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February 1st: Another Reference LP
     Our current issue (No. 91) includes an article titled RR Reinvents Vinyl. It features a review, and a "making of..." of one of the first new LPs from Reference in many years, of the Minnesota Orchestra, playing a suite from Stravinsky's Firebird as well as his Song of the Nightingale. Originally released in HDCD (RR-70CD), it remains one of the best recordings of this groundbreaking music, and certainly the best-sounding. As for the LP, we thought its sonic quality helped justify the continuing vigor of vinyl.
     We've just received another classical LP from Reference, with, once again, the Minnesota Orchestra playing music by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Curiously, RR actually recorded the Symphonic Dances twice in short order, though this one (RR-96CD in its original release) is far superior to RR-105, of the Utah Symphony. For both musical and sonic reasons, it's a wonderful choice for vinyl release.
     We will be doing a detailed review of both the music and the recording in our next issue, of course. For comparison, we have not only the HDCD version, but also the HRx release in 24-bit/176.4 kHz resolution. It should be fun!

January 31st: Was Steve Jobs a vinyl fan?
     So claims the legendary guitarist Neil Young, on a panel at a conference called D; Dive Into Media. Young, we recall, was one of the first musicians to complain about the sound of the Compact Disc, in the pages of Wired magazine. On the panel, he expressed a wish that "some rich guy" would build a device like the iPod, only better-sounding.
     Like whom? Well, he told fellow panelist Walt Mossberg that he had in fact discussed audio with one rich guy...Steve Jobs! And specifically he had urged Jobs to put higher quality downloads, without lossy compression, on iTunes. But now, with Steve gone, the discussions have broken off.
     But did Steve Jobs really love good sound? We recall when he launched the horrible boombox known as "iPod Hi-Fi," and announced that now we could throw away our bulky stereo components. He left a lot of audiophiles incredulous. Yet Young says he was an audiophile. "When he went home, he listened to vinyl, and you’ve gotta believe that if he’d lived long enough he would have eventually done what I’m trying to do. The ears are the window to the soul. You feel what you hear. When you take away 95 percent of the nutritional value, you feel it. Music is great. Let the people have 100%, or 99%. Occupy audio!"

January 24th: Big amp ready for review

     Well, not quite ready in fact. Though the shipping box of our Mastersound shows that it has been around the block, we have no idea how many hours it has on it, and therefore how many more hours or break-in it will need. In any case, one of its big 845 output tubes (that's where it gets its name) is broken, and once we have a replacement we plan to put lots of hours on it.
     This really a big amp, and a heavy one too. It packs 55 watts/channel in pure class A. We're not all that clear on that horizontal grid system which is used on all the amplifiers from this Italian company, but we suppose it's meant to dissipate heat. And to add a little drama to your listening room. We can't be against that.
     It's expensive, at $15,000, but we have some much more affordable products slated for the next issue. That includes cables, some of which we hope to review in the very near future. Check back.

January 20th: Onkyo bought by Gibson
     Yes, that Gibson, the company that makes guitars. Onkyo is a Japanese manufacturer of such electronic gear as receivers, and if it is less well-known than Yamaha and Sony, it has been around nearly as long. Indeed, it was one of our favorite makers of mass-marlet audio gear, because what it made was just a little better than the competition's. Whether that is still the case is unknown.
     So what is a guitar company doing with an A/V manufacturer? That's not clear for the moment. Gibson has bought Onkyo-USA, and it has bought a chunk of the parent company. We'll be interested to see what develops.

BY THE WAY: The receiver shown has those dreaded plastic feet that are ripe for replacement. So does a lot of high end gear. Which brings up the question of this weekend's Flash Sale. You'll see the relevance.

January 16th: And now, back to work
      The reports on CES and T.H.E.Show are now done, and we're ready to fly back and return to work. If all goes normally and the crick don't rise, our office reopens Wednesday at 9 am EST.
      And our extended Flash Sale ends an hour later.
      Inevitably, a lot of work has piled up during the usual CES hiatus. A few (very few) orders were filled, but we have plenty more waiting for us, and we'll right to them. If you placed an order January 6th or later, you can expect shipment this week.
      This year's show was possibly the biggest ever, and that might even be the best ever. Read our on-line report, and expect lots more yet in UHF No. 92, coming in March.

January 14th: CES 2012 a memory, more to come
      By all estimates, CES has not been bigger, or had more attendees, in many years, perhaps a decade. Does it mean the recession is over? You might think so if you avoided reading the papers during the four days-plus of CES, otherwise not so much.
      The photo at right really is from this year's show, and it's not even of the show floor. It's the hallway between the North and Central Halls, just before noon on the 11th.
     We've gathered a lot of material during this CES, and it will make for a blockbuster report in UHF No. 92, but we also have our blog on the show. Lots of the report is already on line, but there's so much of it that you'll see more added over the next couple of days.
      A reminder: our office is largely closed until we get back, and reopens on the 18th. Until then, the usual skeleton staff is in charge, but shipments of magazines, books, recordings and gear will resume on the 18th.

