Once upon a time, when you wanted to change channels on your TV, you had to actually get up, walk across the room, and twist a dial. While you were there, savvy users also wiggled the rabbit ears a little bit, and for good measure, whacked the side of the (wood) cabinet. Times have changed.
What does a roaring fire, crispy bacon, a rainy day, and an LP record have in common? I'll give you a moment to ponder that. Meanwhile, on a related note, let me opine that the best thing about LPs isn't their high sound quality. It's their lack of it. Let me explain.
I'm on record (ha!) stating my opinion that the vinyl resurgence is socially and morally significant. Interest in vinyl is up, vinyl sales are up. Are downloads and streaming in trouble? Well, of course not. Still....
Choosing a good loudspeaker is pretty much the same as choosing a good woman. Obviously, they come in all shapes and sizes, and you want the model that's perfect for you. Looking for a speaker that's rich, or perhaps a woman with a wood-grain finish? Don't forget to consider the size of the woofers (or whether, in fact, they are tweeters).
The Life Jacket iMW575 is a ruggedized, portable Bluetooth speaker. It is the flagship in a line of speakers carrying the Altec Lansing name. The Life Jacket stands out with an impressive 16 hours of battery life. It features a rubberized case that provides an IPX7 rating; that means the speaker is waterproof - it can be submerged in a meter of water for 30 minutes. The design also confers a degree of shock resistance, and the speaker can withstand a degree of dirt, sand, and dust.
Students of history will know that about 100 years ago, various events occurred in Russia. More specifically, between 1917 and 1924, the Russian Empire collapsed, the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War, the Soviet Union was formed, Lenin died, and Stalin took charge. And five years after that, in 1929, a guy made a movie.
Back in the Stone Age of Digital Audio (circa 1990), discerning audiophiles paid big bucks for elegant-looking CD players. Today the emphasis is on performance rather than looks. Most DVD players are visually boring, and their lack of heft hardly inspires confidence. Sometimes I yearn for the days when a player's quality could literally be weighed.
Mark Levinson has a strong tradition of making ultra-luxurious audio gear, and under Harman’s stewardship, the tradition is alive and well. Harman showed the ML No. 519 Audio Player, and the No. 526 Dual-Monaural Preamplifier. Both will break your bank and are worth every penny.
I guarantee that you will react to this news item in one of two ways:
First Way: “Oh, no! I wish they'd keep doing that!”
Second Way: “Wait. What? They're still doing that?”
Meridian Audio Ltd. does some pretty cool stuff. Its hardware products are well known in audio circles, but it is their innovation at the further reaches of audio frontiers that really catches my eye. The latest example of Meridian's creativity, via Bob Stuart, is Master Quality Authenticated (MQA). MQA is an infrastructure of technologies designed to promote a high-quality signal path from the master recording to playback loudspeaker. More specifically, MQA is designed to stream hi-res files more efficiently than a brute-force transfer, and Meridian claims that it can improve the playback quality of the original file.