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Pulse!

The Indispensable Headphones -- and What They Say About What Matters Most

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Pulse!

August 2017

There’s only one headphone model whose sudden disappearance would literally change the world of audio: Sony’s MDR-7506. Introduced in 1991, the MDR-7506es have become something of a standard for audio and video production. I’ve worked in and visited innumerable recording studios across the country, as well as quite a few radio and TV stations, and I can’t remember ever not seeing a set of ’7506es -- more likely, several pairs -- either in use or easily within the engineers’ reach.

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What We Really Need from New Audio Products

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July 2017

In the last six weeks, I’ve been to two audio shows -- High End, in Munich, and the Los Angeles Audio Show -- while fielding my usual volume of new-product announcements and visits to manufacturers. In that time I’ve witnessed the debuts of hundreds of audio components. What strikes me, though, is not the large number of products I’ve seen, but the extremely small number that I remember.

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Does Love of Physical Media Have Anything to Do With Love of Music?

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June 2017

I’ve just reached a milestone: the first time in my life I can recall passing an independent record store without going in. I did give the shop -- in downtown Ljubljana, Slovenia -- a good once-over. But faced with the prospect of missing one of Ljubljana’s other attractions because of the 30 to 60 minutes I’d spend browsing the store’s racks, all to acquire more records that I wouldn’t be able to play except in my listening room, I kept moving.

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What Does Samsung's Purchase of Harman Portend?

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May 2017

Last November, Samsung announced it had purchased Harman International, parent company of AKG, Infinity, JBL, Mark Levinson, Revel, and other audio brands. Most observers speculated that Samsung made the move to get into the automotive electronics business, where Harman is a powerhouse. But a recent report from A/V industry insider website Strata-gee.com speculates that much of Samsung’s motivation springs from the desire to use Harman’s audio technology to improve its smartphones.

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Can Headphone Measurements Get Better?

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April 2017

Since I began measuring the performance of headphones six years ago, it’s been quite a journey. Not a journey through a picturesque mountain landscape dotted with rustic inns, but more like one through searing deserts and freezing snowscapes packed with predators and empty of civilized comforts. The prevailing standard for headphone measurements, IEC 60268-7, was originally published in 1984 by the International Electrotechnical Commission, “a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies,” per Wikipedia. It’s an in-depth and well-considered standard, but most of it is now more than an entire human generation old -- in technological terms, perhaps ten generations. Some of its recommendations have been called into question by more recent research, and some reflect limitations and conditions that time has erased.

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Science, Belief, and Audio

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March 2017

We’ve heard a lot of debate recently about the value of science. As I write this, marches are being planned in which tens of thousands of people are expected to express their views on the subject. In audio, though, this is nothing new. For decades, we’ve witnessed arguments -- often shockingly acrimonious ones -- about the value of science in audio.

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The Five Best New Headphones and Earphones from CES 2017

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Pulse!

February 2017

My assignment at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, was to cover headphones -- a chore I thought might leave me plenty of free time to check out new speakers and subwoofers. But so many new headphones were launched that covering the category took up almost all of my time at the show. Much as I love high-end, audiophile-oriented headphones -- and there were plenty of new ones at CES 2017 -- I was just as excited to see promising new models at prices as low as $14.99. In fact, the most important trend was the introduction of many new headphone models that combined noise canceling with Bluetooth wireless operation, neither of which would be considered an audiophile feature, though both are vital to those who rely on headphones to keep them entertained as they wander the world.

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Six Audio Predictions for 2017

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January 2017

As this column posts, the editors and writers of SoundStage! will be packing their bags for Las Vegas and the 2017 International Consumer Electronics Show. I’ve already received embargoed information about many of the products to be launched at CES 2017, and based on that (sorry, can’t reveal specifics until the show starts) and information I’ve picked up from talks with manufacturers and engineers, I have six predictions about what we’ll see at CES and in the rest of 2017.

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Can We Know What the Artist Intends?

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Pulse!

December 2016

A pro-audio company recently asked me to run measurements on a prototype recording monitor -- the kind of speaker recording engineers and producers use to listen to what they’re recording and mixing. I thought the task would be simple. I own a pair of Genelec recording monitors, and they measure almost perfectly: nearly dead flat on axis, with a smoothly increasing treble rolloff as I move off axis. But the job turned out to be quite complicated, and it raised some questions about what, exactly, I should be listening for when I test speakers and headphones.

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How Audio Products Are Really Designed

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Pulse!

November 2016

The No.1 speaker brand in the US is now Amazon, with a 26% market share. It took Amazon less than two years to attain this rank.

Those shocking facts should tell you where audio is headed. While the AmazonBasics line of cheap Bluetooth speakers does well, Amazon’s meteoric success in audio is due in large part to the Echo, a voice-command speaker that has sold some five million units since its launch a year and a half ago, and is expected to sell twice that in 2017.

Read more …

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

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