Tech2

Today we take a look at some more fallout from the personal listening explosion, with an assist from the vinyl revival and the continuing rise of electronic music. Visit a headphone retailer these days, you'll find a lot of models meant, supposedly, for the professional DJ - or at least meant to make the casual listener look like they might be the sort of person who spends a lot of time at the decks.

If you haven’t listened to the brilliant Sound+Vision Radio program, you’re missing out. I say “brilliant” not in a self-serving, egomaniacal way.

Wait, of course that’s why I’m mentioning it. But don’t let my ego prevent you from enjoying the witty banter and in-depth discussions of all things A/V, music, movies and more.

Links to local affiliates where you can hear us, plus podcast links and such, after the jump.

For most people, running a 1-meter HDMI cable to their TV is the only connection they need to make to experience a glorious 1080p picture. But mount that TV on a wall, or decide to go with projection, and you have a problem: the wires. Sure you can run HDMI cables through your walls or ceiling (or down to your basement), but sometimes that's just not easy - or possible.

As Daniel Kumin found in his recent "Something in the Air" article, sending HD signals wirelessly is not only possible, it's now practical, and even affordable.

New on the scene is DVDO's Air, one of the more interesting-looking products in this category. Curious how well it stacks up? How convenient. Me too.

On Monday, we began Sound+Vision’s quest for a great $59 headphone by looking at the Skullcandy Hesh 2.0 and the Beyerdynamic DTX 300 p. Today, we’ll be auditioning the Philips CitiScape Metro and the AudioTechnica ATH-RE70 Retro-Face. On Friday, we’ll wrap up with the Urbanears Plattan and the House of Marley Positive Vibration.

I had always assumed that all $59 headphones sound about as refined as Ski Johnson. That is, until I happened upon a marketing crew from House of Marley at my local Fry's Electronics. Encouraged by our experience with the company's $149 Exodus, I tried the $59 Positive Vibration - and was shocked to hear that much of what I loved in the sound of the Exodus was evident in the Positive Vibration, too.

Which got me wondering: Are there other good headphones available at this price point? Could those who have only three Andrew Jacksons to their name actually get a decent set of cans?

I took a mini-vacation a few weeks ago to Venice, Florida. My Dad had rented a house for a month and, figuring I could use a few days off, I went to visit. Now first of all, I was the youngest person in the zipcode by half. I've never seen such a concentration of gray hairs.

While there, I was volunteered to do some pro bono work helping diagnose a home theater system that had never worked properly, despite "professional" installation.

What I discovered seriously pissed me off.