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AV Rant #280: Ego Stroker

April 3rd, 2012 5 comments

Tom has some personal news and Liz starts the podcast off with an inappropriate comment. Liz reports on Spotify’s new timeline along with a discussion of how it is working for her. Tom looks at Samsung’s new tube offerings (didn’t occur to either of them that it was April 1st so they may have been a joke), Audyssey’s Audio Dock Air (which is a joke, but not in the April 1st sort of way), and a wireless solution from Atlantic Technology. Liz has some Best Buy news. Listener John compares Lossless to iTunes Match to Mastered for iTunes. You’ll want to hear this one (or read this link). There are lots of hint out there for Netflix to hear, but are they listening? On the market for a subwoofer? The correct answer is “always”. Check out this contest to win one from SVS. [post-ender]

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Lossless Audio vs iTunes Match vs Mastered for iTunes – An Analysis

April 3rd, 2012 Comments off

Tom – I’m reprinting an email I got from one of our awesome listeners – John. While we have a lot of different kinds of listeners, I’m always impressed at just how smart they are. On top of that, they care about audio quality to do these sorts of things. Great work John and thanks for sharing!

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A few podcasts ago, when discussing Audio Diffmaker, Tom suggested we use that application to see what we’re getting from iTunes Match. Since I’ve already done quite a bit with audio difference files, I don’t expect to learn much there, but I did look at and listen to an original file, a matched file, and a Mastered for iTunes file.

The track is “It Could Happen to You” by Diana Krall from the album From This Moment On. I picked this track randomly from the few I could have used for this test. Read more…

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AV Rant #277: Land of Liz

March 13th, 2012 1 comment

Tom and Liz are getting used to their new schedule and Liz is getting used to her new (old) phone. Liz found a post with some of the first sounds ever recorded. And they are CREEPY! The Olympics go ULTRA! Is there such a thing as a “bad” review? Maybe. But there are definitely bad ways to react to a review. Tom dissects this article. Listener questions from Jason (two) and an announcement from Andy (the EMP Tek E5Ti tower speakers are on sale for $275 a pair – just $25 more than the bookshelves! Jump on that if you have the spare cash). Liz talks a bit about how she got her phone unlocked and Spotify. Tom talks about this article on 24-bit/192kHz encoding. It’s a deep read so take your time. Don’t forget to comment on the last podcast to enter to win a Samsung Galaxy Nexus case. Oh, yeah, and some new Apple crap was released. You should totally sell your first born to get it.

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AV Rant #276: The H stands for Heroin

March 6th, 2012 2 comments

Liz and Tom try out their new schedule and are a little discombobulated. Technical difficulties abounded but they finally got a podcast out. Any background noise is from Liz’s cats. So…you know where to send your hate mail. This week, Tom announces how to win a Samsung Galaxy Nexus case from Otterbox (more below). Google is coming to Kansas City – and Tom would be too if he was moving back to the states. Tom and Clint wrote an article about how Apple would handle home theater. Aereo sued and no one is surprised. But are they legal? Tivo has a new box thingie. Here’s the xkcd that Liz was talking about. Someone needs to tell Tim Burton that there are more actors in the world. AT&T redefines “unlimited“. This week in Netflix – Comcast. Some more advice on how to audition speakers in a store. We can’t remember if we got to this topic on this version of the podcast but pirates care more about video quality than the studios.

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AV Rant #275: Interview with David Janszen

March 2nd, 2012 Comments off

A while back Tom did an interview with David Janszen. David is one of the foremost experts in electrostatic speakers. This interview talks about everything from what an electrostatic speaker is to how it works. David walks us through materials, constructions, and why some of the electrostatic speakers on the market really aren’t. Tom makes sure to ask about directionality, size of sweet spot, and how hybrid designs work. If you are at all interested in this type of speaker, this is a podcast you can’t miss. Plus, the speakers he was talking about on the podcast have been released so check the link out above for more details.

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