LATEST ADDITIONS

Headphone Amp/DAC Reviews
Review: Hitachi G-Tech G-Connect
Michael Berk  |  Sep 17, 2012

Hitachi's drive division has established a beachhead among thrift-conscious media professionals with it's G-Tech line. The long-awaited G-Connect, however, is a vastly different type of product - a portable wireless media server, meant for the iOS accessory market. It's a cool little box, packed with features.

But what, exactly, is this thing? And who is it for?

Continue Reading »
Tech2
Small Reels Redux: Why Cassettes are Cool Again
Brent Butterworth  |  Sep 17, 2012

Whenever I'm in the Pacific Northwest, I like to stop by Vancouver's Innovative Audio and visit my friend Gordon Sauck, one of the true gurus of vintage audio gear.

Continue Reading »
Surround Sound System ReviewsBookshelf Speaker Reviews
Paradigm MilleniaOne Speaker System
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 14, 2012

MilleniaOne Speakers
Performance
Build Quality
Value
 
MilleniaSub subwoofer
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value
Price: $2,648 At A Glance: Die-cast aluminum satellites • Flat-form-factor subwoofer • Remarkable transparency

Not often do I begin a review with an apology to readers. But I owe you one.

It’s taken me an unconscionably long time to get around to reviewing the Paradigm MilleniaOne satellite speaker system and MilleniaSub. The products made their retail debuts in November 2010. Since then they’ve languished on my to-do list despite the fact that Paradigm is one of my favorite speaker manufacturers. In fact, I never fail to cite my reference speakers, the Paradigm Reference Studio 20 v.4, in every A/V receiver review. Now that I’ve gotten an earful of the MilleniaOne and MilleniaSub, I’m kicking myself. I should have recommended these stellar satellites and innovative subwoofer to you a whole lot sooner, whether you’re in the market for a sat/sub set or not. This is the kind of high-performance sat/sub set that might make believers out of people who weren’t even interested in the product category to begin with.

Continue Reading »
Tech2
Review: Lauren O'Connell's Quitters
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Sep 14, 2012

I could have reviewed the new Bob Dylan album this week. Not finding it possible to be even the slightly objective, I'll just say buy it cause it's awesome.

Instead, I figured I'd review something more obscure, even if it is a few months "old."

But what is "old" in this digital age? It's new to you when you find it, right? And I bet most of you hadn't found this, and you might regret missing it. 

Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
Vandersteen Model 2 Speaker
Steve Guttenberg  |  Sep 14, 2012
Richard Vandersteen got into the speaker business the same way as a lot of other high-end designers did and still do: He made speakers for himself, and started selling them through a local hi-fi store. That was in the mid 1970s, but Vandersteen's speakers bore little resemblance to what other home brew entrepreneurs cooked up.
Continue Reading »
Projector Reviews3D Projector Reviews
Mitsubishi HC7800D 3D DLP Projector
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 13, 2012

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $2,995 At A Glance: Excellent detail • Good black level • Full calibration control • Limited physical setup options

I remember my first exposure to a DLP front projector. It was at a trade show in the late 1990s and was not a warm and fuzzy experience. Blessedly, I don’t recall the manufacturer. But compared to CRT front projection, in which even a bargain-basement model commanded $10,000 or more, the simpler, smaller DLP, a technology developed at Texas Instruments, held out the promise of form factors and prices that would appeal to a wider range of buyers.

Continue Reading »
This Week
Midweek Update: Getting Into the Naxos High-Resolution Releases
Michael Berk  |  Sep 13, 2012

Naxos - the world's largest independent classical label - is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. While the company made its name on budget releases of recordings by Eastern European orchestras and rereleases (and occasional remastering) of out-of-print material, it's moved on to create a  strong catalog of contemporary music, and has embraced high-resolution releases, with a number of SACD and Blu-ray releases in the last few years. And, of course, they've jumped into the FLAC format. This week, HDtracks is paying homage to the label's achievements with a featured set of CD-quality and high-resolution releases from the label, spanning the 19th and 20th Centuries. 

Continue Reading »
Grace Notes
Vintage Vinyl: The World's Oldest Recording, Revealed
Leslie Shapiro  |  Sep 13, 2012

A sound media historian at Indiana University recently made a remarkable discovery. Patrick Feaster was reading an article on early recording studios to help with a study he was doing on early Thomas Edison recordings.

Continue Reading »
CEDIA 2012
CEDIA Expo 2012: A Wrapup in Pictures
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Sep 12, 2012

Another CEDIA behind us. Reports are saying attendance was up by 4% compared to 2011. Those of us who were there find that hard to believe, but perhaps it was the wider aisles and smaller booths that gave the appearance of fewer people.

Regardless of how many people were there, we saw a lot of cool stuff. And took a lot of pictures.

Well, I did anyway.

Continue Reading »
Tech2
A Fix for Obsolete Docks
Brent Butterworth  |  Sep 12, 2012

Apple announced today that it’s switching from the 30-pin connector on the bottom of iPods, iPhones, and iPads to something more compact. You can hardly blame Apple’s designers, since that connector is more than a decade old. But the move will essentially obsolete millions of iPod/iPhone docks already in consumers’ homes.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X