Grace Notes

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.

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.

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.

While many companies are producing smart speakers with added features such as built-in video screens, Onkyo is flipping the script and adding a camera and home monitoring features into the VC-FLX ($280).

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.

There’s no denying that a killer song makes any workout better. Music is an integral part of most workouts — nobody prefers working out in silence. But, at what price? Peloton Interactive, leader of the upscale indoor cycling fad sweeping the nation is finding out that nothing in life is free, especially music. The biggest appeal of Peloton might be their large selection of online video classes that feature fabulous soundtracks. Too bad they (allegedly) aren’t paying for the music.