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 …

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. Katz was way ahead of …

Samsung smashed moneymaking records once again this summer, raking in £5.9bn profit thanks largely to the lower-priced footsoldiers of the Samsung Galaxy smart phone army. Samsung did boffo business once again this Q3, the three months up to September, with continued strong smart phone sales and decent performance from the part of the business that makes memory chips. Revenue hit …

The new Apple iPad mini is on sale in Britain in late November, costing between £320 and £659. The UK price comes straight from Apple, with the exact UK release date to be confirmed. Where can I buy the iPad mini? EE and Vodafone have confirmed they will sell the new iPad mini and iPad Air on 3G and 4G …

Talk about your hot phone. A truck containing 22,500 LG G2 smartphones was stolen on the way to its destination in Louisville, Ky., CNET has learned. The phones were on their way to Sprint, which is expected to launch its version of the G2 early next month. Related stories TV in the Bathroom: Technically Doable but a Very Bad Idea …

The first device powered by Samsung’s Android-rivalling Tizen software has emerged blinking into the daylight. Making its debut at Japan’s Smartphone & Mobile Expo gathering, the Tizen tablet is built by Systena and is the first public outing for new operating system Tizen. The as-yet-unnamed tablet sports a 10.1-inch high-definition screen with a 1,920×1,200 resolution. Under the screen is a …

Is this our first look at the new Google Nexus 10? With the Google Nexus 5 and new Android KitKat software just around the corner, we could be set for a streamlined 10-inch Google tablet too. Pictured above on the left is the current Nexus 10, and on the right is an alleged press snap of the Google Nexus 10, as shared with …

Apple has two new tablets for your consideration — the wafer-thin iPad Air, and the high-resolution iPad mini with retina display. Tim Cook and pals have also dropped the price of the original iPad mini to start at £249, so how do Apple’s tablets stack up against the Nexus 7, Tesco Hudl, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX and Microsoft Surface 2 …

This week has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous — from the sublimely high-end new iPad Air, Nokia Lumia 2520 and Microsoft Surface 2, to the ridiculously cheap Carphone Warehouse Avoca 7, costing just £50. You read that right: a 7-inch Android tablet for £50. Carphone Warehouse has slashed the price of the Avoca 7, usually £100, to fire back …

Anticipation is building over when Google will finally release the LG Nexus 5 with Android 4.4 KitKat. It will make its formal debut on Thursday to US customers through the Google Play store, according to a source close to Canadian tech blog MobileSyrup. Related stories Nexus 5: What we expect Nexus 5 could be the new Android phone to beat …