LATEST ADDITIONS

Vintage Gear
JBL L100 Century Speaker
Steve Guttenberg  |  Oct 10, 2012
Even before I heard the JBL L100 Century I knew it was going to be great. It was 1970, when hi-fi speakers all had drab cloth grilles, the L100 sported a brilliant orange "waffle" pattern grille, and when every other speaker had grey or black woofers, the L100's was white. I'll never forget the first time I heard a pair, and the big JBLs lit up my Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix LPs, it really was the ultimate "rock" speaker of the day. The L100 sold for $273 each, way too pricey for me.
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Wireless Multiroom Speaker Reviews
Review: Libratone Zipp Wireless Speaker
Brent Butterworth  |  Oct 10, 2012

As a guy who spends a lot of his life on biztrips and bike tours, I find Apple’s AirPlay wireless audio technology to be almost useless. Give me Bluetooth, baby! Bluetooth lets me haul my Soundmatters FoxLv2 to exotic locales (Houston, Indianapolis, etc.), zap it with music or Internet radio from my Motorola Droid Pro or my iPod touch, and enjoy the same listening options on the road that I have at home—minus my vinyl collection and turntable, of course.

But the new Libratone Zipp makes AirPlay almost as convenient as Bluetooth.

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Other TechSmartStream
The Need For Speed
Barb Gonzalez  |  Oct 09, 2012
Streaming high-quality video with multichannel audio requires a fast connection. For Vudu, Hulu, and other online streaming sites, you must have fast Internet speeds. To stream huge, high-definition files from your media server to your smart TV or media player, you must have a fast connection within your home network.
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This Week
New Blu-rays for October 9, 2012: Aliens Here and Elsewhere, Murderous People and Plants
Josef Krebs  |  Oct 09, 2012

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Only Steven Spielberg could take a simple story based on an imaginary friend he'd created after his parents' divorce and turn it into the highest box office earner ever (a title it held for the next decade), pulling in $793 million worldwide in 1982 dollars.

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New Products
New Gear: Legacy Aeris Speaker
Michael Berk  |  Oct 09, 2012

At this coming weekend's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Legacy Audio will be rolling out their latest tower, the Aeris, an all-new four-way configuration. Prices start at $15,900, in your choice of Legacy finshes.

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This Week
New from the Vaults for October 9, 2012: R.E.M. in High-Rez, Squeeze Live, and More
Mark Smotroff  |  Oct 09, 2012

Squeezing out Live Sparks

One of our favorite bands, Squeeze, is jumping on the direct-to-fan bandwagon with a bit of twist.

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Headphone Reviews
Review: Kicker Valid Talk In-Ear and Cush Over-Ear Headphones
Michael Berk  |  Oct 09, 2012

Kicker - there's a name that probably doesn't come to mind when you think headphones, but this being 2012, wouldn't you know that they'd be in the personal audio biz now too.

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Other TechSmartStream
What You Need to Know About Media Servers
Barb Gonzalez  |  Oct 09, 2012
In the world of digital media, there’s no doubt that you have downloaded movies and/or music, and saved digital photos to your computer. Now you want to watch them on your TV and home theater. Before you can stream the movies, music or photos from your computer, networked external hard drive, or network attached storage (NAS) drive, the media player must first find the sources—“see” the device where you have saved your media files. The computer or device where your files are saved is called a “media server.”
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Grace Notes
The Day the Music (in Atlanta) Died
Leslie Shapiro  |  Oct 09, 2012

For fans of good adult alternative rock in the Atlanta market, September 29th was a very sad day. Somewhat ironically for 9/29, 92.9 DaveFM ceased live broadcasts. For the next few weeks, it will be on autopilot as CBS gets ready to transition it to all-sports-talk radio.

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Premiere Design
Brinkmann Balance Turntable
Bob Ankosko  |  Oct 08, 2012
German designer Helmut Brinkmann is on a never-ending quest for audio perfection, in this case with perhaps the most imperfect of music playback devices—the turntable. As he explains on the Brinkmann Audio Website, “Vinyl record playback is an exceedingly delicate and massively complex undertaking”—one he tackles with mastery in the flagship Balance turntable, which has undergone constant refinement since it was introduced 28 years ago. The goal is to achieve true high fidelity and come as close as possible to attaining the illusion of a live performance.
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