New Gear

I’ve been working in radio for close to 30 years now, and I have access to all kinds of recording equipment, including some great microphones. Most of the gear I can get my hands on is pretty high-end stuff that uses XLR connectors and would require elaborate equipment that I just don’t have at home. So I was really interested when the MXL Studio 1 USB microphone ($130) landed on my desk. It’s a portable condenser microphone that connects to your computer via USB. MXL boasts that it’s plug-and-play, and that’s not a joke: No installation discs. No drivers. No preamps, mixers, or extra gear. Nice.

With so many mainstream companies getting into the soundbar biz, much of the action in that category seems to have shifted over to the CEDIA Expo. Still, CES 2013 did reveal a few new soundbar models. Some, like the Vizios shown above, blew away showgoers with their sound quality.

Samsung is about to make good on a promise to make Smart TVs even smarter.

A post on the Olive One by my colleague Al Griffin got me to thinking. For a modest dollar sum, you can own a cool audio component with audiophile-quality specifications. But here’s the paradox: if it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, can audio gear really have audiophile cache?

I sure didn’t expect to be at the L.A. Auto Show today. And I even surer didn’t expect that I’d be going there to listen to the first car with a Krell audio system: the 2014 RLX, the new flagship model from Acura.