. They're known for their great selection of wines but I'm not a wine person as I prefer my whisky, our waiter for the night was quick to go through their extensive range of single malts and mixed blends with me, I was quite surprised with the selction they have as many restaurants just cater with the popular ones.

Once I had my drink it was time to study the food menu, I'll be honest I already had in mind what I was going to order as I had a good look at the menu from their website prior to arriving. While doing so, our waiter brought some sweet potato crisps and marinated olives to snack on, both of which got snapped up in a matter of minutes. For starters, everything on the menu looks great and you really want to order more than one but when you flip over to have a look at the mains, you want to keep space for that. I eventually settled for calamari as its a personal favourite starter of mine, it was light and tender, crispy on the outside and with the right about of lemon on it. The accompanying tartar sauce was just as exquisite. Even though it is a starter, it was quite a generous portion and could well easily be shared with someone. 

While taking a break with some more good quality whisky, it was time to decide on the mains, the Hussar does have specilas on the day so be sure to check with your waiter when you do visit. Otherwise their menu has enough for to cater for anyones taste buds, whether it be beef, lamb, seafood, poultry or even game, depending on the hunt. Our waiter brought through their meat board to show us the various cuts and explain to us how it is prepared and what is the best way to order it. The menu also offers guidlines to your selection of how you would like your meal grilled. I opted for something off the menu, as the waitor informed me they had lamb steaks, not often you would find this around, lamb is best done medium and it was basted with their rib marinade, served with a side of chips, creamed spinach and a cheese sauce. 

It was quite a decent portion of meat, 250g of lamb with just a sliver of fat, crispened nicely. It was full of flavour and most importantly, tender and melted in my mouth. I also opt for a cheese sauce and I enjoy the taste of it with the lamb. They say you know a meal is good when everyone at the table is quiet and enjoying their meal but its not always the case as with us, each of my mates were raving about their meal, insisting what they ordered was better than the next. There was only one way to settle this, as we all tasted a little bit from each others plates. I honestly couldn't fault any dish I tasted, as everything was prepared perfectly and tasted great. In the end we all agreed that there was no dish better than the other as all were pretty darn good. 

Already stuffed, the waiter brought the menu's again to have a look at the dessert menu and as tempting as it was, I just couldn't eat anything else. But one that did catch my eye was the Hussar Grill Ice Cream, it's described so incredibly on the menu that it almost hypnotises you to order it "This extravagant dessert is a beguiling combination of vanilla ice cream, peanut brittle, marshmallow, nougat, honeycomb and sprinkled nuts. Drizzled with our signature dark chocolate sauce. Sometimes more is better." I mean if that isn't worthy to get your drooling I don't know what is. 

Overall my experience at The Hussar Grill was everything I expected it to be, and a perfect location of a boys night out but equally can be a great place to have a quiet dinner with a loved one, family or even a business luncheon or dinner. Another thing to note as I have mentioned their selction of wines before but if you opt to bring in your own bottle, they do not charge you a corkage free! The prices are very keen when you look at the level of service and quality of food you're getting. I highly reccommend you visit the Hussar Grill to see for yourself why they're one of the best. 

Details:

The Hussar Grill Gateway

Shop G003, Gateway Theatre of Shopping

Tel: 031 566 4047

Facebook: The Hussar Grill Gateway

Twitter: @TheHussarGrill

Instagram: thehussargrill

Bucket Tech: Huawei Mate 8 - Review

A few weeks ago I received something rather cool in the post, Huawei sent me, what I feel is their flagship business phone to review, the Mate 8. Following from it's predecessors, the Mate 7 and Mate S, the 8 had a lot to live up to and after attending the launch in Joburg in April I was keen to put to see how the phone compared to my lifestyle. At the launch they spoke of how the phone was "the pinnacle of style" and I have to admit, everything from the box the actual phone comes in to the device itself, really looks on point. Generally with a phone of this nature, you would want to get a protective cover on it almost immediately but the phone looks so damn good you might be doing it an injustice by covering it up!

