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Headphone Reviews
Review: Dusting Off Some Vintage Headphones
Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 11, 2012

Checking out the latest acquisitions during a recent visit to Vancouver, BC vintage audio dealer Innovative Audio, I noticed a lot of headphones that I hadn’t seen since the days when I wore Qiana shirts and had hair down past my shoulders.

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Vintage Gear
Shure V-15 Phono Cartridge
Steve Guttenberg  |  Jul 10, 2012
The original Shure V-15 phono cartridge debuted in 1964 as a "statement" design. The engineering team was headed by Jim Kogen, who later became a Vice President of Engineering, and after that the CEO. The V-15 Type II arrived six years later and it was the first computer-designed cartridge. The Type III was the best selling model in the series, it came along three years later, long before the CD changed the course of audio history.

Shure was huge in the mainstream market, but by the late 1970s and through the 1980s most analog-loving audiophiles had graduated to moving-coil cartridges (the V-15 was a moving-magnet design). I preferred the sound of moving coil cartridges, but conceded the V-15's tracking abilities were well ahead of most of the expensive Japanese moving coil designs of the time.

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AV Receiver Buying TipsAV Receiver Tech
How to Buy an A/V Receiver
Rob Sabin  |  Jul 10, 2012
Of all the components in your home theater system, none gets more playtime than your audio/video receiver. But buying an AVR can be daunting for home theater newbies or even seasoned enthusiasts diving back into the upgrade pool. AVR technology and features have been constantly moving targets these last few years. Here are some basics to help you make your selection, circa 2012.

A/V What?
An A/V receiver combines three audio components in one box. Primarily, it performs the traditional roles of a preamplifier and power amplifier. The sound for any home theater begins as a relatively low-level audio signal coming off a source component such as a cable box or disc player. These days, it’s more likely to be a digital audio signal than an analog signal. That signal gets converted between digital and analog as needed, manipulated to affect your volume adjustment, and might perhaps have some bass and treble contouring (or more sophisticated equalization) applied before it’s sent to the power amplifier, whose only job is to pump it up to the power level necessary to drive your speakers to sufficient volume.

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Home Theater Geeks Podcast
Podcast 119: Bob Heil
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jul 10, 2012
Live-sound pioneer and microphone maven Bob Heil returns to talk about his mic designs, new USB mic preamp/EQ, and headphones as well as his work with The Grateful Dead, The Who, Joe Walsh, and other rock legends, and his association with Paul Klipsch and organist George Wright, whose recordings helped launch the entire field of high-fidelity audio. Plus, answers to chat-room questions and more.

Run Time: 1:00:04

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Signals
Blind as a Brit
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jul 10, 2012

As Mark Twain (and other others) have noted, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

Blu-ray looks a zillion times better than DVD, right? Are all of those British viewers blind, or are we asking the wrong questions?

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Music ReviewsBlu-ray Movie Reviews
This Week in Blu-rays and Music, July 10, 2012
Ken Korman  |  Jul 10, 2012

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Ask S&V
Setting Lip-Sync Delay
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jul 09, 2012
Is there a test disc with content that helps you dial in audio delay so the video and audio are in sync? My receiver and my Blu-ray player both have this adjustment, but it's very difficult to get it right just watching people talk. My old TV never had this issue, but my new Vizio TV seems to have an inherent delay. What do you advise as a solution?

Craig Weinheimer

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Grace Notes
Beats Buys MOG: Next Stop, World Domination?
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jul 09, 2012

Although the rumors have been flying for months, it's now official: last week Beats bought the music streaming service MOG, paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million.

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Track One
Roger Waters Tears Down The Wall
Mike Mettler  |  Jul 09, 2012

With speakers strategically positioned all the way around The House That Ruth Built — a.k.a. Yankee Stadium — and buttressed by a multimedia visual presentation second to none, Roger Waters and his ace band tore through Pink Floyd’s seminal 1979 masterpiece The Wall in full on July 7 in the Bronx.

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Bluetooth Speaker Reviews
Review: Jawbone Big Jambox
Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 09, 2012

The original Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth speaker has won raves from us and seemingly everyone else who reviews portable audio gear. That’s partly because of the Jambox’s great sound, partly because of its cool industrial design, and partly because of its flashy programmable features. But even the most shameless marketing guy wouldn’t say the Jambox’s 1.25-inch drivers rock.

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