Last night we dropped by the 7.1-equipped 3D theater in Dolby's midtown offices for a sneak peek at Francois and Pierre Lamoureux's Pat Metheny: The Orchestrion Project, the forthcoming theatrical 3D film of jazz legened Pat Metheny's latest "solo" outing with his mechanical orchestra.
The look of V-Moda gear may be a little Versace for some mild-mannered audiophiles, but make no mistake: Val Kolton knows a thing or two about good sound, and beneath the flashy exteriors of his gear you'll find thoughtful engineering, well-conceived ergonomics, and impressive sound quality.
So when Kolton told us he had a portable source device in the works, were we excited? You bet.
We first heard tell of the new SoloCinema XTR soundbar from Definitive Technology back in January, at the 2012 CES, and the unit impressed us there with the sheer feature set and wattage the Baltimore firm had packed into a 43-inch wide, 2 and 3/8-inch deep profile.
Another week, another exciting new line of Bluetooth portable products. This time around, the name behind the speaker is Braven (the company formerly known as Spar), who recently announced three new full-featured models in the Six series. We of course couldn't resist calling in the company's flagship, the $189.99 Braven 650, for a look.
When we looked at FiiO's desktop headphone amp, the E9, we had a few quibbles with the design, though few complaints about the sound or the bang it delivered for the buck.
Tivoli's staked out a secure place for itself on the bedside tables and desks of stylish folks worldwide, and now they've decided to bring their tasteful finishes and wooden accents to the category everybody's getting into these days - headphones.
Krell is synonymous in the minds of many with high-performance audio, but they're not the first manufacturer that comes to mind when you mention DACs or headphone amps. That's about to change, perhaps, with the introduction of the Phantom III stereo preamplifier.
We've long been fans of CEntrance's portable USB DAC/headphone amp, the DACport; in an expanding market of bus-powered USB DACs, the venerable unit (along with its streamlined sibling, the DACport LX) remains a favorite of, and reference for, many reviewers of portable audio gear. Now they've gone ahead and put out a complete two channel system, of all things - the Audiophile Desktop System.
Home theater equipment choice and setup. It's confusing, we know (and we do our best to help). But sometimes it's helpful to have a field guide at your fingertips, and luckily for all of us Rotel's just brought out the third edition of its Ultimate Insider's Guide to High Performance Home Theater, available directly from the company as a downloadable PDF for $19.95.
We came across the new iHome iP76 ($199) at the CEA Line Shows earlier this month, the glowing, pulsing, three-foot-tall tower speaker seemed like the kind of thing you might see nestled beside some fancy tobacco smoking gear.