I caught up with my old friend, mastering and recording engineer Bob Katz at the Audio Engineering Society convention held last week in NYC. He was there to proclaim an end to the “Loudness Wars,” which refers to the overuse of dynamic range compression to flatten the soft-to-loud volume changes that naturally occur in music. …

The ALO Island is a USB-powered digital audio converter/headphone amplifier, and it’s a honey! Functionally, it’s not so different than many of the other USB digital converter/amps I’ve covered on this blog, but it’s a bit bigger. The others are about the size of a thumbdrive; the Island is a 1.25×1.25×3.25-inch aluminum “brick,” but it’s still small enough to be …

I didn’t know the price of the M-Audio M3-8 when I first started listening, I just assumed it was $900 to $1,000 for the pair of speakers. No, the street price is closer to $600 for a pair, around the same price as for one of the reigning wireless champions, such as the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air or Bose …

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is held every October in Denver, and every year it’s packed with the latest and greatest high-end audio goodies. High-end doesn’t necessarily mean outrageously expensive, though; Schiit Audio was previewing its upcoming $119 Vali tube headphone amplifier, and I quickly auditioned Audioengine’s soon-to-be-released $249/pair A2+ desktop speakers. I hope to get one of the first …

Bass-emphasized headphones are now the norm, so much so that when I get to listen to more accurate headphones they really stand out. Not that I have anything against bass, readers of this blog who crave feel-it-in-your-bones bass had their turn with the JBL Synchros S700 headphones, so now it’s time to go for a higher-resolution/clarity model with the new …

Every now and then I get e-mails from readers who like to listen loud — really loud. One recent one asked, “Can you recommend a nice pair of tower or bookshelf speakers capable of keeping the party going?” Well, there’s loud, really loud, and there comes a point where it’s so loud your neighbors call the police. The guy’s budget …

I recently met with speaker designer Andrew Jones at the CNET office in NYC to discuss his latest project, the new Pioneer SP-SB23W Speaker Bar. And after we finished, I picked his brain about the value of speaker specifications. My take is that most, but not all, are nearly useless for providing consumers with information that could lead to opting …

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that most people like bass, and they like more bass even more. I suppose JBL engineers know the same thing, and they made sure the new Synchros S700 over-the ear, closed-back headphones deliver incredibly deep bass. Designwise, JBL avoided the slick, plastic look of Beats and other fashion-oriented ‘phones. The …

From the way things are going multichannel home theater speaker systems will be on the endangered species list in a few years. Sound bars epitomize the “good enough” direction the market has taken, and most folks are happy with them, mostly because they sound better than the speakers built into their TVs. That’s easy, but how do sound bars fare …

I remember the very first Woo Audio headphone amp I heard five years ago; it was the $520 WA-3, and they still make it. The little amp made a strong impression because it so radically improved the sound of Grado headphones. That amp transformed Grados, gave them more soul, more body, and sweetness. I’ve reviewed a number of Woo products …