Tech2

Technically, Planetside 2 isn't out yet (the full game launches November 20). So technically, this isn't a review. But I'm having so much fun playing it, I couldn't keep it to myself any longer.

The original Planetside was the first (and still only) MMOFPS. Battles raged, waged over entire continents, with hundreds of players locked in epic sci-fi skirmishes. It was glorious.

Then Sony ruined it. If the beta is any indication, this is one serious mea culpa.

Maybe back in the 1920s, when Sound + Vision was called Superheterodyne Journal, we might have reviewed some giant tube amplifier that put out 2 watts at full blast. But other than perhaps some forgotten device from audio's days of yore, this storied publication has never tested an amplifier so small, so weak, so limited in utility as the Qinpu Q-2.

With so many audio connection technologies available now, it’s gotta be tough to be an audio product manager. Smartphone fans want to connect via Bluetooth. iTunes enthusiasts want AirPlay. Computer audio nuts expect a USB connection. A few old-schoolers demand a hardware dock for an iPod. And there’s that one guy who still owns a Zune and needs an analog input.

What to do? If you’re Samsung and you’re trying to make a “statement” product, you throw it all in. The $699 DA-E750 includes all of the above technologies — plus DLNA, plus a fold-out “dual dock” that works with Samsung Galaxy phones as well as iPhones, iPads, and iPods.

Sleep is not a topic much discussed around these parts. After all, "Sound" and "Vision" are two things not usually conducive to slumber. 

But the company AcousticSheep has come up with an interesting product: SleepPhones, a soft fleece headband with embedded headphones, meant for comfortable listening while slumbering.

With the above picture in mind, how could we not review?

Soundmatters didn’t invent the Bluetooth speaker, but it definitely invented the good, compact Bluetooth speaker: the FoxL. The FoxL’s guts became the basis for the much cuter and more broadly marketed Jawbone Jambox. The look and general driver layout of the Jambox were then copied—sometimes subtly, sometimes shamelessly—by practically every audio ODM in China.

I was up till 3AM again last night playing this game. A brilliant mix of humor, progression, and addictive gameplay guarantees the "just one more mission" mentality of epic late-night gaming sessions.

Speakers are like karate. Subwoofers are like weightlifting. The quality of a speaker is determined by subtleties: well-chosen drivers, just-right crossover points and slopes, and a perfectly tuned, solidly constructed enclosure. The quality of a subwoofer is determined mostly by its muscle: the size of the enclosure, the displacement of its driver, and the power of its amplifier.