Portable Player Reviews

Does the iPad have a role to play for audiophiles, or for the new breed of iDevice-inspired audio enthusiasts? It's hard to beat the touchscreen interface for music listening - it provides a tactile browsing experience that hands-down beats the UIs on most high-zoot audiophile servers. On the desktop there are plenty of audiophile file players that load audio into RAM for supposedly improved fidelity - but the iPad offers all-solid-state audio storage to begin with, freeing your bits from jitter-inducing hard-drive-access. But is iOS - and the circuitry within - up to snuff?

As I was packing for a recent trip, I was amazed at the number of electronic gadgets I've amassed over the past couple of years—and how many I need to bring along to keep me both accessible and entertained for the long hours away from home and office. I once joked with Sony that adding calling features to their PlayStation Portable would make it a perfect device. But, in the meantime, I do appreciate any cell phone that allows me to do more than check voice mail, and, as such, the LG V phone is a small wonder.

While we are big fans of the small companies who've stepped up in recent years to build ever-better headphone amps for use on the go, there are times we would prefer to carry a single device.

Does HTC have us covered?

Look out, Amazon: Barnes & Noble went right at Jeff Bezos and co. today in a product unveiling meant to take the spotlight away from its Kindle Fire tablet this holiday season. The new Nook Tablet, an improved version of the current Nook Color (whose price drops to $199), competes directly with Amazon's color tablet. Both are set to debut next week.

PORTABLE ENTERTAINMENT. It started with the Walkman and was revolutionized by the iPod. Now with tablets, audio, video, and more merge into one uber-device of computing awesomeness.

We have a narrow set of criteria for tablets here at Sound+Vision. That it surfs the web, does email, can video chat, and so on is cool, but we're not Office+Meetings magazine. We - like most people, it turns out - want tablet-as-entertainment.

And surprisingly, that makes the choice easier than you'd think.

It's weird for a 50-year-old audio writer to be reviewing a product that's targeted at people half his age or less. Guys my age like products labeled "audiophile-grade" or "reference," not "Nuke" or "Boom." Meaningless as such marketing terms are, though, you gotta figure Behringer did something to make the iNuke Boom Junior iPod/iPhone dock earn its badass moniker.

"Wow, it actually floats." This is something I said. Out loud. Without question it's the first time I've ever uttered that sentence in the course of a product review.

The Eco Terra boombox from Grace Digital is one of those products that's amusing - and cool - just because it works at all. It's a waterproof iPod dock, so you can listen to your tunes above and below the water.

Aquatic testing: commence!