January 9th: CES 2012 is off and running
     Technically the Consumer Electronics Show opens tomorrow, the 10th. We'll be at the Venetian, where the high-end exhibits are (that's where we took the picture at left). But you can follow our blog, which already includes coverage of the CES Unveiled event, and the press day.
     The show runs through the 13th, and we'll be here for the whole thing.
     We will also be covering the "other" high end show, known as T.H.E.Show. It has of course no affiliation with CES, and is a competitor. Historically,  CES has tried to kill it, going so far as to having its shuttle driver arrested for trespassing. It's still around, and is now at the Flamingo, Bugsy Siegel's old hotel-casino, right on the strip.
     As we write this it's too soon to be certain whether CES is growing or shrinking, and the organizers tend to spin things in its favor. Well, wouldn't we all? We'll see. What we can see is that the days of solidly booked-up hotels and restaurants is long past. We[ll get more of a feel for CES progress (or regress, we suppose) in the days ahead.
     In the meantime, as you possibly know already, our offices are closed until the 18th, with only the usual skeleton staff. Less scary than it sounds.
     In the meantime, our extended Flash Sale continues at The Audiophile Store.

January 6th: Off to Vegas
     We do this every year. When the Consumer Electronics Show arrives, we close up shop and head for the airport. And you can follow along with us. There are already preview articles, and more will pour in during the six days of the show (four official days plus two preview days).
     Unlike other years, we are not separating the reports into separate days. We used to do that, largely to make things easier for visitors using dial-up Internet access. But anyone on dial-up, in this age of complex pages, is pretty much used to going for coffee while a page loads. And so this year the reports are in a continuous blog. We did the same with the Montreal Salon and with TAVES in Toronto last Fall.
     We hope you enjoy it.

January 3rd: Happy birthday to us
      Can you believe it? With 2012 UHF Magazine turns 30 years old. (In truth the birthday is in September, but is it too soon to begin celebrating?)
     As you can imagine, even if you haven't been with us from the very beginning, we've seen a lot of changes in audio since our very first issue. We weren't referring to LPs as "vinyl," since they were the only source of music other than the dread cassette and the even-more-dread 8-track cart. A pretty good turntable or preamplifier could be had for a few hundred dollars (though we had to work long hours to earn those dollars). Home theatre was not even on the horizon, and a high end computer was either an Apple II or an IBM PC-XT. Neither could play music, if only because 16 KB seemed like a lot of memory, and a "big" hard disc had a capacity of 10 MB, about a seventieth the capacity of a CD, 1/800th of the capacity of a DVD, or 1/2000th of the size of a Blu-ray movie. The Internet was text-based, just like MS-DOS.
     And we would send the typed texts of our articles to a workshop, where it was rekeyed by typographers, and then it was dropped into a layout and FedExed to us for approval. Or more likely disapproval.
     In some ways the audio gear we had then was pretty good, though by modern standards much of it was dreadful. You were looking for better, and we were helping you look. That much has not changed.
     Those are some of the themes we will be exploring in our issues this year of our anniversary. If you were around in 1982, you'll get all nostalgic, we bet. If you're new to our world, it will seem as though we came from a different planet.
     And in a way we did.


December 31st: The best for 2012
      Another year is as good as dead, or at least it passes into history. For us, 2011 was a pretty good year, certainly way better than 2010. And we have plans to make 2012 even better.
     Our offices are now closed through Monday, but we reopen Tuesday morning (January 3rd). We'll be shipping out orders Tuesday through Thursday. Then we'll be closing from the 6th through the 17th, for the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. We'll have only a skeleton staff, as usual, but you'll be able to follow us on our show blog. We'll have its preview entries up shortly.
     Oh yes...we have an anniversary coming up. And we plan to celebrate!

December 29th: Taxes and shipping rising
     The old year is just about to close. It's been a good year for us, and we hope it has been for you too.
     But we need to tell you that, as of January 1st, two costs are going to increase.
     The first is the TVQ, Quebec's sales tax, which of course applies only for products delivered within Quebec. It is currently at 8.5%, but it is about to increase to 9.5% (and, as ever, it applies to the sales price plus the 5% GST -- so you pay tax on the tax). That means it's the last chance for Quebecers to avoid the extra percent of tax. You can order an issue of the magazine, sign up for Maggie's electronic edition, subscribe, renew an existing subscription, or of course get what you've been wanting from The Audiophile Store and The Audiophile Boutique.
     Note that the higher tax applies if we process your order in the New Year, even if you sent it in on the 31st or before. Not our choice. Again, this is Quebec only.
     Our shipping cost is also rising. We have no choice about this, because our own costs have risen so quickly we have been known to lose money on some orders. Shipping within Canada remains free for larger orders, but the definition of a "larger order" goes from above $60 to above $70. Below that threshold, shipping cost is fixed, and no longer based on percentage. Within Canada, it's $2.10 up to $30 and $3 from $30.01 to $70. That's mostly below our real cost, but we want to keep things affordable for you. In the US, it's $3 and $4.20 respectively, and 5% for orders over $70. In other countries, the shipping costs are $5.40 and $9 respectively, and 10% above $70.

