LATEST ADDITIONS

Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 28, 2013

Audio Performance
Video Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $1,100 At A Glance: 125 x 7 watts D³ power • Brawny, assured bass • Network audio cornucopia

Someday I will be able to review a Class D receiver without mentioning this up-and-coming amplifier technology in the lead. That day hasn’t come yet and probably won’t in the next few years. But I can see it shimmering on the horizon.

Class D has been steadily infiltrating Pioneer’s upper-crust Elite line since 2008 and now accounts for five of the line’s seven models. With the SC-61, reviewed here, the latest version of the technology—which Pioneer calls D3—has come down in price to as little as $1,100. That’s a far cry from the $7,000 Pioneer charged for its first-ever Class D model five years ago.

Brent Butterworth  |  Jan 28, 2013

I've dreamed of a bicycle sound system for years. I've tried several, even jury-rigged a few of my own, but always ended up discarding them 'cause they sounded lousy, fell apart, or were just a hassle to deal with. But two trends might make decent cycle-sound systems possible.

First there's Bluetooth, which lets you stream MP3s, Internet radio, and podcasts from your smartphone. Then there's the recent explosion in relatively high-quality miniature sound systems like the Soundmatters FoxL and the Jawbone Jambox.

The $99 NYNE Multimedia NB-200 is one of the first Bluetooth speakers designed specifically for cycling. Its driver layout-two 1.5-inch drivers with a 3- by 1.5-inch passive radiator-is somewhat similar to that of a FoxL. While you can get a bike mount for the FoxL, the NB-200 was designed from scratch as a bike speaker. The enclosure has slots that match up with a couple of handlebar clips.

Ariel Bitran  |  Jan 28, 2013
Bryan Keeler of Woods Cross, Utah is the proud winner of the AudioQuest Dragonfly DAC/Headphone Amplifier and Sydney interconnect sweepstakes. At first, Bryan wasn't sure whether to trust me. Understandable.
Brent Butterworth  |  Jan 28, 2013

Even though I campaigned against California's Proposition 8, I have to confess that I can't quite get the whole product positioning and marketing of the Fanny Wang brand. The WangBud increases my confusion, although it intrigues me at the same time.

For its first in-ear headphone, Fanny Wang didn't just get some generic IEM and slap its logo on. It created a product unlike any other I've encountered: a headphone using dual dynamic drivers, with earpieces the size of the old iPod earbuds and oblong silicon tips like those supplied with most Bluetooth headsets.

Brent Butterworth  |  Jan 28, 2013

Even though I campaigned against California’s Proposition 8, I have to confess that I can’t quite get the whole product positioning and marketing of the Fanny Wang brand. The WangBud increases my confusion, although it intrigues me at the same time.

For its first in-ear headphone, Fanny Wang didn’t just get some generic IEM and slap its logo on. It created a product unlike any other I’ve encountered: a headphone using dual dynamic drivers, with earpieces the size of the old iPod earbuds and oblong silicon tips like those supplied with most Bluetooth headsets.

Chris Chiarella  |  Jan 26, 2013
Get those glasses ready: A pair of very different documentaries and an animated family comedy make the most of Blu-ray 3D.
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 25, 2013
CL-2 Speaker System
Performance
Build Quality
Value
 

CLS-10 Subwoofer
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value
Price: $2,888 At A Glance: 180-degree cylindrical tweeter • Stable, wide-open sound • Tilted sub driver

Shape is destiny for Anthony Gallo Acoustics. The company is best known for its spherical and cylindrical speaker enclosures, made of metal and tough as tanks. But the Classico Series is the first Gallo product to use a plain rectan-gular box—for consumers, the company says, who prefer a more traditional look. Though not as curvaceous as other Gallo lines, the Classico is still available in a beautiful Cherry veneer finish, along with the more staid Black Ash veneer of our review samples. Note that the speakers are sold only through the Gallo Website: roundsound.com. The more conventional construction and factory-direct approach make the Classico models among the most affordable Gallo speakers ever.

Mike Mettler  |  Jan 25, 2013

This one's been 36 years in the making - or you could call it 100 years ahead of schedule, depending on how you look at it. I'm talking about the DTS-HD Master Audio 96-kHz/24-bit 5.1 Blu-ray version of it's-about-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Rush's 1976 epic 2112 (Anthem/Mercury).

Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jan 24, 2013

The nerdworld exploded yesterday when news leaked that Disney had selected J.J. Abrams to direct the next Star Wars movie. J.J. Abrams is best known for the under-watched Alias, the over-watched Lost, and of course for resurrecting and rebooting the other great sci-fi franchise: Star Trek.

As one would expect from the most rabid fanbase in the world, hatred spewed forth.

But not from me. I say let him at it.

Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 24, 2013

Scientists, who apparently never cease thinking of things that would never occur to me, have demonstrated that it is possible to store digital data in molecular form. As reported in Nature, a team of brainiacs stored the text of all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, a photo of their institute’s building, and a copy of a paper by Watson and Crick, as DNA sequences.

Pages

X