Ken C. Pohlmann

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Analog Tape Time Machine: A Momentous Recording
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Dec 16, 2019  |  3 comments
The year is 1962. You are working at Decca Records and your job is to listen to audition tapes and pass along your evaluation. The next demo tape on your endlessly replenishing stack is from some unsigned band calling themselves The Beatles. You mount the tape on your machine and listen for a few minutes. Then you rewind it and put it back in its box. Pass.

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You, Your TV, and the FBI
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Dec 02, 2019  |  0 comments
Wow! Congratulations! You sure got a good deal on that jumbo-sized TV! Black Friday deals rule! But you know what? It's a new TV, you might not be familiar with its operation, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation would like to have a word with you.

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Your ICE Car is the Next LP
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 25, 2019  |  3 comments
You have absolutely no idea how hip you are. Seriously. No idea. Well, what I mean is that if you time-traveled yourself 30 years into the future, you would be really hip. Maybe not now, but in 2049 you will be awesome.
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Should I Love or Hate Amazon’s Echo Studio?
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 18, 2019  |  0 comments
Amazon's newest audio offering, the Echo Studio, packs five drivers and Dolby Atmos into a compact package and promises to deliver terrific sound quality and a truly immersive soundfield. I am trying to figure out whether I should love or hate this thing.

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So Your Neighbor Likes to Play His Stereo Really Loud
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 04, 2019  |  1 comments
How many times has this happened to you? After a long day toiling in the salt mines. you are ready to finally get some shut-eye. You sink down into your Tempur-Pedic and then it starts up - boom, boom, boomity boom. Oh for Pete's sake. Your neighbor is playing his stereo again.

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Sansui, and Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Oct 21, 2019  |  1 comments
Some stories tell you about one thing. The good ones are entertaining and/or accurate. But the very best stories are multi-layered, fitting small pictures into big pictures, with one brilliantly informing the other to show deeper meanings. To demonstrate what I mean, I'd like to show you a YouTube video posted last week, and a figurative map drawn in1869.

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Your Call is Important to Us. A Representative Will Be With You Shortly.
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Oct 07, 2019  |  2 comments
You call them. They put you on hold. That's bad enough. Then they play the cheesy on-hold music. That makes it worse. But even that's not as bad as the actual sound quality of the music. Oh. My. Lord.

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Are Phones Finally Faltering?
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Sep 23, 2019  |  4 comments
I don't particularly like phones. I do not camp out in front of Apple stores. I use my phone as infrequently as possible, which isn't very often. I leave home without it. I am not a phone guy. Mainly, I disapprove of phones because they are anathema to high-quality audio and video playback.

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Just Don't Call Them Hearing Aids
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Sep 09, 2019  |  2 comments
You are a multi-billion-dollar audio corporation. Starting small, you grew big, then you bought out your competitors and got even bigger. You dominate entire segments of the audio market. Good work! But where do you go from here? How do you get even bigger? You create an entirely new audio category.

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Is the Taycan the Sound of Things to Come?
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Aug 27, 2019  |  3 comments
The Taycan is Porsche's newest, almost-ready-to-debut car. It's all-electric, so the sound of its exhaust will be unlike that of any other contemporary Porsche. But it's not the exhaust that might be its most interesting sound. It might be its built-in Apple streaming.

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