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Tech Trends 2013: Video
S&V's video experts explain this season's hottest trends in TV
Tech Trends 2013: Audio
S&V's speaker measurement guy reports on this spring's hottest trends in speakers, headphones, turntables, and more.
Show Report: New York Audio Show, Part I
NY-area audiophiles gather for sumptuous sound and scintillating seminars.
Sony's new 2013 home audio products
New receivers, new soundbar, new HTiBs

What's New

Review: Cambridge Audio Minx Air 200 and Minx Go Wireless Speakers

Cambridge expands the Minx into a new lifestyle audio line — one that doesn't make you give up sound quality for form and functionality.
- By Michael Berk
- Posted June 19, 2013
When we checked out Cambridge Audio's original Minx 5.1 setup just about two years back we plain loved the little things, which we felt represented about the best miniature speaker system to date, the bargain price notwithstanding. Cambridge hasn't rested on their laurels, and in the intervening years they've taken the Minx concept and have built a whole line of cool little (and not so little) lifestyle products — read small, portable, wireless systems — around it.

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Review: Monoprice 10010

Another decent ~$100 noise-cancelling headphone?
- By Brent Butterworth
- Posted June 18, 2013
I’ve been searching a long time for a good noise-cancelling headphone priced around $100—something that might approach the performance of the $299 Bose QC-15 but at one-third the price.

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Test Report: Sony KDL-55W900A 3D LCD HDTV

A worthy successor to one of the best LCD sets we've tested?
- By Al Griffin
- Posted June 18, 2013
Sometimes, new isn’t necessarily better. One example: MP3 downloads provided a convenient way for listeners to store and share music, but MP3 sound quality was a steep downgrade fromthat ofthe long-running CD format. And remember when Windows Vista OS was trotted out to replace Windows XP? Okay, some things are better left forgotten.

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Review: NoiseHush i7

Finally, a decent under-$100 noise-cancelling headphone?
- By Brent Butterworth
- Posted June 17, 2013
- 1
Noise-cancelling headphones shouldn’t be so expensive. In most cases, the technology is simple: a couple of tiny microphones, a cheap amplifier chip, and a simple filter circuit.

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Review: NYNE NB-250

Bluetooth gets bigger and badder in this robust portable speaker.
- By Brent Butterworth
- Posted June 12, 2013
Thanks to the runaway success of the Jawbone Jambox, it seems most of the new Bluetooth speakers coming out are cute little things that can barely muster enough volume to hear in the next room.

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Review: PSB Imagine W3 soundbar and W1 on-wall speaker

Is “audiophile soundbar” an oxymoron?
- By Brent Butterworth
- Posted June 10, 2013
- 2
Calling the PSB Imagine W3 a soundbar is like calling the Red Bull RB6 F1 racer a car. Technically, the description is correct. But the item in question differs so much from most in its category that the comparison seems silly.

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The kit I carried

9 countries. 5 weeks. 3000+ photos. Lot’s o’gear.
- By Geoffrey Morrison
- Posted June 7, 2013
- 3
I’ve been travelling a bunch this year, with two big trips to Europe and China. Like my 10 Tips to the Travelling Techy last year, I brought along a bunch of gear, some good, some bad, some invaluable. I guess you could call this 10 Tips to the Travelling Techy 2, except it's eight.
So if you’re planning any trips this summer, check out this list of some tech gear to bring.

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Bowers & Wilkins and Maserati Quattroporte “Seven Notes”

High-end car-fi
- By Geoffrey Morrison
- Posted June 7, 2013
To celebrate their teaming up, B&W and Maserati enlisted the help of musician and producer Howie B to create the Seven Notes project. To celebrate that, they’re putting on a multi-city road show featuring live music, and a chance to check out the B&W system in the new Quattroporte.
Fellow Tech2er Brent and I trekked down to Hollywood to have a listen.

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Test Report: Jamo S 35 HCS speaker system

Can Jamo's strange new speakers deliver well-rounded sound?
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted June 6, 2013
- 1
Physicists have long postulated that an ideal sound reproducer would behave as a pulsating sphere. Ever since, the wish being father to the thought, speaker designers have been cramming transducers into balls, as if making the cabinet round would somehow magically make the sound spherical.

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Test Report: Onkyo TX-NR727 A/V Receiver

Everything you need, for under $1,000.
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted June 5, 2013
How much would you pay for an A/V receiver? For a lot of people, the answer is “$899.” This upper-mid-price sweet spot has long marked the point at which AVR-manufacturers sell the most product. Consequently, it’s where they offer the most features, performance, and power for the lowest possible dollar amount.

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Review: RockSteadyXS

Can this built-like-a-tank Bluetooth speaker really deliver 100 dB?
- By Brent Butterworth
- Posted June 5, 2013
- 3
Bluetooth speakers are like cheap econobox cars: Even in normal daily use, you’re likely to push them to their limits. Most of the compact Bluetooth speakers I test put out 81 to 87 dB at 1 meter, loud enough for casual listening but not loud enough to get your foot tapping and your head bobbing.

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Traveling Companions: Headphone Amps from FiiO, iFi, and Miniwatt

Five ways to take high-end sound with you, for a song.
- By Michael Berk
- Posted May 30, 2013
As you might have gathered from the headphone roundup we did a couple of weeks back, there's probably never been a better time to be into personal audio. With a whole new breed of enthusiast listeners out there, rabidly interested in headphones and the accessories that make 'em a better experience and willing and able to upgrade given the relatively low cost of admission, a host of audio firms new and old have been churning out new and innovative 'phones and accessories so quickly that it's been a little difficult to keep up. Taking a look at the landscape of affordable (let's say under $500), you'll find that afistful of new headphone amps and DACs are bringing once-esoteric features to the masses, at down-to-earth prices.

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