Audio Video News

It’s impossible to escape headphones. New product announcements turn up in our inboxes every few days and some are even launched via crowdfunding campaigns—like Sharkk’s Bravo electrostatic headphone.

Pangea Audio has introduced a $30 record clamp it says improves turntable performance by reducing LP slippage and unwanted resonances.

Watching TV on your computer is not a new idea. In fact, companies have been bringing regular DTV to the desktop for over a year now (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?289">previous story</A>). But HDTV is another matter&mdash;the high-definition specification for digital television has been struggling to get out of the chute ever since its launch in November 1998. Several factors have slowed the emergence of HDTV, with the high prices of HDTV sets a deciding factor in most cases.

The days when Napster was the world's largest free music library are long gone. Soon, though, it may become the world's cheapest legitimate music subscription service, with a new plan that asks consumers for a mere $5/month for five free tracks and a whole lot of streaming. That's hardly even lunch money!

If you don't have one of the pricey new digital TVs, but you're curious about those DTV broadcasts that started in your area last week (if you happen to live in one of the lucky cities), your PC might soon be able to provide some relief. With a graphics accelerator that can handle the various DTV formats and MPEG decoding and a low-cost DTV receiver card, viewing DTV on the PC is an affordable option. A graphics accelerator and receiver card with a combined cost under $500 can provide DTV at a fraction of the price for a new digital TV and tuner/decoder.

Not too long ago you couldn't find progressive video output on any DVD player for less than $2000. Ditto for 96kHz or 192kHz digital sampling rates in the audio section. Now you can have both for substantially less than a grand.