December 26th: Sony sells its LCD plant
     Actually it wasn't Sony's TV plant. S-LCD was a joint project for liquid crystal panels (Sony makes only LCD televisions) between Sony and Samsung, and Sony didn't even have a controlling interest. But Sony has been losing money fast on its once iconic TV sets, with losses not far from a billon dollars this year. It faces two major competitors, Vizio, and, yes, Samsung.
     The panel plant now becomes a wholly-owned Samsung subsidiary. Sony will continue to buy panels from it, as it pursues what it calls n a “four-screen strategy,” which aims to offer content and interconnect smartphones, laptops, tablets, and televisions. It has just bought out Ericsson's share of the Sony-Ericsson phone brand, whose profile on the smartphone market can be charitably called low.
     Samsung makes some pretty good TV sets. Our own reference HDTV is a Samsung plasma, and we reviewed favorably a Samsung LED-blacklit LCD in UHF No. 89. Sony could do worse, obviously, but it remains to be seen whether it can be successful competing against its own supplier.

December 25th: A good time for music
     Perhaps today is a work day for you. That may be the case if you're a nurse, a doctor, a policeman, a fireman, or...Santa Claus! If not, whatever the day means to you, you're probably resting up.
     So are we, and what better time than now to listen to music?
     Of course there is lots and lots of Christmas music available. There is scarcely an artist who has not seen fit to launch a Christmas album, usually at the urging of either label or agent. Expect a diet of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman and The Little Drummer Boy, the musical equivalent of the triple hamburger with double cheese.
     But there're more, much more. At one time the Church, along with the Crown and the Nobility, was the 1%, and had all the money. It spent at least some of it in the right way, making it possible for some of the greatest musical geniuses of the age to create music that would make a joyful noise onto the Lord. And of course that included music for the Nativity. Check out Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Telemann and many others.
     Let music lift your spirits, as it can do on every day of the year.

December 23rd: UHF on the iPad
     One of the reasons we moved our electronic edition to the Maggie’s new system (but not the only one) is that we can finally make it available to readers with iPads and other mobile devices. But issue 91, the first one created with Adobe InDesign 5.5, needed a little tweaking. We exported the magazine to PDF using Adobes "Interactive" menu. Wrong choice! Like many Adobe features, that one belongs in beta software, Readers told us they couldn’t get single-page display.
     That’s now been fixed. If the issue isn’t behaving the way you want on your mobile device, download it again. Sorry, weve learned our lesson.
     (Don’t get us started on Dreamweaver, the software we now use for this site, one of the worst and buggiest software programs weve seen in a decade.)

BY THE WAY: We want to wish you the best of the holidays, with an extended Flash Sale, which runs through Wednesday morning.

December 21st: UHF 91 released
     UHF 91 is out in all its versions.
     We had been told to expect the new issue Friday "if nothing goes wrong," so we were more thana little surprised to see a huge truck pulling up in front of Château Hi-Fi Tuesday morning.
     The issue was delivered at the same time to two distributors, one of which covers most of Canada and the United States, as well as the fulfilment house that mails the magazine to subscribers. It will soon appear on your newsstand and your mailbox.
     In the meantime weve been busy putting together the electronic version you can download through Maggie. And you can see the free version over at The Reading Room.
     With that done we can't quite relax, not yet. We’ll be heading to Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show and T.H.E.Show. Our on-line coverage this time wil consist of a blog, just as we did with our Toronto and Montreal reports. We'll have the first entries up shortly.

December 16th: UHF 91 out next week
     UHF 91 went to press on December 6th, and is expected out next week. The electronic edition from Maggie will appear on Wednesday. If you're a Maggie subscriber, youll be getting an e-mail with a link, and a reminder of your user name and password. The print issue is now expected for the 23rd.
     If you want to subscribe for either version, go for it now. Just go to out subscription page, or our renewal page. Or get the details for Maggie.
     Maggie, by the way, replaces our old third-party electronic edition, and it has turned into a big success. Were seeing former readers whose credit cards expired in the last century coming aboard. A reminder: Maggi'es editioncan be viewed on your computer, your iPad, even your phone. Your choice of software.
     We are, of course, at work on UHF No. 92, scheduled for March. And we are preparing for our coverage of the two shows in Las Vegas, CES and T.H.E.Show. There will be a full report in issue 92, but there will also be continuous on-line coverage too.
     As usual our offices close during CES, leaving only a skeleton staff, but w'ere here continuously through January 5th.
     And that, as you know, is next year!

December 2nd: UHF 91 goes to press Tuesday

     We‘re just finishing up the final articles, and getting into the correction, and then UHF 91 goes to the printer. Press day is Tuesday the 6th.
     We dont yet have the delivery date, but it shouldn‘t take long. The electronic version, from Maggie will be available at the same time as the print issue.
     You can see a preview (the cover and the table of contents) over at The Reading Room, and there are links to Maggie‘s electronic issue and the print issue, either of which you can preorder, or our subscription page.
     We‘re a little behind on our visitor statistics (our software, Traffic Report, is incompatible with OS X Lion, and is being shifted to one of our older computers), but we think that, within the next couple of months, we will be able to say that our free electronic issue is getting a million downloads a year. Perhaps it‘s already done -- we‘ll let you know.

