Mark Fleischmann

Bluetooth Speaker ReviewsBookshelf Speaker Reviews
Audioengine HD3 Loudspeaker Review
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 20, 2017

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $399 pr

AT A GLANCE
Plus
For desktop or in-room listening
PC-friendly USB and line inputs
Class A/B analog amp
Minus
Limited (but adjustable) bass

THE VERDICT
Audioengine, always a champ in powered compact speakers, sweetens the deal on this one with a PC-friendly USB input and headphone jack.

Twelve-year-old Audioengine is best known for active compact speakers, though the company also makes passive compact speakers, a subwoofer, a small amplifier, a USB stick DAC, and a couple of streaming DACs. The HD3 loudspeaker is more or less an amalgamation of most of those products, infusing a sweet little speaker with a Class A/B amp, DAC, Bluetooth streaming, and a couple of less common features that just might make it irresistible to those in the market for a pair of small wireless speakers.

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Audio Video News
Audio Hardware Thrives
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 15, 2017
Audio hardware sales broke records in 2016, rising to $10.2 billion, a whopping 33 percent increase, says Futuresource Consulting. Burgeoning categories include ...
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Audio Video News
UHD BD Beating Old BD
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 13, 2017
Though still a small part of the market, Ultra HD Blu-ray players are outpacing unit sales of original Blu-ray players in the same time frame, with 300,000 units sold in 2016 according to the Blu-ray Disc Association.
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Audio Video News
Sound & Vision Tech Tidbits June 2017
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 06, 2017
Denon Heos 1 Go Packs are being recalled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission due to potential fire hazard. If the battery you bought to go with your Heos 1 speaker has a serial number beginning with the number 5, or those between 601G913517 and 601G914004, call (844) 759-1987 or see usa.denon.com/gopackreplace to arrange for a free replacement...
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Ears On
Sgt. Pepper Meets Dolby Atmos
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 02, 2017
If you're a Beatlemaniac, by now you've heard all about the 50th anniversary reissue of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Perhaps you've even read our interview with producer Giles Martin. What remains to be said about this milestone about a milestone? How about Sgt. Pepper in Dolby Atmos?

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Bluetooth Speaker ReviewsIntegrated Amp ReviewsWireless Multiroom Speaker Reviews
Yamaha MusicCast WXA-50 Amplifier and WX-010 Speaker Review
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 31, 2017

MusicCast WX-010 Speaker
Performance
Build Quality
Value

MusicCast WXA-50 Amplifier
Audio Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $500 (amp); $200 (speaker)

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Streams to MusicCast devices
Wi-Fi, AirPlay, Bluetooth
55 watts per channel, Class D
Minus
No headphone jack on amp
No analog input on speaker
Loaded PC may freeze app

THE VERDICT
The Yamaha WXA-50 has a clean and lively sound, a space-saving form factor, and the ability to stream to devices using the company’s MusicCast system—including the reasonable-sounding WX-010 wireless speaker.

If you are the intended audience for the Yamaha MusicCast WXA-50 amplifier, you find A/V receivers too big, black, and boxy. You are happy with two-channel sound but turned off by doghouse-sized stereo amps sitting on the floor. Soundbars may give you Bluetooth, but that isn’t enough. You’re willing to accept the architecture of a conventional home audio system—amp, speakers, sources—but on a more modest scale. And because you live in more than one room, you want a system with multiroom smarts. That’s the WXA-50 stereo integrated amp and MusicCast multiroom system in a nutshell. To make things interesting for this review, we threw in a couple of Yamaha’s latest WX-010 wireless speakers in additional zones.

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Audio Video News
Networks Lure Binge Viewers
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 25, 2017
Once a year, House of Cards fans cancel all social obligations and hole up to bingewatch the new season of the Netflix original series in an evening or two or three. Other networks want a piece of that action.
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Audio Video News
Burn, Baby, Burn Blu-ray
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 09, 2017
Pioneer has introduced the world’s first Ultra Blu-ray rewritable disc drive for computers—in Japan, anyway. They can write to four-layer Blu-ray Discs (capacity 128 gigabytes) and rewrite to three-layer discs (100 GB).
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Audio Video News
Revenge of the Antenna
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 09, 2017
The percentage of broadband-connected households using antenna-delivered broadcast TV has jumped from 9 percent to 15 percent over the past three years. And the percentage getting pay-TV service has dropped every year during the same period, to 81 percent of broadband households in 2016.
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Ears On
My Big Fat Classical Bucket List
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 05, 2017
Over the past year or two my concertgoing life has accelerated and intensified. I love music, and I live in a great city with a first-class symphony orchestra and several concert halls, yet until recently I've rarely taken advantage of them. Only lately has the desire to attack my classical bucket list taken hold. I mentioned some of this in a previous blog, but never discussed why. So you may be wondering: Why this, why now?

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