Leslie Shapiro

Speaker Angle: Thanks to Genelec, There's an App for That

Leslie Shapiro | Sep 04, 2012

How often has this happened to you? You walk into a friend's house and notice - yikes! - their loudspeakers are poorly aligned. Maybe they're pointing straight ahead, maybe they're toed way in, or maybe they're just pointing off in random directions. Whatever the problem, you'll note the missing sweet spot. But what can you do about it, without your gear? Well, there's an app for that.

Headphone Reviews

Review Redux: Bell'O Digital BDH653 In-Ear Headphone

Leslie Shapiro | Aug 27, 2012

After seeing our initial review of the Bell'O BDH650, Bell'O sent us a replacement, feeling that our review sample must have been a prototype. Yes, we've heard this kind of thing before, but the argument, in this case, did make sense (the 650 doesn't seem to have made it into Bell'O's final headphone lineup anyway). So we took another listen.

Grace Notes

Slacker’s Bass and Beats Radio

Leslie Shapiro | Aug 09, 2012

It’s no secret that here at Sound+Vision, we’re fans of Slacker Radio — I’ve been singing their praises since they first launched. Now there’s a new reason to love Slacker. While it’s easy to create your own stations personalized for your own tastes in music, Slacker has just announced a new free station, Bass and Beats, that is designed to showcase “the best low frequency tracks ever.”

Grace Notes

Beats Buys MOG: Next Stop, World Domination?

Leslie Shapiro | Jul 09, 2012

Although the rumors have been flying for months, it's now official: last week Beats bought the music streaming service MOG, paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million.

Grace Notes

Picking the Meat from John Carter’s Bones

Leslie Shapiro | Jul 03, 2012

By any measure, Disney’s enjoyable Mars epic John Carter was a fiscal fiasco, netting only $72 million in the US and $282.4 million total worldwide, barely clearing its $250 million price tag. Ouch.

Headphone Reviews

Review: Bell'O Digital BDH650 In-Ear Headphones

Leslie Shapiro | Jun 28, 2012

When Bell'O

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announced that they were getting into the audio business, I fully expected them to come out with a line of speakers that matched some of their home theater furniture.

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Headphone Reviews

Review: AIRbudz Concept Eartips Leslie Shapiro | Jun 14, 2012

Anyone who's ever been out on a bike path or trail knows the hazard of approaching another runner who's wearing earphones. You know you should announce that you're passing them, but you know they can't hear you. As a cyclist, I always shout out "passing on your left" or even just a friendly "hello" to let someone know I'm behind them.

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Bluetooth Speaker Reviews

Review: Eton Rukus Solar Portable Bluetooth Speaker System Leslie Shapiro | May 07, 2012

If you’ve ever tried to jazz up a party with the speaker built into your iPhone, you know how pathetic that can sound. These days, everyone is coming out with portable speaker systems (don’t call them boomboxes!) for MP3 players, but they all require one thing: Power. Now, we all love power, but AC power isn’t always available where we want to party (eg. poolside or the beach).

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Grace Notes

Everything Big is Small Again: Nyne's New Docks Leslie Shapiro | Apr 24, 2012

For years, TV manufacturers have been striving to make the biggest and best TV displays. Every year in Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show has been a competition to see who could show off the most ridiculously humongous TV screen.

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Headphone Amp/DAC Reviews

Review: Pure i-20 and Pro-Ject Dock Box S Digital Page 2 Leslie Shapiro | Apr 12, 2012

We can bemoan the demise of audio quality all we want, but the truth is that good quality audio has always been at our fingertips. If our digital files have sounded bad, it’s because we (and we’re talking consumers and manufacturers) have been too stingy with our storage capacities. Wanting to cram as much music onto our devices as possible, regardless of how badly the signal had to be degraded to get it all in there, we ended up accepting things like 128 kbps MP3 files as passable. But our beloved iPods and iPhones have had the ability to store lossless and high bit-rate audio from the very beginning, as purists have known all along. You just need a way to get your high-quality files out of those little boxes.

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Leslie Shapiro

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