BY THE WAY: Biwiring your speakers? Just a gentle hint that you should visit this weekends Flash Sale.

November 22nd: Worst headphones ever?

     The little white ear buds supplied with iPhones and the various flavors of iPods are...how shall we say? They're certainly a magnet for thieves, although any thief who snatched away the earbuds but not the iPod would only be doing you a favor. For all the talk about the iPod being for uncritical listening, its fans sure spend lot of money on headphones. Expensive headphones.
     Such as the Beats by Dr. Dre, shown here.
     Dr. Dre is a former rapper turned rap producer, and he's the front man for these fancy-looking noise-cancelling phones. We expected the worst when we received a pair for review, but that's not what we got. Not everyone agrees with us, however.
     “In terms of sound performance, they are among the worst you can buy,” says Tyll Hertsens, editor in chief of InnerFidelity.com, a site for audiophiles. “They are absolutely, extraordinarily bad.”
     InnerFidelity? They may be part of a conspiracy to do away with the space bar on the keyboard. Hertsens is quoted in a somewhat better-known publication, the New York Times. The November 19th article by Andrew J. Martin, waxes sarcastic about the headphones, with such lines as " Beats also offer a celebrity vibe and a lot of boom-a-chick-a-boom bass." And this: "Beats by Dr. Dre set out to change all that by appealing to more primal desires: good looks, celebrity and bone-rattling bass."
     True?
     Not according to our panel, who listened to the phones in UHF No. 86. We praised the Beats for impressive richness, which is not precisely the same as bone-rattling bass, and we found the sound overall nothing less than spectacular. The noise-reduction works well too, and the comfort is unparalleled. We have no particular bias in favor of either Monster (which markets the Beats) or gangsta rap, but people are picking up a half billion dollars' worth of these things each year. That's the Times figure.
     What the heck, listen for yourself, and let us know what you think.

November 14th: Issue 91 preview on line

     We're preparing the next issue of UHF for press, and we've put the preview of the issue on line. By "preview" we mean that you can see the cover of the issue over at The Reading Room, as well as the table of contents. You cn also preorder the print issue, or preorder the electronic issue from Maggie. We'll be sending the issue to the printer later this month.
     As usual, there will be a lot to read. There will be a report from the first Toronto show in decades, and more (from Albert) on the Montreal show. We'll look at the possible reasons that we humans not only want but perhaps need music. The Listening Room section will include reviews of products from Benchmrk, Moon, Audiomat, Trends, and competing companies with software for music playback, namely Pure Music and Amarra.
     We'll cast a (possibly jaundiced) eye on the 3D wave. We'll have the story on how Reference Recordings' Keith O. Johnson has put out possibly his very best LPs ever. And well look back at the Beatles, a phenomenon that isn't going away (and we're glad).
     And we'l have the usual features, including software (music and movies) reviews, and some juicy gossip.

November 9th: Free Advice updated

     We think we can actualy refer to our famous Free Advice section. It's been running ever since our first issue, and that was in 1982. We have the latest update, which you can read here.
     Of course there is also a Free Advice section in the print issue of UHF.
     A reminder about the section. You can e-mail us your question, but be sure to include both your name and your city. The clearer your question, the greater the chance that we will choose it for a reply. Even so, we can't guarentee a reply. Still, we'll do our best.
     One more thing. Now and then someone writes in but asks that the question not be published. Sorry, but in that case what you want is our consulting service, which costs $60/hour. Free Advice is free because it's shared with everyone.

November 8th: Toronto show notes on line

     Our notes have been written for a while, but we've been busy with the next magazine and the pictures weren't all ready. However now it's all done.
     As with the Montreal show in April, we made the coverage into a blog rather than a series of daily reports. The disadvantage is that we end up with a lot of pictures on one page, which is then not very dialup friendly. But we figure that not many people still get the Internet through disalup service, and those who do have to be pretty much resigned to waiting and waiting, as today's graphics-heavy pages load.
     We plan to do the same with the Consumer Electronics Show and T.H.E.Show in Vegas in January.

November 7th: Final review session

     Well, we had to scramble, but it's done.
     As we've already mentioned, a large amplifier that had been scheduled for review failed unexpectedly (these things happen to the best stuff). We often have an extra product or two at hand, so that we can do substitutions, but in this case we hadn't. We scheduled another expensive amplifier, but that one needed a tube that was not at hand.
     And so we called Simaudio, for an obvious reason: we can drive there in about 20 minutes. We picked up a 330A power amplifier, and we spent an afternoon with it Friday.
     We were tempted to think of it as a replacement for the Moon W-3 (we have one in our home theatre system), though we're told it's quite different. It's a lot less expensive for one thing, with a price just over $3K, but it does use an evolved version of the Renaissance circuit of the W-3, which goes back to the old Celeste series of amplifiers.