Quality

Even thought he market has become conducive to consumers changing their phones quite regularly, in most cases people don't even wait for their contracts to expire before they change their device, with the average person keeping their's for just over a year before they want a later model. Hence manufacturers had to keep up with the demand by releasing devices on a yearly basis. That doesn't mean they neglect the quality of their device, the Mate range has probably been the most robust series of phones I've tested. It can withstand most bumps and falls, I didn't deliberately test this but there was more than one occasion where the phone escaped the clutch of my butter fingers and it ended up with hardly a mark to show for it. So you know you're getting a premium product.

Display & Dimensions

The size is rather large compared to your normal phone (157.1 x 80.6 x 7.9mm) due to the display screen size (6.0inch) but it doesn't feel cumbersome in your hand. The new improved finger print scanner works perfectly for this phone allowing you to unlock the device in a matter of milliseconds and it can support more than one finger. The display is something to marvel at, with a 78% body to screen ratio and full HD picture courtesy of its IPS-NEO LCD with 16M colours, it makes anything you look at stunning. I watched a few videos on youtube in 4K and the quality was amazing. The protection comes in the form of Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which is still one of the best out there. 

Camera

While I didn't expect this feature to be the star, it totally shone through and made me go crazy over it, so much so I ended up borrowing a tripod! Why you ask? Well with the Mate 8, Huawei launched their professional camera setting as well as a few others like Super Night shot and added a few favourites from their older models like light trails and slow mo video which is captured by the 16 MP lens with dual LED flash. The professional setting enables the user to manually select and choose the right settings given the conditions and light in the picture you wanting to take. While it may look cool, you also need to know what you're doing but if you have time to fool around with it you can figure out how to take some really awesome pictures which require no filter if you're going to post them to Instagram. 

                   

Another feature which I had to try was the Super Night shot, basically a long exposure shot which captures as much light in the dark as possible allowing you to photograph stars and if you're lucky, some of the Milkyway! Yup, it is possible but again, you got to know how to work the settings, from how much light you want to allow to how long you want to lens to capture for. It's not rocket science but it takes some fiddling to get used to and you can capture some stunning shots of the night sky from it. 

Performance

Being a phone that is aimed at your business man, they don't muck about when it came to selecting processors and CPU's for the Mate 8. It comes with the HiSilicon Kirin 950 chipset with a Quad-core 2.3GHz Cortex-A72 + quad-core 1.8GHz Cortex A53. RAM differs from the model you have with the 32GB receiving 3GB RAM and the 64GB getting 4GB RAM. It has the latest version of Android's Marshmallow with the user interface completely customisable for your preference. Other features include acelerometer, gyro, proximity, barometer and compass. 

Battery

Much was said about this phones battery, with a claim of 2 days of use without needing a charge and if you like me are constantly on your phone, I was keen to see how it will stand. It comes with a non-removable Li-Po 4000 mAh battery which can give you up to 528 hours on standby using 3G and up to 98 hours music play. My use is a mixture of using the camera, tons of social media apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram all of which are constantly receiving notifications and whats a phone without Whatsapp? oh and I did make a receive the odd phone call. Much to my disappointment the phone didn't last the full two days but I must say I was still left impressed because it lasted more than an entire day with me using it. Normally any other phone won't see 8 hours before I need to plug it in for a charge so this is a massive breakthrough in battery technology. 

Verdict

If you're the type of person that runs their life from their phone, whether you're a suited up businessman or one that's constantly on the road, this is the perfect phone for you. Fast enough to deal with any app or document that it comes across as well as giving you a battery that lasts with you worrying about charging points or carrying battery boosters. The other features are just an added bonus for you to play around with when you have some spare time. The phone is available in four colours, Champagne Gold, Moonlight Silver, Space Gray and Mocha Brown, and the 64GB version will have a dual SIM option. 

*all pictures taken by the Huawei Mate 8 are the original with no filters or editing done.