KEF Debuts New Finishes for Blade One Meta and Blade Two Meta
Sennheiser Drops HDB 630 Wireless Headphones
Sponsored: Pulsar 121
Vivid Audio Introduces Giya Cu Loudspeakers
PSB BP7 Subwoofer Unveiled
Sponsored: Symphonia
Apple AirPods Pro 3: First Impressions
Sponsored: Symphonia Colors
Sonus faber Announces Amati Supreme Speaker

LATEST ADDITIONS

Cables Are like Cholesterol

Inside were three sets of fat-ass cables. Thick like slabs of bacon, protective like coronary arteries, chunky like the cholesterol in those arteries after the bacon.

Holding them felt safe. Maybe they lacked that luxurious lifestyle appeal of the fancier cables with their shiny colors and intricate woven designs, but that's not what I was looking for. I wanted quality, I wanted sturdiness, I wanted comfort. Only to encourage these feelings of security were the locking banana plugs.

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SV Sound PB13-Ultra powered subwoofer

With the popularity of home-theater systems, subwoofers have proliferated. Because multichannel AV receivers are designed to provide a properly filtered, line-level subwoofer, or low-frequency effects (LFE) signal, many subs no longer come with built-in high- and low-pass filters for insertion into two-channel audio systems. However, the PB13-Ultra subwoofer from SV Sound does include these, which is what piqued my interest in it. After Ed Mullen, SV Sound's director of sales, assured me that the PB13-Ultra was capable of reproducing solid 20Hz organ-pedal notes in my listening room, I asked for one to review.

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Numbers, Percentages, and Cold Fact

The music industry is responding to our recent enthusiasm for vinyl, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-et-vinyl18-2008au… the Los Angeles Times</a>. Original Recordings Group, a small vinyl-only label, needed only 24 hours to sell 4000 copies of TV on the Radio's excellent <i>Return To Cookie Mountain</i>. The label is on the way to grossing their first million dollars, and expects to double its vinyl output in 2009. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has increased their vinyl production from 2000 copies per title to up to 15,000 copies. Such increases, of course, have a dramatic impact on pressing plants. Record Technology Inc's average pressing per title has doubled to 3000 units over the last few years.

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Remember?

Fans of the Fiery Furnaces will be happy to know that the band is releasing a collection of live material. Charmingly titled <i>Remember</i>, the album brings together songs from the entire Fiery Furnaces catalog, digging way back to 2005 and even including tracks from last year's <i>Widow City</i>. With 51 tracks in all, <i>Remember</i> will be available as a triple-LP gatefold, and will include a coupon for free MP3 download. Pretty artwork, too.

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Logitech to Acquire Ultimate Ears

On August 14, Logitech International announced that it intended to acquire privately held Ultimate Ears for $34 million in cash. "Ultimate Ears is a perfect fit for Logitech and our audio business," said Gerald P. Quindlen, Logitech's president and CEO. "Since its inception, Ultimate Ears has been driven by innovation, close ties to its customers, and the desire to enable an immersive audio experience. Logitech's success has been built on using a deep understanding of our customers to create products that let people immerse themselves in their pursuits."

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Jerry Wexler Dead at 91

Let's do the <I>It's a Wonderful Life</I> exercise, shall we? Imagine what popular music would sound like today without Jerry Wexler. Aretha Franklin would have never returned to her gospel roots, Ray Charles would have continued imitating Charles Brown and Nat Cole, Stax would have been a tiny regional record label, and denatured white covers of R&B songs would dominate the charts. In fact, the music we know today as rhythm and blues would still be called "race music"&#151;Wexler having coined R&B while working at <I>Billboard</I> in 1949.

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