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Pulse!

Two I Missed the First Time Around: Judee Sill and Murray Head

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Pulse!

July 2018

By the early 1970s, rock music was firmly established as a cultural force, and the influx of cash from increased album sales gave record companies incentive to try new things. It was a time when musicians beyond category, such as Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, could have recording contracts with a major label. The ambition of bands both famous and obscure over the previous five years had opened the minds of listeners to all kinds of possibilities, and that willingness to permit and encourage experimentation extended to pop music of all genres. Stevie Wonder, to choose just one example, released some of his most ambitious and groundbreaking recordings in the early ’70s.

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Newvelle Records' Subscription LP Service

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Pulse!

May 2018

Newvelle Records is a Paris-based label that offers jazz recordings on vinyl by subscription. For an annual fee of $400 (plus shipping), the subscriber receives a newly recorded LP every other month and, at the end of the year, a handsome, heavyweight slipcase to store them all in. This year is the third for this service, but you can buy each of the previous annual collections, while still available, for the same price as the subscription.

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Is There Room for Taste in Audio?

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Pulse!

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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Is High-End Audio Still About Music?

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Pulse!

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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A Crisis in Headphone Measurement?

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February 2018

I’d thought that the measuring of headphones was improving, but some recent developments have made me not so sure. Last year, the introduction of some excellent new lab gear made it possible for experienced engineers and technicians to make more useful measurements than ever before. But the introduction of some very cheap, nonstandard measurement gear has made it possible for almost anyone to make headphone measurements that are less useful than ever before.

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What Does a Brand Mean in 2018?

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Pulse!

January 2018

My recent review of the Monoprice Monolith M300 earphones, and my friend Steve Guttenberg’s review of the M300s on CNet, have raised a timely question. The M300s seem to be a knockoff of one of Audeze’s iSine planar-magnetic earphone models, but they arrived so soon after the iSines’ introduction that it makes me wonder if some third party isn’t dealing to both sides. The provenance of the tech products we buy is increasingly unclear, a situation that prompts me to ponder: Today, what does a brand mean?

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The Differences Between Home Theater and High-End Audio . . . Two Decades On

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Pulse!

December 2017

A few subwoofer reviews aside, I haven’t been all that active in home theater the last few years. So when I was invited to be on the AV Rant podcast, hosted by Tom Andry and Rob H., I was thrilled to catch up with what’s going on in the field. The AV Rant is a roughly two-hour weekly podcast in which Tom and Rob discuss home-theater news and answer reader questions. From 1995 to 1999, when I was editor-in-chief of Home Theater magazine, I became acutely aware of the differences between the home-theater and two-channel-audio industries. Talking with Tom and Rob reminded me how different the fields are -- and how much more different they’ve become over the years.

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The Problem with Blind Testing

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Pulse!

November 2017

As I write this, I’ve just returned from the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, where I moderated a panel titled “Best Headphone Rigs vs. State-of-the-Art Audio Systems.” One comment, from PSB Speakers founder and chief engineer Paul Barton, especially stuck with me. As best I can recall, he said, “Once you go to blind testing, where the listeners can’t see the identity of the products, everything changes,” and he punctuated it with a wave of both arms.

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Is It Possible to Say Something Stupid About Audio?

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Pulse!

October 2017

Asked the question I pose in the title of this article, most of the people I deal with in the audio industry with would say, “Of course.” But a few -- including most high-end audio publications and some high-end audio manufacturers -- might say, “No.” “Trust your ears,” they tell us over and over, implying that whatever you hear, or think you hear, is just as real and valid -- and perhaps even more so -- than conclusions derived from blind testing, laboratory measurements, or scientific research.

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Do Digital Masters Ruin Vinyl Records?

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September 2017

High-end audio thrives on controversy, and recently, when the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Why Vinyl’s Boom Is Over,” it got plenty. The high-end audio press attacked the author’s article, WSJ staff reporter Neil Shah. It’s an infuriating piece that presents as fact statements that are little more than opinion. But while it’s depressing that the editorial staff of the WSJ (who are not the same people responsible for the paper’s notoriously provocative editorial page) let this one through, the article does raise a couple of issues that vinyl-loving audiophiles should ponder.

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  1. The Indispensable Headphones -- and What They Say About What Matters Most
  2. What We Really Need from New Audio Products
  3. Does Love of Physical Media Have Anything to Do With Love of Music?
  4. What Does Samsung's Purchase of Harman Portend?
  5. Can Headphone Measurements Get Better?
  6. Science, Belief, and Audio
  7. The Five Best New Headphones and Earphones from CES 2017
  8. Six Audio Predictions for 2017
  9. Can We Know What the Artist Intends?
  10. How Audio Products Are Really Designed
  11. Is It Valid to Say that an Audio Product Sucks?
  12. Four Rules for Getting Great In-Wall Sound
  13. Why Most Audio Products Don't Deserve Glowing Reviews
  14. What the USB-C Revolution Will Mean for Headphones
  15. The Future of Headphone Listening
  16. A Cheap Wireless Speaker Shows the Future of Audio
  17. A Shakeup at Sonos Shakes Up the Audio Industry
  18. Can You Trust Customer Reviews on Amazon?
  19. The Five Best New Headphones at CES 2016
  20. What We Can and Can't Tell from Measurements of Headphones
  21. Why Hi-Rez Audio Still Struggles
  22. The Five Best Noise-Canceling Headphones and Earphones (According to Me)
  23. Why Believing in Headphone Break-in Can Be Harmful
  24. The Most Promising (and Unexplored) Area in High-End Audio
  25. The Five Best Closed-Back, Over-Ear Headphones (According to Me)
  26. Does a Product's Backstory Matter?
  27. The Five Best Earphones (According to Me)
  28. Why Headphone Amps Drive Me Nuts
  29. We Need a New Definition of "Audiophile"
  30. How Bad are Digital Streams and Downloads?
  31. What CES 2015 Means for the Future of Audio
  32. The Biggest Audio Development of 2014
  33. Why Simpler Isn’t Always -- or Even Usually -- Better
  34. Audiophiles: Stop Hating on Science!
  35. Should You Listen to Someone Who Criticizes Your Taste in Headphones?
  36. Dolby Atmos: A Lot More than More Channels
  37. Do Subwoofers Have a Sound?
  38. Why Dynamic-Range Compression Is Not the Work of the Devil
  39. Why Designing Wireless Speakers and Soundbars Is So Different . . . and So Much Harder
  40. What Measurements Really Tell You About Headphones
  41. The Point People Are Missing About Pono
  42. Why You Shouldn’t Ridicule the Bluetooth Speaker
  43. Are Headphones for Serious Listening?
  44. Binaural Recordings
  45. A Modern A/V Receiver: The Onkyo TX-NR808
  46. Cheap Stuff Can Be Surprisingly Good
  47. All About the 6th-Generation Apple iPod Nano
  48. ThinkFlood RedEye Universal Remote Application and Transmitter
  49. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Home Audio
  50. Is Bipolar Dead?
  51. Media Players and Servers: Something for Everyone
  52. (Don’t) Look Before You Leap
  53. In Praise of 5.1
  54. 3D Home Theater: Should You Wait?
  55. iPod Touch Apps: Free is Good
  56. The Apple iPad and Alternatives
  57. New Integrated Amps Are Truly Integrated

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