LATEST ADDITIONS

Like three-button suits, ribbon drivers seem to go in and out of fashion arbitrarily. But there's a pattern. First, they're all the rage for their airy, transparent, detailed sound. Then they're shunned because of inherent technical limitations or their low impedances (which present a difficult load for an amplifier to drive). Or because of the complexities involved in getting them to mate with the traditional cone drivers typically used to produce low frequencies. Or because new materials and technologies have improved the performance of cone and dome drivers, which, being easier to manufacture and use, make ribbons' theoretical advantages not worth the hassle. Then there's a breakthrough in ribbon design and the cycle repeats.

We went to four programmers from XM and four from Sirius and asked them the same question: With listeners able to choose between things like CD megachangers, digital music servers, DVD music videos, and traditional radio, what does satellite radio have to offer?

Opening photo, remotes, and back panels by JaymeThornton.com