October 20th: Listening sessions almost done

     Actually, the review sessions for UHF No. 91 should have been over this week, but things sometimes go wrong. And they went wrong last week.
     On the menu were two amplifiers, both of them class D (or the similar class T). The lower-priced one, around $189, is the Trends Audio TA-10.2 Mini, shown here, front and rear. Yes, it can fit in the palm of your hand, though there is a separate power supply. For the money you get 15 watts per channel, and a volume control, which might technically qualify it as an integrated amplifier. Or it would if there were more than one input.
     Oh yes, we were going to tell you what went wrong. The other Class D amp we were to listen to costs a few pennies more...$16,000. And it doesn't fit into the palm of anyone smaller than King Kong. The amplifier worked fine some time ago when we ran it through some extra break-in time, but we think it failed silently during that time, because when we were ready to listen...there was nothing to hear!
     We won't name the amplifier for the moment. The listening sessions end next week. The final session will be either of the Class D amp rebooted...or another amp of the same price, but Class A with tubes.
     In the meantime, we spent the day with software that allows you to get better music playback from a computer, specifically a Mac. One is Chanel D's Pure Music, extensively used at shows. The other is Sonic Studio's Amarra. Amarra costs several times more, but what does the extra money bring you? We put them side by side, along with the free out-of-the-box iTunes, and you'll be able to read all about it.

October 20th: Audiophiles nostalgic for cassettes?

     We're not the ones saying it, we saw this is in the Wall Street Journal. If we can believe the article (and, seeing that the WSJ is a Rupert Murdoch property, why wouldn't we?), there is "a fringe of audiophiles who find the tape's flat tones and fuzzy hiss to be a comforting throwback." Naturally, the article makes a comparison with vinyl, which has certainly made a major return.
     But the article's author, one Lauren Rudser, didn't pick up the bit about flat tones or fuzzy hiss (whatever that is) from an audiophile, because audiophiles don't talk like that. As for hiss, that was a problem with boom boxes, which is what most cassettes were made on, as were flutter, distortion, and the ever popular lousy frequency response. What that has to do with audiophiles is something that mystifies us.
     Oh, we can believe that there are collectors raiding garage sales for cassette machines, just as some others look for slide rules and hand-painted salt and pepper sets. But please leave audiophiles out of this. A bit of precious info to help Ms Lauren's growth as a journalist: vinyl has made a comeback because it sounds better, not because of "fuzzy hiss" or "flat tones." See the difference?

October 14th: Netflix follies

     Have you followed the doings of Netflix in the US? What a circus it's been!
     The company began life offering DVD's by mail, and then moved into film streaming. This past summer it split up the two functions, all but doubling the subscription price for most customers. When there was a massive backlash, and the exit of a million customers, Netflix then spun off the DVD by mail service as a new company with a nearly-unspellable name, Qwikster. It then backtracked on the spinoff, but not on the doubling of costs. If the late Steve Jobs was lionized last week as the world's best CEO, there were lots of people prepared to nominate Netflix's Reed Hastings as the world's worst.
     (Oh, except for that guy, Léo Apotheker, who was 11 months into his reign at HP, the world's number one computer maker, and annonced HP would no longer make computers; but at least he got the boot.)
     The cartoon above is from The Joy of Tech, by Nitrozac and Snaggy (she draws 'em, he writes 'em). They're always funny.
     Hastings, by the way, claims that Netflix needs the money, but he also says that the Canadian operation (streaming only, $8 per month) is profitable. We suspect creative accounting. The Canadian film lineup remains pitiful, with a number of titles that seem to have bypassed cinemas to go straight to Netflix. Streaming from Canadian Netflix is like renting DVDs from a gas station.
     And need we stress once again that Netflix's "HD" movies, like those of its competitors, are not really HD? And that they may blow enough Internet bandwidth to run you into extra charges with your service provider?
     Long live Blu-ray!

October 6th: Steve Jobs

     It's difficult to find much to say about the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs that isn't being said elsewhere across the World Wide Web. However there is a link between Jobs and UHF Magazine. It is this: without Jobs and the Macintosh computer, the magazine would have closed after six issues. Apple, many years ago, adopted the slogan "The power to be your best." For us, as for so many others, it gave us simply the power to be.
     The link continues. Originally put together with hard work and much glue on a Fat Mac with a nine-inch monochrome screen, UHF is today produced on a Mac Pro. Customer relations are handled on a Mac mini, with other functions done on a MacBook Air and an iPad. Indeed, the second generation of our electronic issue, Maggie, came about in part because so many readers were clamoring to read us on their iPads.
     There were and are alternatives to Apple products, and it's difficult to remember a day before you either published on a Mac or you found something else to do with your life. It's even difficult to remember when enjoying music at home didn't involve the use of Apple hardware or software. The world has changed since UHF began. The picture you see here is of someone who helped change it.
     
