GRACE NOTES

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Grace Notes
Movie Premiere: World War Z
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jun 21, 2013  | 

Suddenly, just when you thought the world was safe, it's full of zombies. They are everywhere – on your game console, your phone, cable TV, and now even on the big screen. Metaphor for the fragility of modern civilization, and just plain fun to shoot at, zombies are cool. So it takes someone even cooler than zombies, namely Brad Pitt, to kick some zombie butt.

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Grace Notes
Movie Review: Iron Man 3
Leslie Shapiro  |  Apr 30, 2013  | 

The first Iron Man was an unqualified hit, featuring a terrifically witty and sly Robert Downey, Jr. The second Iron Man was merely tolerated because the first was so good. Good or not, the movies banked an impressive $1.2 billion in box office receipts. With that much money in play, a lot is riding on this latest release. Is the suit still strong, or has it become a rusty relic?

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Grace Notes
Movie Review: Oblivion
Leslie Shapiro  |  Apr 21, 2013  | 

Right off the bat, let’s get something out of the way. Oblivion isn’t a particularly original film. WALL•E, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind,  Planet of the Apes, 2001, Blade Runner, the overlooked Moon, and most blatantly, Total Recall - you’ll see, ah - homages - to all of them as the 2-hour Oblivion, co-written, produced and directed by Joseph Kosinski, unfolds. 

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Grace Notes
Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness
Leslie Shapiro  |  May 16, 2013  | 

 

In addition to innumerable television episodes, Paramount has produced no fewer than 12 Star Trek feature films. The canon is vast, and the core characters and their relationships are familiar to many moviegoers. The dilemma is this: How to make a film that satisfies both hardcore Trekkies as well as more casually invested international movie audiences. Does this latest installment boldly reinvigorate the franchise, or merely recycle it?

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CES 2017Headphone ReviewsGrace Notes
MrSpeakers Adds Flow Technology to the new ETHER Flow Planar Headphones
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jan 09, 2017  | 
While traversing the CES show floor, listening to products is usually an exercise in futility - nothing sounds good with so much chaos around you, and who has time to stop and really listen to anything? Amidst the noise of this CES, however, taking a moment to slip on a pair of the new MrSpeakers ETHER Flow headphones was an escape into musical paradise, and one of the best listening experiences I’ve had in Vegas in years.

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Grace NotesAudio Video News
Music Freedom: T-Mobile Unleashes Unlimited Music
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jul 14, 2014  | 
If you love something, set it free. It’s time to love T-Mobile for setting music free. T-Mobile users can stream all the music they want, free from the fear of hitting their data limits. While the Music Freedom news was announced a few weeks ago, the airwaves have just lit up with new ads touting T-Mobile’s new music streaming plan. Sound too good to be true?

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Grace NotesAudio Video NewsNew Products
Nativ Adds CD Ripper to High-Res Audio Lineup on Indiegogo
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jul 11, 2016  | 
High-resolution audio has a new champion. This past April we reported that Nativ had launched an Indiegogo campaign to bring a premium high-resolution wireless touchscreen music player and DAC to production. It easily surpassed its funding goal by 316%—that’s $344,000 from its initial goal of $100,000. Well, to sweeten the ask, Nativ just announced they’re adding the Nativ Disc powered by Gracenote, a new CD ripping unit that continues their “bit-perfect” streak. Think no one cares about high-resolution audio? The 356 Indiegogo backers certainly care.

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Grace Notes
Neil Young's Pono: Waging Heavy Peace on Low-Rez Sound
Leslie Shapiro  |  Oct 04, 2012  | 

Six months ago, we reported that Neil Young was going around talking about a crazy idea he had for a new music business model.   He had some high-res, music-in-the-cloud idea that he thought would revolutionize the way people listen to music. Would it be the Segway of the music biz?

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Grace Notes
Netflix: Diabolically Clever
Leslie Shapiro  |  Sep 23, 2011  | 

Netflix customers are hopping mad, and the company predicts it will lose a million customers. Its stock price has tanked. Has its CEO, Reed Hastings, lost his mind, or is this merely a speed bump along the path of a much grander strategy?

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Bluetooth Speaker ReviewsGrace Notes
Nyne Rock Review: The Boombox Is Back
Leslie Shapiro  |  Feb 15, 2016  | 
They say that size matters. With audio products, it is often the case: bigger speakers, bigger amplifiers, and bigger batteries can often translate into better sound and added convenience. The Nyne Rock boombox is one of the biggest and most powerful portable Bluetooth speakers we’ve seen in a long time. Let’s see if bigger truly is better.

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Grace Notes
Nyrius Aries Pro Wireless HDMI Transmitter Review
 |  Nov 28, 2016  | 
Cutting the cable is still a dream for most gear addicts. The interior decorator in your household might be more accepting of new gadgets if you can also get rid of the wire clutter. Thankfully, my household is a bit different, because we’re both technology freaks, which makes reducing wires even more critical for us. As promised a few weeks ago, and still in pursuit of the perfect wireless transmission system for my oh-so challenging concrete house, I had a chance to review the Nyrius Aries Pro Wireless HDMI system.

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Custom Installation Equipment ReviewsGrace Notes
Nyrius WS54: Wireless HD for the Whole House
Leslie Shapiro  |  Sep 26, 2016  | 
As more and more devices become wireless, it seems that it should be easier to connect together all the TVs in the house without the mess of cables. Truth is that it’s not as simple as it seems. The new Nyrius WS54 (MSRP: $170) makes it about as simple as it can be. Plus, it works in a challenging situation where many other systems have failed.

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Grace Notes
Ode to Hi-Fi: The End of an Era?
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jun 06, 2016  | 
There are moments that stand out in most people’s lives. Where you were you when you heard John Lennon was shot. Your first kiss. The moment when you first heard high-fidelity music, and it was so profound that it changed the course of your life.

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Headphone ReviewsGrace Notes
Optoma NuForce BE6i Bluetooth Earphones
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jun 20, 2016  | 
Every week a new pair of wireless Bluetooth earphones seem to appear on my doorstep. Usually, I have to take a long, hard look to find anything noteworthy to make one pair stand out from the others. The newly updated NuForce BE6i earphones feature aptX technology for better playback quality and that, my friends, is noteworthy enough.

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Headphone ReviewsGrace Notes
Optoma NuForce NE750M and NE800M Review
Leslie Shapiro  |  Sep 07, 2015  | 
When Optoma, a home-theater projector company, and NuForce, an audio company joined forces, I’ll admit it I was initially confused. NuForce made nice, niche audio products, and Optoma is mainly only doing projectors. What would their combined efforts produce? Light-emitting earbuds? Projectors with built-in speakers? But it actually makes sense; Optoma purchased NuForce to be able to provide both excellent video and audio to consumers, and they’ve kept the high quality that you would expect from NuForce. How do two new pairs of earphones, the NE750M and the NE800M from Optoma NuForce sound? Let’s find out.

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