Many moons ago, in March 2003, Secrets published one of the first reviews of Theta’s then state-of-the-art two-channel DAC/preamp, the Generation VIII (aka Gen. VIII). Close to six years later, after umpteen advances in digital chip technology, Theta has released a significant, Series 2 upgrade to the original Gen. VIII. The upgrade, which can either be easily installed at home or purchased as part of a new unit, renders such significant improvements to the sound as to demand a new review.

The past seven years has seen rapid proliferation of the iPod dock market. Unfortunately, while many of the products have succeeded in following the Apple aesthetic, rarely is there substance behind the flash. Is the entry by Focal merely more eye candy or is there something more compelling? The XS 2.1 distinguishes itself by offering something beyond your typical iPod speaker dock.

Tags: iPod

I suppose in this iPod generation we shouldn’t be surprised by the explosion of new headphone options. Breaking it down, there are 3 types of headphones really: in-ear, on-ear and over-ear. In-ear offers the best solution for portability while over-ear is typically large and cumbersome and generally provides the best reproduction and comfort, it is usually reserved for the audiophile or studio engineer. On-ear however may offer the best of both worlds, especially if they travel easily, offer comfort, clean fidelity and outside noise cancellation - hence the new AH-NC732 from Denon.

Many years ago, CRT projector owners had an annoying problem, if they increased their projection area, scan lines would become visible. The idea of line doubling – duplicating the number of lines to avoid the empty spaces between the scan lines became the first consumer video processing technique available. Since all of our video sources at the time were video, but were originally film – Yvves Faroudja introduced the world to the concept of 3:2 pulldown de-interlacing. De-interlacers were able to double lines but effectively turned the image into a progressive one – a single image that contained data from both interlaced fields at once. Many video processors have come to market since that time to improve on this basic technology, adding many more features than simply de-interlacing. Anchor Bay Technologies has produced numerous processors over the years, and the DVDO Edge is their latest model. It is priced at only $799. Ofer LaOr dissects this new processor and gives us his views on its performance.

Tags: Processors | Video

The gloves were off, and the gauntlet thrown. On May 26, 2008, Jim Pierce of Amazing Audio sent me (Jason Serinus) a major challenge via e-mail.

Tags: Line Conditioners