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HTPC Update #3: My Favorite Upgrade, the Video Card

Geoffrey Morrison | Oct 11, 2011 |

I gave in. Battlefield 3 had reduced my HTPC to a smoldering, weeping mess that begged me to put it out of its misery.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.

And to that end, I started with, well the anthropomorphic spin kinda fails here. It's a new video card, that's what I'm getting at.

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HTPC Update #4: Buying a Home Theater PC

Geoffrey Morrison | Aug 27, 2012 |

I'm ashamed. I must embarrassingly hand in my nerd card.

This month, for only the second time in my adult life, I purchased a computer. No longer can I haughtily proclaim "well, I build my own PCs." Gone is the geek-cred I felt enshrined me as an elitist in the elitist world of PC gaming. But it had to be done, and I'll tell you, it's awesome.

So let me save you some money, and go through the various bits of the PC I bought, so you know where to spend your money on a PC you might buy, or want to build yourself.

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IMAX launches Private Theatre program Brent Butterworth | May 31, 2013 |

IMAX already enjoys a rep as more or less the ultimate cinematic experience. Now it wants to be known for the ultimate home theater experience. The company's new Private Theatre program creates a 4K 3D theater in your home, with 7.1 sound and a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling screen.

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Imperfect Sound Forever Brent Butterworth | Jul 19, 2011 |

Last year, an audio dealer named Gordon Sauck called to get my permission to use a 1997 article of mine on his website. As I chatted with him, I realized there was a huge emerging trend to which I and most of the other guys who write about audio have been largely oblivious.

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Imperfect Sound Forever Page 2

Brent Butterworth | Jul 19, 2011 |

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In Defense of Small Audio

Lauren Dragan | Jan 29, 2016 |

It has recently come to my attention that certain members of the audio-enthusiast community are concerned by the home audio purchasing choices made by millennials. Specifically, the findings by the NPD Group that 66% of 18-34 year olds use soundbars to listen to music in addition to watching TV. The diehard floorstanding- and tower-speaker fans see this statistic as a harbinger of the impending death of good taste, and prematurely blame the under-40 set for ruining the audio market altogether. I’m here to not only refute that assumption, but to also defend the purchase and use of small audio.

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In the Mix: What Makes a DJ Headphone?

Michael Berk | Apr 16, 2012 |

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.

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Interview: David Chesky

Brent Butterworth | Feb 09, 2013 |

David Chesky's name is practically synonymous with audiophile recording and the quest for a purer, more natural sound. Instead of close-miking instruments, recording them on multiple tracks, adding reverb, and mixing it all down, he records in great-sounding spaces in pristine stereo.

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Interview: Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda Talks Digital Audio Fidelity and Recording in Analog

Lauren Dragan | Jul 16, 2014 |

Last week we talked about The Distortion of Sound, the new documentary concerning the gradual decline in audio quality that plagues the music current music industry. If you haven’t watched it yet (it’s free, incidentally) you really owe it to yourself to take the half an hour, and to share with a less-tech-savvy friend. For those of you who can’t stream a video right now, the gist is this: music fans are getting deprived of the ability to hear the full quality of the music they’re downloading, streaming, and YouTube-ing. Initially, the desire for convenience of carrying a small device necessitated the severe compression of music files, but as tech has advanced beyond that point, the quality of the music we’re hearing hasn’t. In fact, since the CD, the clarity and authenticity or recordings has largely decreased. Buy the best headphones, speakers, you name it, and they’re all worthless if the audio you’re playing isn’t high quality. Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park is a vocalist, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist, as well as producer, and was one of the many members of the music and recording industry who participated in The Distortion of Sound. I sat down with him before the documentary premiere to talk about the state of the music industry, how he listens to music, and what it was like to record an album analog.

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Invisible Cities: The Seamless Meeting of Art and Technology

Lauren Dragan | Nov 22, 2013 |

Have you ever listened to a pair of headphones and thought that it seems as though the music was being performed right in front of you? Or maybe you’re in a public place, listening to music as you walk, and all the day to day mundanity around you takes on a more profound glow? Or sometimes, if you pay attention, it seems as though events are lining up to the rhythm: someone is walking to the beat, or speaking at just the right moment? Now imagine that all of those things were happening at the same time and you’ll have a small idea of what it was like to attend Invisible Cities, an opera composed for headphones and performed live at a functioning, bustling train station.

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Is TV the New Corn Syrup?

Lauren Dragan | Sep 24, 2016 |

If you have a child, or friends with kids in your life, you probably saw the recent New York Post article somewhere in your social media feed, complete with its click-bait-ish title: “It’s ‘digital heroin’: How screens turn kids into psychotic junkies.” Fear-mongering headline aside, the question raised is a good one, especially for those of us who are A/V fans. When it comes to developing brains, how much media is too much?

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iTunes vs Amazon Instant Video vs Google Play vs Sony Unlimited vs Samsung Media Hub

Geoffrey Morrison | Aug 06, 2012 |

I have been saying for ages that the only thing that matters in a tablet is the available content: What can I download to the device, and watch on a plane, train, automobuggie? Everything can stream Netflix, surf the web, etc. The number of downloadable TV shows and movies is by far the most meaningful difference between tablets.

The assumption: iTunes and Amazon offer so much more content, the other services - and thus, tablets that aren't iPads or Kindles - are pointless.

Is that assumption correct? Or more to the point, how can you tell?

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I’m Going to Talk About Star Wars (finally)

Geoffrey Morrison | Feb 05, 2016 |

It’s been nearly two months, and if you haven’t seen it, I have to assume you don’t want to. Cool, have fun with that. You’ve probably skipped past this post anyway.

But if you’re still here, I have some thoughts about Episode VII that I want to talk about and I figure it's been enough time not to spoil anything... even though there are no spoilers here (I don't think).

Headphone Reviews Tech2

JBL Syncros S400BT: Close to Syncros-nicity

Lauren Dragan | Mar 13, 2014 |

Ah, Bluetooth. The desire to cut the cord has led to a market flooded with a dozen new wireless headphone options in the last few months. The latest to enter the fray is JBL, with their Synchros S400BT: a touch sensor controlling, LED glowing, aptX encoding, Bluetooth 3.0 stereo over-ear headphone. With all those bells and whistles, I just had to give them a try. How would they measure up?

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Jplay Audiophile Computer Playback Software

Geoffrey Morrison | Oct 06, 2011 |

It's an interesting thing, this. A tweaky audiophile program that strips away all the junk your computer could be doing while playing back your digital audio files.

The idea is to give each file as good an environment for playback as possible, minimizing jitter and maximizing sound quality.

Well, OK. That could be cool.

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