Reviews

It's been a few years since I wrote my last Zu Audio speaker review, but this time out I wanted to try their least expensive tower, and that's where things got interesting.

The Zu Audio Omen Standard and Omen Dirty Weekend (DW) are virtual twins, but with one very significant difference: the DW uses "recycled" drivers. That is, the DW drivers come from Zu customers who traded up to one of Zu's higher-end drivers. Let's stop right there: Zu Audio is one of the rare speaker companies to offer upgrades in any form, but … Read more

Elegantly designed, affordable products are marvels of our age, but then there are the extreme, defiantly outrageous ones designed to thrill. Take the new 640-horsepower Dodge SRT Viper GTS: this $120,000 supercar looks like a venomous snake with wheels and can propel its owner to insanely fast speeds, but the car probably won't be of much practical use as a grocery hauler or picking up the kids from soccer practice. The Abyss AB-1266 is the SRT Viper GTS of headphones. It's a no-holds-barred attempt to build the best-sounding headphone on the planet.

The mostly metal design is … Read more

Sharp has announced that the 70-inch LC-70UD1 is the first Ultra HD screen to receive THX certification. It will be released in mid-August and will retail for $7,999.

The TV features a 4k/UHD resolution of 3,840x2,160 pixels and includes a dual-core processor to upscale existing sources.

The Sharp includes a relatively thin metal bezel and a bottom grille featuring a six-speaker sound system with a dual subwoofer.

Onboard are four HDMI inputs -- which the company says accept a native 4K signal, despite there not being any yet -- in addition to an SD card reader … Read more

I'm usually a sound-first guy, but this time I have to talk about the way these Marten FormFloor speakers look. The stunning, three-sided cabinets looked spectacular at the Wes Bender Studio in Brooklyn. The sleek, apartment-friendly towers are works of art.

Luckily enough, the sound is no less brilliant; their astonishing purity really enhances the experience of listening to music. Bass definition and "speed" are exceptional, and vocals sound present, like the singer is in the room with me. With jazz CDs the spontaneity of the band's improvisations was captured with unusual fidelity. The 43-inch-tall towers … Read more

Families outfitted with a fleet of smartphones have a lot of options for checking in that don't require exercising those texting thumbs or distracting a driver with a call just to find out exactly when he or she is coming home for dinner.

I've gathered a handful of Android applications designed to help smartphone users keep an eye on each others' whereabouts. Indeed, the first thing that comes to mind in this NSA age is whether or not this stuff is private. Rest assured, dear reader, I've got your interests at heart.

These are apps are opt-in … Read more

Cardas Audio has been making audiophile cables since 1987, so I was taken aback when I heard George Cardas was working on a headphone model. That was four years ago, when Cardas was approached by a major in-ear headphone manufacturer to make cables for them, but when George started listening to their headphones he was less than thrilled with the sound. One thing led to another, he thought he could do better, and decided to make his own headphones.

Prototypes were built, he listened, he measured, tweaked the design, made more prototypes, listened and measured. Most dynamic in-ear headphones use … Read more

One of the new features touted by Apple in its upcoming OS X 10.9 Mavericks operating system is the multiple display management features that allow better integration with full-screen applications. However the new features come with other changes that, for some people, and especially those with more than two displays, may be a bit of a hindrance.

Recently an individual by the name "MrThaiBox123" posted on YouTube a small look at the new desktop management features in the current developer preview of OS X 10.9, which outlines the benefits as well as the drawbacks of these … Read more

I covered the best-sounding new digital recordings last Sunday; this time it's the choicest new vinyl.

'The White Stripes' Most tracks are stripped down to the basics, just Jack White on vocals and guitar, and Meg White's minimalist drum kit. An amazing debut record, not exactly an audiophile classic, but it wins points for emotional honesty. It feels right, and White's analog loving roots are on full display.

The Pastels, 'Slow Summits'A beautiful new record from an old band. These pretty, melodic, but definitely not pop tunes unfold one after another before your ears. The thing … Read more

iFixIt took a look at the guts of the new MacBook Air, as well as the new AirPort Extreme base station, which Apple unveiled at WWDC 2013. The new AirPort Extreme offers more advancements in speed, connectivity, and capacity than its predecessors and has a new design, to boot.

Instead of being squat and flat, the new design is an elongated cube that looks like a brick standing upright. Apple claims this was required to implement a major advancement with directional antennas that should extend both the range and speed of connections to wireless devices.

This new design has spurred … Read more