Brent Butterworth

If I review more speakers like the Gallo Acoustics Nucleus Reference Strada, my Office Depot bill will skyrocket. Within the first 2 minutes of listening to this speaker, I filled a page and a half of my lab notebook with verbiage — and the torrential scribbling continued for days, consuming paper faster than a schnauzer snarfs up Snausages.

As I stood chatting with the pilot of a B-1B Lancer supersonic bomber at Edwards Air Force Base recently, I realized that audio geeks have something in common with military aviators. "This air- plane is older than I am," the pilot mused. I thought to myself, "So are some of the speaker designs I review." Like the military, audiophiles don't reflexively throw stuff out if it still works. See?

Panasonic's CES 2011 press event was like a salad topped with a few perfectly seared pieces of tuna. The salad- i.e., the dull part - was lots of talk about 3D and Internet-connected TV. The seared tuna - i.e., the good part - was a list of improvements was can expect to see in Panasonic's already-awesome line of plasma TVs.

While wandering the aisles of the recent Audio Engineering Society show in San Francisco, I found a great little measurement rig for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch that deserved inclusion in my recent article on DIY audio measurement in the January 2011 issue of S+V [on stands now]. Unfortunately, the article had already gone to press, so I thought I'd report on the system here.