Sound & Vision September 2018

I’M AL GRIFFIN, the new editor of Sound & Vision. The above quote, from the poet T.S. Eliot, is one that applies in particular to my situation. Back in 1998, I was working as a staffer at Video magazine when it was announced that we would join forces with Stereo Review, our sister publication down the hall. The result of that merger was Sound & Vision. It was a heady time for the consumer AV industry when our first issue launched in 1999. After a long period of development, digital high-definition TV broadcasts were finally hitting the airwaves. Netflix had just been birthed and was starting to mail out red envelopes packed with DVDs. The Super Audio CD format was introduced, soon to be followed by a competing high-res, surround-capable music…

Keen-eyed Sound & Vision readers will note that the magazine’s Perfect Focus section has been renamed Wide Angle. The name change represents a re-jiggering of content: You will now see fewer news bites, and more Quick Take product reviews and event coverage like that of the 2018 Munich High End show on page 26. Wide Angle also won’t be limited to just the print magazine. You’ll find Wide Angle content on soundandvision.com, such as my recent post detailing a visit with Joe Bussard, one of the world’s foremost collectors of early 78 rpm jazz, blues, and country recordings. My plan for the section is to have it connect readers with not just the industry events Sound & Vision writers attend, but things like record shows, music fests, movie fests, and…

One of my first tasks after being named editor of S&V was to post a blog on soundandvision.com introducing myself and asking the question: Is there something in particular you would like to see more of in S&V? That post can be found at: www.soundandvision.com/content/begin-beginning. Thanks to everyone who took time out to respond.—AG Voodoo and Woowoo I would like you as new editor to be far more critical of the voodoo and snake oil claims of the high-end audio industry, and of the skyrocketing prices for high-end audio components. You should also make Sound & Vision a journal for consumers and not solely an advertisement tool for the companies featured in the magazine. H. Plebs Via email Congratulations on the new job. I was very excited to see that you intend to add…

S&V: Let’s start with some background on Qobuz, a music streaming/download service many Americans have heard of but don’t know much about. Can you provide an overview? DAVID SOLOMON: Sure, and thank you for the interest. Qobuz is a high-resolution hybrid streaming and download service from France. There will be several levels of service and we’re planning a soft launch at CEDIA Expo in September and coming full force as the official streaming partner at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in October. We feature over 130,000 albums (about 2 million tracks) in high resolution available for streaming and download. This is on top of the 40 million 16-bit/44-kHz full resolution cuts. S&V: Why Qobuz? What’s the story behind the unusual name? DS: The name Qobuz—pronounced “ko-buzz”—represents the extraordinary power of music. Qobuz is an…

You might have seen the clickbait headlines: “CASSETTES JOIN VINYL IN DRAMATIC COMEBACK.” Don’t believe the hype. It just ain’t happening. If you’re of a certain age, you know well the rise and fall of cassettes. The format was developed by Philips in 1962 as a low-fi media. Cassettes offered two things that LPs did not: they were portable and they were recordable. Players appeared in cars (playback quality was iffy, but still better than 8-tracks) and in Walkmans and boomboxes. The format’s recordability also spawned the home-brew mixtape, a bonafide cultural phenomenon. Much like the dinosaurs, it seemed that cassettes would rule the earth forever. Then a giant asteroid named CD crashed into the earth, and cassettes died off. It’s true that they lingered on for a while, mainly as talking…

Accurate Sound Forever Have you noticed that most headphones, including plenty of models with audiophile aspirations, have pumped-up bass and highs? That intentionally less-than-accurate sound is likely due to their designers knowing that most people enjoy boosted bass and the extra “detail” of tipped-up treble. Etymotic is a company that doesn’t play by those rules, and its new ER3 Extended Response (ER3XR) is just the ticket for anyone who craves accurate sound from in-ear headphones. Etymotic also offers a second ER3 model, the ER3 Studio Edition (ER3SE), that shares the same $179 price as the ER3XR. According to the company, the difference between the two is that the ER3XR provides a slight bass boost for “listeners who prefer a stronger low end response.” Etymotic’s stance on neutral sound was codified by its ER4…