Geoffrey Morrison

Noise cancelling and celebrity-endorsed headphones are two of the biggest categories in big headphones. You can thank Beats for that, I suppose. In one hand, I’ve got the MDR-1RNC which apparently are not endorsed by the Republican National Committee. At least, I don’t think. They’ve got digital noise cancelling (the headphones, not the Republicans) and some great design and build quality.

In my other hand I’ve got the shiny MDR-X10’s which are “unique and powerful headphones designed by Sony and Simon Cowell.” Yeah, they’re unique all right.

Six ears give a listen to create one verdict (Well, OK, technically two verdicts).

If the weather, calendar, and bevy of “PLEASEGIVEMEANOSCAR” movies didn’t give it away, surely the title of this article does: 2012 is pretty much history.

In the pages of Sound+Vision (both the digital and analog variety), we’ve covered some interesting trends, products, news, and more.

So here are some highlights and lowlights, some contrast and brightness, some tweeters and some woofers, some increasingly lame metaphors, some... well, you get the point.

With CES a few days away, and my yearly pilgrimage to that great abomination in the desert (Las Vegas) imminent, I figured it was a good time to compile some excellent driving songs.

The key to a good driving song is not that the song has something to DO with driving, that's lazy and often highly inaccurate. Similar to my article on Pop Music in the Movies, the key is the feel. The key is a fast, *ahem* driving beat.

 

There’s a few big headlines right off the top. The first, Panasonic’s entire LCD line now uses LEDs for backlighting. The second, no more GT Series on the plasma side. The third, a new ZT Series slots in above the once-top-of-the-line VT Series.  All the models and features after the jump.