Articles
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CES 2009 Follow-Up: NuForce Going Mobile? Yes.
|NuForce is well-known within the audiophile community for its class D power amplifiers, high-performance preamps, a high-end speaker system, and a very interesting desktop sound system powered by a tiny, paperback book-sized combo USB DAC/integrated ...read more -
CES 2009: Beats by Dre Tour & Monster Cable Turbine In-Ear Headphones
|First Impressions: Beats by Dre Tour & Monster Cable Turbine in-ear headphones Two products that had their “official” debuts at CES 2009 were Monster Cable’s Turbine in-ear headphones ($150) and Tour in-ear headphones (also $150) ...read more -
Affordable Speakers (and Earbuds) at CES 2009
|As many of you know, I’m not only editor of Playback, but also an occasional contributor to Playback’s famous sister magazine, The Absolute Sound. This year at CES, as has become my custom, I agreed ...read more -
Sennheiser’s New Flagship Headphones
|With a price of almost $1300 the new Sennheiser 800 headphones better be special. Well, they are. Hand built one at a time, the 800 employs a patent-applied for ring-shaped transducer made with a precision ...read more -
Musical Fidelity M1 DAC and V-Link USB Adapter (TAS 213)
|I know the cynics in the audience may have a hard time believing this, but sometimes when I receive a component for review I don’t know its price. In the case of the Musical Fidelity ...read more -
Earbuds: The Seal is the Deal
|I’ve discovered that a fair number of people seem not to take high performance earbuds (or any earbuds, really) very seriously, which I think is unfortunate. There are probably two related factors to blame for ...read more -
Audio-Technica Announces In-Ear Headphones with Active Noise Cancelling
|Many listeners assume that all noise-cancelling headphones have large and comparatively bulky ear cups designed to be worn over the wearer’s ears, but not anymore. According to a company release, Audio-Technica is introducing its QuietPoint ...read more -
Ultrasone Releases Last of its Limited Edition 9 Headphones
|Wildemar, CA-based Ultrasone Inc., the U.S. distribution arm of the German headphone manufacturer Ultrasone AG, has announced the release of the last of its very limited availability Edition 9 headphones. Intended as a “statement class” ...read more -
Testing Noise-Cancelling Headphones
|One of the most enjoyable and illuminating projects I’ve taken on of late has been testing a group of noise-cancelling headphones for Playback. The first batch of reviews (covering models from Audio-Technica, Creative Labs and ...read more -
Audio-Technica ATH-A700 Headphones
|Audio-Technica describes its mid-priced ATH-A700 headphones as a models designed to deliver “audiophile-quality acoustic performance with full, rich balanced bass.” At $299, the ATH-A700 is less expensive than many of the ’phones in this survey, ...read more -
BeyerDynamic DT 880 PRO Headphones
|BeyerDynamic has been building headphones and microphones since the company was founded in Berlin in 1924, and today the semi-open-back DT 880 PRO headphone is the second-from-the-top model in the firm’s lineup. In a sense, ...read more -
Denon AH-D1001 Headphones
|The AH-D1001s are the lightest, smallest headphones in this survey and for this reason are among the most comfortable. They are arguably the only ’phones in this group light, compact, and sensitive enough to be ...read more -
Grado RS 2 Headphones
|The RS 2 is the number three model in Grado’s headphone lineup, but among headphone aficionados it enjoys a reputation for capturing much of the essential goodness of the very expensive, top-tier Grado models (the ...read more -
Sennheiser HD 650
|The HD 650 has been Sennheiser’s flagship audiophile headphone for several years now, but it is only recently that the firm decided to buck contemporary pricing trends to reduce the product’s list price from around ...read more -
Ultrasone PRO 2500 Headphones
|Ultrasone is a German firm that makes headphones for DJ, hi-fi, and professional applications, though it is perhaps best known in the United States for its pro-series models. I debated whether to sample one of ...read more