If you’re in search of the perfect music station, with a little dedication and patience, you can customize Pandora. For the uninitiated, Pandora is a free online music-streaming service. Unlike other “free” online music services, it can be streamed to smartphones, tablets, TVs, media-streaming devices, and more without a premium subscription fee.
In a surprising move, Japanese competitors Panasonic and Sony announced in a press release today that they have signed an agreement to collaborate on the development of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels for TVs and other large-size displays. The companies intend to establish mass-production technology during 2013 by integrating their individual strengths to improve the efficiency of development.
Stereophile is pleased to announce the availability of the free 2012 Recommended Components iPad app.
Available Now
The app is available right now for free download to your iPad in the iTunes store. In iTunes, search for "Stereophile Recommended Components" or follow this link to the iTunes store from your web browser.
This app includes all current Recomended Components as listed in the recent issue of Stereophile as well as additional ratings and listings that could not fit in the print version. There are over 700 component rankings in all and the app is compatible with all iPad hardware versions including retina displays.
These days, the headphone biz is hot. The speaker biz? Not as hot. So it’s no surprise that every major speaker company is either launching a headphone line or thinking about it. And why not? They’re experts in developing, manufacturing, and marketing audio products. How hard could it be for them to launch a line of headphones?
Some audiophiles consider Focal’s $180,000-per-pair Grande Utopia EM to be the world’s finest speaker. The Spirit One, Focal’s first headphone, weighs about 99.9% less and costs about 99.8% less. Yet its brushed aluminum metal parts, matte black soft-touch finishes, and detachable cord with a woven cover convey some of the Utopias’ high-end vibe.
Paradigm tunes its IEMs to match the sound of its different speaker lines. The E3m is the top-of-the-line model, thus it is said to match the company’s top-of-the-line Signature Series speakers. The midpriced E2m matches Paradigm’s Studio Series speakers, and the low-priced E1 matches the Monitor Series 7 speakers.
If you’re sick of trying to choose among dozens of lookalike IEMs in the racks at electronics stores, you’ll find the C5 to be welcome relief. This IEM resembles nothing else on the market. The back of each titanium earpiece holds B&W’s Micro Porous Filter, a layer of hundreds of tiny steel balls that the company says works as a sonic diffuser.
I’m happy to see Polk getting into one of the headphone world’s neglected nether realms: noise-canceling IEMs. The UltraFocus 6000 gives you the easy transportability of an IEM with the noise-canceling technology that’s popular on larger over-ear and on-ear models.