September 28th: Off to the Toronto show

     Our offices will be closed for the next few days, because we're on our way to the Toronto show (we reopen Tuesday). Yes, Toronto has its own high-end show, called TAVES, for the first time in many years. Perhaps you had noticed the banner advertising it on our home page We'll be there to cover it.
     We will also be doing what we do with other shows we cover, Montreal's Salon Son&Image and Las Vegas' CES and T.H.E.Show. We've started a blog of the show, which is already on line, and we will be adding to it over the next few days.
     And of course there will be a complete report in UHF No. 91, later this Fall.

BY THE WAY: Because we're off to the show, we have an extended version of the Flash Sale, on right now, and running through Tuesdy morning.

September 27th: More listening sessions

     Our listening sessions for UHF 91 continued on Monday. The subject this time was the Benchmark DAC1 HDR. As its name suggests, it is a DAC -- a digital-to-analog converter. This $1895 unit is not only a DAC but also a preamplifier (meaning it has inputs, including an analog input, and a volume control), and even a very good headphone amplifier. Because of its plethora of functions we will have plenty to talk about in the final article, but we can already say that it seems like an obvious bargain.
     That ends the review sessions for this week, because we're on our way to the Toronto show, the first in many years. And -- if it is a success -- the first good Toronto show in decades. See you there.

September 22nd: Starting listening sessions

     Issue No. 90 was mailed/shipped just over a week ago, but we've begun listening sessions for issue 91, scheduled for press later ths Fall. The subject this time: The Audiomat Phono2 preamp.
     Now you may know that our own reference preamp is the Phono-1.5 Phono-1.6. The new one is double the size, with a price that is a little over $5K, which leaves it far from the most expensive phono preamp on the market. We'll leave the details for the next issue, but we can already tell you we had a good time.
     The sessions continue Monday the 26th, when we'll be listening to the Benchmark DAC1 HDR, the updated (high resolution) version of the DAC1 converter we reviewed in issue No. 75. It's also a preamp and a headphone amp.

September 15th: A boom among audiophiles?

     Are audiophiles really more than a tiny minority of the population, substantially under 1%, as we've always thought? Not according to the Consumer Electronics Association, the people who organize the big CES show in Vegas every January. Its July survey says audiophiles, or what it calls "audio enthusiasts," are more like 34%. Really?
     Of course CEA did its survey in the US. The methodology is not revealed, and the full study is available only to CEA members (UHF is in fact on the CEA Advisory Board, but we are not members). The study goes on to say that an equal number has a "moderate" interest in audio. For all we know that may mean they don't leave the sound down when they watch a movie. But CEA says it means "they are willing to pay more for high-quality audio electronics, like receivers and speakers." Even so, we're not sure what that means. Does it mean paying $300 for a home-theatre-in-a-box instead of $200? And about that 34% of self-defined audio enthusiasts...what do they mean?
     We woud like to believe those figures, but we are finding it hard. What do you think?

BY THE WAY: Improve your power line this weekend at the Flash Sale.

September 15th: Moon amplifiers at the Audiophile Boutique

     Since our (re)launch of the Audiophile Boutique the other day, we've been adding products, and we have a major addition: the Moon I-3.3 integrated amplifier. It's discontinued, replaced by a model (the 340i) with similar specs but a different look and other details. We have a mix of models, some of which include factory options: built-in MM/MC phono, built-in 24/192 DAC, and/or a balanced input. We have brand new ones, but we also have (at an even lower price) what Simaudio calls "B stock," which may have been demo units and the like, but are factory-refurbished, with new box and documentations, even new batteries for the remote, and a five-year factory warranty. But quantities are limited.
     While you're there, you'll see that we have the Audioprism Power Foundation III power filter we liked so much, but which is, alas, discontinued. Pick up the power cable you'll need at the same time. But we have just one. Just go to the Boutique and click on "hardware."

September 13th: UHF 90 now published

     Issue No. 90 of UHF Magazine has now been delivered. Delivery was simultaneous to four destinations: CitePoste (the company that is mailing copies to subscribers), Benjamin (distributor in Quebec and New Brunswick), Stonehouse (distributor in the rest of Canada and the United States), and of course UHF's own offices.
     Maggie's electronic version is out now as well. Subscribers to that version have already received an e-mail with the download link and their user names and passwords. This is the first issue to be launched in Maggie's new system, and we think it will be a lot more popular. No plug-ins needed this time, and no need to use Adobe Reader, either. The user name and password are needed only for download, and from then on you can read the issue on a Mac, a Windows computer, an iPad, a Xoom, a Samsung Galaxy, and anything else that can make sense of PDFs.
     Want your version, either print or Maggie? Go to our magazine order page, or of course our subscription page.
     And now we're off to work on issue 91, which will go to press mid-November.

UPDATE: We knew this would happen. We've sent notices to all the Maggie subscribers, and we have already gotten back a message that said that "to control spam, you need to fill out a form before your e-mail will get through, bla-bla-bla." You know what? We'll probably not be the only ones to tell you that the problem is yours. We're too pressed for time to fill out forms just so we can e-mail you, and so you won't have your magazine. And no refund. Wise up!

