NEW GEAR

The writing may be on the wall for the CD and for physical media in general; but we're still seeing interesting disc players emerge as we enter the format's end times (of course, we could be totally wrong about that; vinyl certainly hasn't gone away, and nor has innovation in the turntable arena). But simple CD-playback devices may be a thing of the past.

Who says Switzerland is known only for chocolates, cheese, and watches? There’s plenty of exciting news coming from the 2012 Geneva Motor Show.

There is a way to make your music sound better. Well, OK, there are LOTS of ways to make your music sound better. If you’re looking to improve your digital music, beyond new speakers, amps, and so on is a bit of technological wonder called the DAC, or Digital/Analog Converter. This is what turns your music files into something analog you can actually hear.

Receivers these days tend to have built in DACs, but just because they’re there doesn’t necessarily mean they’re any good. A great sounding DAC can smooth out your digital audio, making it sound more natural and realistic.

Firestone Audio’s tiny ILTW packs a lot into a tiny frame, for not a lot of money.

Way back in July of last year, Rdio was the first of the streaming services to debut a native iPad app. Since then, they've continued to build their mobile offerings, and today they've debuted a completely revamped Android application, mirroring most of the functionality of their desktop and browser-based interfaces in a pocket-friendly package. And it'll even run under Ice Cream Sandwich.