Signals

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Exclusive: Insider Tour of Lirpa Labs
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Apr 01, 2016  | 
Every audio and video gearhead is familiar with the world-famous Lirpa Labs. We can count, using many of the fingers on our hands, the number of wonderful Lirpa products we have owned over the years. Whether you have an average IQ allowing you to recite the alphabet from A to Z, or a super IQ and can recite it from Z to A, only a few people can truly comprehend the genius of Lirpa. Yes, indeed. Lirpa. Yes, indeed.
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Fighting the Last War
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jun 10, 2014  | 
It’s often said that generals fight the last war. If the previous war was fought in trenches, you train and equip your armies for that kind of conflict. Then the enemy drives its fast-moving tanks around the ends of your fortified line, and before you know it, is eating croissants in Paris. So you re-equip and retrain for massive tank battles in the hedgerows of Europe, and suddenly you’re wading knee-deep in rice paddies in Vietnam. It’s tough on us troops.

The same could be said of the record and movie industries...

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Follow the Money
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 10, 2011  | 

What do TVs and music sales have in common? They are both big businesses, and both markets are rapidly shifting the money from Old Business companies and business models to New Business companies and business models. And some major players are getting left behind.

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FOR SALE: Pre-Owned Bitstream, Gently Used
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Nov 16, 2011  | 

They are not so common any more, but I'm sure you remember used record & CD shops. Now imagine them without the bricks and mortar. Or the bins. Or the records and CDs. Say what? Welcome to the biggest music-industry brouhaha since Napster.

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Four Eyes
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Sep 30, 2011  | 

It seems simple enough. You wait in line, pay $15, put on the dorky 3D glasses, and watch the 3D movie. Popcorn costs extra. What you might not realize is the titanic struggle going on around you. And I’m not talking about the action on the screen. I’m talking about the theater owner who’s mad as hell at the movie studio.

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Fractured Fairy Tales
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Mar 29, 2021  | 
Okay, children! Time for a bedtime story! Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. While walking through the forest, she came upon a quaint little village. In that village there were three ways to watch movies...
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Friendly Father
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jul 15, 2024  | 
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” George Orwell, 1984
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From Musicboarding to Phoneboarding
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jun 27, 2023  | 
A few months ago, I described how a certain airline has devised a fiendish way to torment its passengers. That is, a type of torment beyond the usual run-of-the-mill torture of flying on any airplane. In a letter to the editor, alert reader Douglas Mandel commiserated with me but pointed out that I was overlooking another kind of torture that is much, much worse.
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Funky Sound Studio Debuts Debussy Headphones
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 09, 2018  | 
Claude Debussy composed some of the most sublime music ever written. Clair de Lune, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, La mer, Pelléas et Mélisande - all are impressionist masterpieces. The maestro may thus be surprised to learn that his name has become a brand of a start-up company incongruently named Funky Sound Studio.

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Gently Down the Stream
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Mar 19, 2013  | 

Streaming is hot. Outfits like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and HBO Go are jamming the internet with data and putting the hurt on DVD and even Blu-ray. Last time I checked, smart phones, tablets, and ultrabooks lacked optical disc drives. Besides, do you really want to mess with disc-based playback on the train to work? Streaming is entering the hockey stick part of its growth curve.

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Get Ready to Rumble
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Apr 17, 2018  | 
Singing roads. You know - when they mess up a perfectly smooth section of pavement to vibrate your tires to create rhythm and pitch. Music, or psychological torture? You decide.

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Good Vibrations
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Dec 25, 2012  | 

So you’re a committed audiophile. You used a laser to precisely toe in your front loudspeakers. You lie awake at night worrying about that 2-dB dip at 9 kHz in your room’s frequency response. You hire Mike Mettler to hand-deliver every issue of S+V. [I aim to please —Ed.] Well, that’s great.

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Google Patent Application Is Downright Creepy
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Sep 22, 2015  | 
As you may have noticed, things are becoming more complex. Blame Moore’s Law, or whatever. But things are complicated. To help us manage that complexity, companies are devising even more complicated things that give us, the human users, the illusion of simplicity. However, a recent Google patent application, aimed at simplifying the operation of things like home entertainment systems, is just downright creepy.

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Ground Control to Major Tom
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Dec 03, 2013  | 
David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” is one of the most memorable songs of the late 60s. Its release on July 11, 1969 not coincidentally coincided with the Apollo 11 moon landing. The single reached #5 on the British charts and later in his career Bowie revisited the theme several times. This odd song about an astronaut drifting in space is simply iconic. Now, audiences are discovering a uniquely new version of Space Oddity.

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Gunfight at the 4K Corral
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Aug 18, 2015  | 
Tombstone, Arizona Territory. October 26, 1881. It is a Wednesday, around 3:00 p.m. In a vacant lot adjacent to the O.K. Corral, four lawmen including Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday square off against five outlaws. Within 30 seconds, 30 shots are fired. When the gun smoke clears, three men lie on the ground, wounded. And three men lie on the ground, dead. Only Wyatt Earp walks away without a scratch. A Wild West legend is born.
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