September 12th: Free version of UHF 90 now on line

     The issue is now printed, and the trucks are carrying them where they need to go. By tomorrow night, subscriber copies will be at the postal sorting centre. Some newsstand will have copies by the weekend (though, as you realize, we have no influence over that). And tomorrow, subscribers to Maggie's electronic version will receive the link for their copies.
     But as you know there has long existed free versions of UHF. You can download them by going over to The Reading Room, and now issue 90 is available too.
     As usual, about half of the issue can be read for free. Tomorrow, you'll be able to buy the full electronic version, DRM-free, readable on any device that can handle PDFs. If you subscribed to our old (problematic) electronic version, your subscription has aleady been switched to Maggie. If you haven't renewed that subscription, we hope you'll give Maggie a try, because we think you'll be pleased by what we've done.

September 9th: Is your subscription up to date?

     UHF No. 90 is now printed, and will be delivered Tuesday. Copies to subscribers will be at the postal sorting centre that evening. Our regional and international newsstand distributors will get their copies Tuesday as well.
     But we want, once again, to mention Maggie, our new source of DRM-free electronic copies of the magazine. Maggie's version will also be out Tuesday. You'll be getting an e-mail with the download link, and with a reminder of your user name and password. Both will be different from those on the old system, but they will remain the same from now on. What's more, you'll need them only to download the PDF copy, not to open it. And that PDF can be viewed on your computer, iPad, or pretty much anything.
     If you had a subscription with the old MagZee system, it's been transferred to Maggie's domain, and we think you'll be happier.
     But here's the catch. We can send you the link info only if we have your current e-mail address. If you've changed it without letting us know, send us a quick update.
     One other thing. Be sure that uhfmail@uhfmag.com is on your list of approved contacts and won't be blocked by a spam filter.

BY THE WAY: We haven't been able to get more stock of the highly-rated Audioprism Power Foundation III filter. Then again, we did find one, brand new. Just one. And it's over at The Audiophile Boutique (click on "hardware").

September 8th: Audiophile boutique gets a makeover

     When we first reserved audiophileboutique.com as a domain, its mission was to be an online dealer for very high quality discontinued lines of products. We sort of lost track of that, as we added other products, such as turntables. Now we've done a complete makeover, and incorporated the section of our store known as the garage sale.
     What you'll find now includes products in three sections: hardware (currently including a pair of ELAC loudspeakers, and a DAC that was our long-time reference), cables and other accessories, and recordings. Some may be one-offs. Some are a special purchase. Some are demos. And some are used. All are offered at what we think are exceptional prices. We expect to add new products frequently, and of course to cut them back as they sell out.
     But despite the difference in Internet domain, the Audiophile Boutique is a part of our Audiophile Store. Purchases take you to the familiar shopping cart, and you can mix and match purchases from the different sections, including magazines, books, and Maggie's electronic publications.
     The banner for the Boutique will from now on be at the top of this blog...except during weekends, when the Flash Sale banner will replace it.

September 6th: CanadianTV goes digital

     In the US it happened a couple of years ago: most TV stations went digital, and anyone not prepared just got a screenful of snow. In Canada, the deadline was the end of August. There was no extension, as there was in the US, and no government coupons to pay for converters for older TV sets. As we write, most outlets have signs on their doors announcing that they're out of stock of the converters anyway. Fact: the $60 to $90 for a converter is greater than the value of an analog TV.
     We gazed with amusement at the foot-dragging done by some networks where we are (Montreal). CTV had actually threatened to cease broadcasting entirely if it didn't get government aid. It didn't, and in Montreal it switched over at the last possible moment. TVA went beyond that, actually leaving the airwaves for a day before it finally got a digital signal out there. We now have eight digital stations.
     People in higher locations, such as Westmount, can pull in US digital stations, as can people with roofstop antennas. The majority who have cable or satellite TV of course noticed no change. However the minority who are using an antenna for off-air reception are getting much better HDTV, with less compression.

September 2nd: Google movies

     Well, well, we were just mentioning available on-line movie services, and we included Google on the list. That's because we expected them to arrive in Canada any minute. Now they have. And talk about a weak effort!
     Of course, as with all on-line streaming movies (and movies on cable and satellite, to be fair), you're getting only a fraction of the data you would have on a DVD, thanks to lossy compression. Unlike iTunes, Google offers no "HD" version. And the people at Google don't seem to have visited a video club lately (in Canada we've still got them). Charging $4 to $5 for a compressed movie? Our local video club charges $10 a month for three movies at a time, unlimited number, including Blu-rays. And its choice is much larger.
     Oh yes, the choice. Google says it's starting with a thousand films. Perhaps we just didn't find the right way to navigate the labyrinthine site of Google Movies, but we make it about three dozen, not counting free classics, which have been available for years..
     Oh, and one more mistake.
     The resolution isn't really good enough for a good HDTV, so the natural device for these movies would be, say, an iPad. But Google encodes its movies, and even its trailers, with Adobe Flash. Which iPads and iPhones don't do. Google suggest using an Android device such as a Motorola Xoom. Yes, we know Google is behind Android, but we suggest that the geniuses at Google (whose intelligence we don't question) compare sales of iPad to those of the Xoom and other tablets. We don't see a business plan here.
     Even aside from the fact that Flash work like crap on Android devices too.You could ask Walt Mossberg.

