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Massdrop x NuForce EDC3 Earphones
Massdrop x NuForce EDC3 earphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.
April 2018
All by themselves, the Massdrop x NuForce EDC3 earphones tell the story of where the audio biz is headed in 2018. Although the EDC3s pack three balanced-armature drivers into each tiny earpiece, they cost just $99 USD -- about 25% of what three-driver earphones typically cost a few years ago. They’re sold not through retail outlets or even conventional e-tailers, but through Massdrop, a Web-only entity that sells products based on requests and feedback from its own online communities. Five years ago, no one would have believed you could get three-driver earphones for $99, and no one would have heard of Massdrop.
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- Category: Blu-ray movies Blu-ray movies
"King of Jazz"
April 2018
A Glorious Restoration from Universal/NBC and Criterion
The Criterion Collection 915
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
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Today, Paul Whiteman (1890-1967) is mostly remembered as the man who commissioned and first performed George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. But in the 1920s he was a superstar comparable to such contemporaries as Babe Ruth (1895-1948). He sold a million copies of every new record, and his frequent diets were front-page news. Whiteman was on the portly side, and didn’t seem to mind critics and fans who called that to everyone’s attention. He was dubbed the “King of Jazz,” yet his music was more dance-hall pop spiced with some jazz elements -- Whiteman himself called it “symphonic jazz.” He and his band, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, led the way to the swing styles of the 1940s. Whiteman’s name was also descriptive of who he was and whom he worked with: although the musicians who created and led jazz itself were black, the faces of the virtuosos in Whiteman’s band were all those of white men -- no African-Americans, and women performed only as singers or dancers.
Is There Room for Taste in Audio?
April 2018
The recent launch of Schiit Audio’s Loki equalizer, which I first saw at the 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, inspired me to rethink some of the ideas I’ve long held about audio. The Loki provides a simple, affordable ($149 USD) way to alter the sound of the music you’re listening to. That the Loki is one of only a handful of equalizers ever marketed to audiophiles spotlights a paradox in high-end audio: It’s generally considered verboten to use an equalizer to change the sound of the music you’re listening to, but it’s perfectly OK -- and, in some camps, preferred -- to alter the sound of music through the use of speakers and electronics that add their own sonic color. Check out the comments sections on audio websites and you’ll see that many audiophiles shun the most scientifically advanced, sonically transparent speakers (PSBs, Revels, etc.) and embrace speakers with demonstrably colored sounds -- such as any model using a full-range dynamic driver.
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Sonarworks True-Fi Headphone EQ Software
Sonarworks True-Fi measurements using headphones mentioned in this review can be found by clicking this link.
April 2018
Anyone who’s tried a few different headphones knows their sound can vary wildly. Some sound harsh and thin, others dull and bloated, and many sound good but have a few annoying quirks. When you consider these differences, and that most headphones are now connected to smartphones and computers, it’s not surprising that many apps have emerged to equalize ’phones for better sound. One of those is Sonarworks’ True-Fi ($79 USD), an app for Windows or Apple OS that I first encountered at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show.
Jimi Hendrix: "Both Sides of the Sky"
April 2018
Experience Hendrix/Legacy
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
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Sometime in the mid-’70s, one of Rolling Stone’s waggish music critics began a review of one of the pastiche post-mortem recordings that surfaced in the decade after Jimi Hendrix’s death on September 18, 1970, with the words “Scrape, scrape.”
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Bowers & Wilkins PX Noise-Canceling Bluetooth Headphones
Bowers & Wilkins PX headphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.
March 2018
These days, it seems as if every major loudspeaker manufacturer has gotten into the headphone market -- but the iconic British loudspeaker brand Bowers & Wilkins has already been at it for the better part of a decade. In 2010, Bowers & Wilkins introduced their P5 over-ear headphones, and since then they’ve released a new or updated model each year. We have reviewed and been impressed with many of these, and 2017’s P9 Signature headphones won Reviewers’ Choice and Product of the Year awards for their high qualities of sound, looks, and build. Bowers & Wilkins’ latest headphones are the PX over-ear model with active noise canceling and Bluetooth ($399 USD). Will it carry on the tradition of excellence?
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- Category: Blu-ray movies Blu-ray movies
"Tom Jones"
March 2018
Rollicking Richardson
The Criterion Collection 910
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
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Extras
In 1963, director Tony Richardson set the cinematic world on its ear with his irreverent film Tom Jones. Looking back, it seems unlikely that any historical genre movie could have brought Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, to such heights of hilarity. Richardson did it by playing against type and treating this work from the mid-18th century as a risqué (for 1963) ribald comedy, complete with sight gags.
Is High-End Audio Still About Music?
March 2018
When I got into high-end audio, around 1990, I was attracted to its focus on achieving more realistic reproduction of the music that has been my passion since I was eight or nine years old. But I’m starting to feel that high-end audio now often aims at a different goal.
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- Category: Music Everywhere Music Everywhere
Music Everywhere: Grace Digital Mondo+ Wi-Fi Radio
March 2018
It’s impossible to discuss Grace Digital’s Mondo+ without thinking of the Logitech Squeezebox Touch. Though the Logitech was discontinued three years ago, its fans are legion, and still populate several websites on which they share ideas about how to tweak its performance and the like. The Squeezebox Touch is a great little device, and it’s still what I mostly use to stream files from my computer. The Grace Mondo+ won’t win in a head-to-head competition, no foul -- it was primarily designed for use as an Internet radio.
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Klipsch Heritage HP-3 Headphones
Klipsch Heritage HP-3 headphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.
March 2018
It was high time Klipsch created something like the Heritage HP-3 over-ear headphones. For years, the company has been exploiting its deep heritage with products that reflect the classic great looks and surprisingly tenacious design concepts of founder Paul W. Klipsch’s original horn loudspeakers. Yet in the mobile space, Klipsch has focused most of its efforts on tiny, balanced-armature earphones that can’t benefit much from the Klipsch cachet. To my delight, the HP-3s look like something Paul Klipsch himself might have designed back in the 1950s.
