sound

The best-sounding club in NYC?

I recently dropped by Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center to talk with the sound engineer, and by chance met Sam Berkow, the club's sound designer. Berkow had one key advantage going into the project that most designers don't: the club was planned before construction started on the Time Warner Center in New York. Berkow was quick to point out he had one major hurdle to jump over, in that there would be a huge glass window behind the stage to give patrons a spectacular view of Central Park. The window would be a massive … Read more

The Boundary B404, a high-end outdoor speaker

Outdoor speakers are a little out of my area of expertise, and most of the ones I've seen at shows look like plastic rocks. Leon Speakers' Boundary B404 is definitely a big step up from those sorts of things.

The B404 sports a gorgeous solid mahogany cabinet inspired by Chris Craft's classic Thunderbird boats. Right now there's just one model in the Boundary line, the B404.… Read more

Get a Vaas portable USB sound bar for $14.98

Not happy with the audio coming from your laptop? No surprise there -- it's fairly miraculous that manufacturers manage to squeeze in speakers at all.

And yet many folks use their laptops as media centers in dens and bedrooms. So how can you get more aural enjoyment from your games, movies, and music?

Simple: add a sound bar. Even an inexpensive one should offer a huge improvement over the tiny, tinny speakers built into your system. If nothing else, it projects the sound forward instead of down, out, or up (depending on where the internal speakers are mounted).

Today … Read more

DARPA drops the bass to extinguish fire

Citing a lack of innovation in fire-extinguishing methods over the last 50 years, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last week revealed an ear-buzzing new method for putting out fires: blast it with fine-tuned frequencies.

Officially referred to as "acoustic suppression of flame," this simple yet potentially revolutionary method simply relies on two speakers playing a specific low frequency toward the fire.

The resulting acoustics increase air velocity, making it easier to alter the origin of the fire's combustion, also known as the flame boundary layer. … Read more

Smart Tools are powerful, yet simple

Even with its belt full of powerful tools onboard, Smart Tools is, for the most part, simple. The app opens up to a wall of choices, and if you've used any of Smart Tools' apps before, then all of them should look familiar. Smart Tools combines the powers of all of the developer's individual Pro tool sets.

The first set lets you measure length and angle, using a level, ruler, and two protractors (one which uses the screen, and the other your device's camera).

The second offers a Distance tool, which is a bit more complicated, as … Read more

Prizefight: Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker vs. Jawbone Big Jambox

It's a Prizefight Punchout! Bose has always had a solid reputation but do they have what it takes to take down the upstart Jawbone and their Big Jambox?

These wireless speakers each cost $300 so let's find out who packs the biggest punch in Design, Sound Quality, Features and Value.

Who do YOU think deserves to be the Prizefight champion? Is it the Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker or the Jawbone Big Jambox?

Cast your vote!

Poll: Do you use your TV's speakers?

The other day, our audio reviewer Steve Guttenberg told me that when he was choosing his new television he spent a good deal of time at his local electronics retailer testing TVs against each other. But instead of evaluating the picture he was more interested in evaluating the sound quality, which I'm sure did not impress the salespeople who were used to just flicking on a copy of "Up" and waving at the TVs theatrically.

Sound quality is underappreciated in a product that is primarily designed to give you a picture, and unless you buy an expensive … Read more

Who needs a hi-fi?

Hi-fi has a dated, almost "Mad Men" ring to it, but it predates Don Draper's 1960s time frame. Sound-quality advances in hi-fis first grabbed the public's imagination 10 years earlier, in the 1950s.

A hi-fi system could be configured in a variety of ways, but the basic setup had a turntable, amplifier, and a pair of speakers. That sort of rig, with a CD player, still works for today's audiophiles, but they're probably 1 percent of all music listeners. For the other 99 percent, their "hi-fi" is in the car, or maybe … Read more

How to make your speakers sound better than ever

Since most people listen to music on free earbuds, plastic computer speakers, or car audio systems, it's easy to understand why great-sounding new recordings are rare. Even so, exceptional ones sneak through from time to time, and when I have a stack of candidates, I cover the best new releases here.

"The Raconteurs: Live in Montreux 2008" (Blu-ray) The Raconteurs were formed in 2005 by Jack White of the White Stripes, but this show from 2008 has just been released. The band's ferocious performances sound great here in DTS Master Audio. I like the two Raconteurs … Read more