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Headphone Reviews
Audeze LCD-4 Headphone Review
Steve Guttenberg  |  May 17, 2016

Performance
Build Quality
Comfort
Value
PRICE $3,995

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Audeze ups their game, again!
Solid build quality
Made in Costa Mesa, California
Minus
They’re heavy!

THE VERDICT
You’ll know it when you hear it—there’s something very right, natural, and organic about the Audeze LCD-4’s sound.

The uber headphone field is getting mighty crowded—we have the Abyss AB-1266 ($5,495), Hifiman HE1000 ($2,999), Stax SR 009 ($3,999), Sennheiser Orpheus ($55,000!)—and now we have Audeze’s latest, the LCD-4 ($3,995). Talk about sticker shock! But let’s put those prices in perspective: All of them put together cost far less than a single Wilson Audio Alexandria XLF speaker, which sell for upwards of $200,000 per pair. So, as extreme as toptier headphone price tags have become, most are still within reach of a vastly larger group of enthusiasts than the very best high-end speakers. By that criterion, uber ’phones like the LCD-4 are comparatively affordable. Expensive, yes, but the best stuff always is.

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A/V Veteran
Complex Is as Complex Does
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 17, 2016
It hasn’t been that long ago that when I arrived back from the annual January CES, my desk looked something like the photo here, staring back at me with a “pick me, pick me” plea. But with all of the brochures and press releases and miscellaneous literature first transferred to CD-ROM, now to flash drives, and (in some cases) merely a cryptic card directing you to the manufacturer’s website, the reading material can now fit in a tiny corner of my suitcase.

Owners’ manuals were once like that, but with a fundamental difference. They were slender things that could be read and understood in an hour or two. But as products, particularly HDTVs and AVRs, became more complicated, their manuals grew larger, not to mention the need to produce them in 15 languages...

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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Yamaha Announces RX-A 60 Series AV Receivers
SV Staff  |  May 17, 2016
Yamaha today announced the Aventage RX-A 60 Series of AV receivers, comprising six models that will hit stores between May and July.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Meet GorillaPod: The All-Terrain Speaker Stand
SV Staff  |  May 17, 2016
If you’ve ever wished you had a way to prop up your portable Bluetooth speaker when you relaxing out on the patio or at the park or beach, your prayers may be answered in the form of GorillaPod, a small, flexible speaker stand you can take with you.
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Signals
The Rise and Fall of Stereo (Part One)
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  May 17, 2016
In the beginning, Edison created the phonograph, and it was good. It was also monaural. The vertical modulation (referred to as hill-and-dale recording) of the groove neatly encoded the amplitude variations of the analog-input waveform and likewise could reproduce the waveform. If engineers had stuck with hill-and-dale, the world would be a very different place. But they kept tinkering, as engineers are wont to do, and they found an improvement.

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Remotely Possible
Hearing the Signal Through the Noise with AfterShokz and Etymotic
Darryl Wilkinson  |  May 16, 2016
In my experience, if you talk with anyone (who actually knows what they are) about bone-conduction headphones, nine times out of ten you’ll hear something along the lines of “cool technology” with the quickly added caveat, “sounds like crap.” While both can be accurate, one man’s crap is another man’s…um, let me rephrase that. When it comes to a product or technology, it’s important to consider the ends while evaluating the means...
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Audio Video News
Videophiles Need Speed
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 16, 2016
Don’t you just hate it when Netflix freezes? Acutely aware of how Internet speeds affect perception of its service, Netflix regularly ranks ISPs. In the November 2015 ranking, Grande Communications was the winner at 3.90 Mbps. The small outfit outpaced a bunch of big guys including Verizon (3.86), Cox (3.76), Bright House/Cablevision (3.74), Comcast (3.69), and Time Warner (3.65). These numbers are for Netflix performance only, not overall data performance.
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Audio Video News
Samsung UHD Blu-ray Player Certified ‘Premium’
SV Staff  |  May 16, 2016
The UHD Alliance (UHDA) has certified that the first Ultra HD Blu-ray player to be released in the U.S.—Samsung’s UBD-K8500—meets the rigorous performance standards required for Ultra HD Premium certification.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
TV Antenna Made from Recycled Cable Boxes
SV Staff  |  May 16, 2016
If you’ve been thinking about getting an antenna to see how many local HDTV channels you can pull in over the air for free, Mohu has a unique product it hopes you will consider: An indoor antenna made from recycled paper…and cable boxes.
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Ask S&V
Will 2016 TVs Be Upgradeable to ATSC 3.0?
Al Griffin  |  May 16, 2016
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q I have been reading about the new TVs for 2016 that were shown at CES. I’ve also read about ATSC 3.0, the proposed new broadcast standard (also shown at CES) for 4K “over-the-air” transmission. Will any of the TVs coming out this year be upgraded to ATSC 3.0 via a software update? —Paul Binder / via email

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