Bob Ankosko

The S&V Interview
A Hi-Res Call to Arms
Bob Ankosko  |  Jul 01, 2021

15 Minutes with Jon Kiachian, VP, Hearing Health Technologies at Knowles Corp.

Jon Kiachian has spent the past 16 years working with the likes of National Semiconductor and Texas Instruments in technology-management positions. Today he is a vice president and general manager at Knowles, the global company responsible for developing the tiny microphones that allowed us to hear sound from the surface of Mars earlier this year. Kiachian oversees the business unit that develops technology to improve sound quality in a variety of electronics devices — a pursuit that’s more important than ever as high-resolution (hi-res) music reaches the masses through the likes of Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, and other streaming services. In his role at Knowles, Kiachian has become a hi-res evangelist of sorts who believes audiophiles are “duty bound” to convince the millions of listeners who settle for bad sound that there’s a better option — a way to make the music they love really come alive.

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REVIEWS===========Audio Video NewsNew Products
Dynaudio Updates Entry-Level Emit Speaker Series
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 29, 2021
Danish speaker specialist Dynaudio has updated its entry-level Emit series with five models ranging in price from $799 to $2,249/pair.
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Audio Video News
Best Gear of June 2021
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 24, 2021
Talk about extremes. The summer’s first official batch of Top Picks range from a $60 set of noise-cancelling wireless earbuds from a brand you never heard of to an $18,000 state-of-the-art surround processor from one of Europe’s premiere electronics companies. Both will surprise you.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Sonus faber Expands Entry-Level Lumina Series
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 22, 2021
Italy’s Sonus faber has expanded the entry-level Lumina speaker series it introduced last fall with a new flagship floorstanding model and larger bookshelf speaker.
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Vintage Gear
The KLH Model Nine Rides Again
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 17, 2021
KLH, the iconic audio brand co-founded by audio visionary Henry Kloss in 1957, is well known for the great sounding two-and three-way acoustic-suspension speakers it designed and built in the 1960s and ’70s. All had simple names — Model Four, Model Five, etc. — and featured unassuming but nicely finished wood-veneer cabinets. What you may not know is that KLH also introduced the first full-range electrostatic speaker — the legendary Model Nine.
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Home Movie Theaters
A Home Theater Dream Come True
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 16, 2021
For Michael Meeker, the road to A/V paradise was long and circuitous but also immensely rewarding as he experimented his way from cobbling together a crude setup almost 30 years ago to building the theater of his dreams—one most of us would die for. In those early days, the "marriage of audio and video" was a concept embraced by enthusiasts and a handful of audio companies as they inched their way toward what we would come to know as "home theater."
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Andover Previews Sub for its SpinBase System
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 14, 2021
Massachusetts-based Andover Audio has announced a companion subwoofer for its innovative SpinBase turntable system, winner of a Sound & Vision Top Pick in 2020.
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Audio Video News
Best Speakers of 2021 (So Far)
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 10, 2021
Is your sound system as good as it can be or, more to the point, as good as you want it to be? If not, it’s a great time to make tweaks and upgrades you thought about but didn’t quite get to during pandemic lockdown. Here’s the lowdown on the dozen speakers that made our Top Picks list so far this year.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Vizio Announces Pricing & Availability for 2022 TVs
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 08, 2021
Vizio has announced details, pricing, and availability for the 32 models that comprise its 2022 TV lineup. You read that right — 2022. Pandemic-driven setbacks pushed the release of its 2020 TVs to late in the year so those models were carried over into 2021. About a third of the new models are currently available, with the remainder slated to ship in July or August. All but eight of the models are 4K.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
News & Gear for the Waning Days of Spring 2021
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 03, 2021
With the Great Pandemic largely behind us, the masks are disappearing as life slowly returns to normal and the electronics industry is, as always, ready to greet us with an ever-expanding roster of new gear, even though it is still dealing with lingering chip shortages and supply-chain disruptions. The past few weeks have brought to light a unique “triphonic’ speaker designed by a former Apple designer, a tiny projector that makes it easy to take movies and gaming out to the patio, and a couple of really cool turntables that commemorate the album that redefined popular music 54 years ago.
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