BY THE WAY: The weekly Flash Sale is on, and because of the long weekend it runs through Tusday morning. The special is on speaker cables. 
     

September 1st: Blockbuster's block goes bust

     It's not as though we couldn't see this coming. The US parent of Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy back in April, and was picked up, for reasons that escape us, by DISH TV. That should have doomed the Canadian branch, and ultimately it did, the following month in fact, but why?
     Fact is, the Canadian branch was profitable. Surprised?
     It's easy to see the reason. In the US (and only in the US) such companies as Netflix, Apple, Google and Boxee have a vast choice of movies available on line. True, on-line movies are compressed, but then hamburgers are compressed too, and we don't see McDo and Burger King closing shop. In Canada, by contrast, the on-line movie offerings are so slim they are a cruel joke. Result: the market for DVD rentals is much larger here.
     So why is Canada's Blockbuster closing down again?
     Blame globalization. When the US business sank, Blockbuster Canada co-signed for a loan for its US parent. So a whole lot of Canadians are going to lose their jobs for nothing. For nothing!
     In Canada, Netflix doesn't rent DVDs by mail, but zip.ca does.At least for now.

August 26th: UHF 90 proofs corrected

     The new issue is now in Beauceville, north of Quebec City, where a number of printing plants are located (a number of remaining printing plants we should say, since they're dropping life mayflies in November). We never have to go there, as we used to in the old days -- isn't the Internet wonderful? We corrected the proofs this morning (they came via the Internet as well), and we're now waiting for the press people to perform their magic.
     Delivery date is September 13th. Maggie will have her electronic version the same day or even the day before. For readers looking to newsstands, everything depends on how quick regional distributors are. We have to say they're faster than they once were, perhaps because the really inefficient ones have gone out of business.
     We're now working on creating the electronic edition. It's exactly like the print edition, except for one thing. If you see a product that interests you in an ad, just click on the ad and your browser will whisk you right to the company Web site.
     Isn't the Internet wonderful? Oh...we said that already!


August 25th: Making your own music
     In the new issue of UHF, which went into production Tuesday, you can expect the usual equipment reviews: amplifiers, loudspeakers, phono preamps, cables, etc. But we sometimes go off the beaten path, and you seem to like it. On two occasions we published articles on rechargeable batteries, and we got a flood of good comments (hint: the makers of "Super Heavy Duty" batteries will kill you if you put their product into your smoke detector).
     In UHF 90, one of the products you'll see reviewed is this one, the iRig microphone.
     And yes, that's an iPhone next to it. This $60 vocalist's electret microphone can be plugged into an iPhone 4, a current iPod touch, or an iPad. The accompanying multitrack recording software (free, but an extra $5 for full features) is for the smaller screen for the moment, but the iRig Mic is compatible with pretty much all recording software for iOS devices, including Apple's own $5 Garage Band. That this makes the devices great sketchbooks for musicians is obvious, but in fact it brings creative possibilities even to those who resisted their parents' urgings to finish their piano or violin practice before heading for the baseball diamond.
     But we'll have a lot more to tell you in this article, and we think it's information you're not likely to see elsewhere.
     UHF No. 90 is in production, and will be delivered on September 13th. You can see a preview (meaning the cover and the table of contents) over at The Reading Room. The free edition (with lots to read, but half the articles incomplete) will be on line before then. And the new DRM-free electronic edition by Maggie will appear around the same time as the print issue.
     In the meantime, the product and article lineup for issue No. 91 is now complete, and we'll tell you all about it in the next few days.

August 20th: Super Antenna changes look

     Since we introduced the antenna perhaps 15 years ago, it has been our all-time best seller. We originally advertised it for FM (back when we were exclusively an audio magazine) but it didn't take long for our readers to find out that it was terrific for television as well.
     We actually launched a research program to design the best set-top antenna, and we had some pretty weird prototypes. Ultimately, we found that the plain dipole was the best choice if it is built properly.
     Parts for antennas are difficult to find now, which is why for some time we have been buying an existing commercial antenna, gutting it, and rebuilding it from scratch. The newest model is better-looking than the previous one, but appearances can be deceiving. The design and execution are so poor the antenna barely works at all. The name on it is Philips. Of course Philips doesn't actually built it, but we're surprised they allow their name to be put on it.
     The antenna we use is more expensive than the previous one, and so for the first time we have had to increase the price, from the $55 of the original to $59.95. Its performance remains very high. If this antenna doesn't work for you, it's time for a ladder and a rooftop antenna.


August 17th: UHF 90 goes to press Tuesday

     We've reserved the press time, and we're in the sprint to finish the new issue, which will be on newsstands and/or your mailbox in September.
     We've made some minor adjustments to both the cover and the table of contents. You can see both over at The Reading Room. We're already accepting orders for the new issue, either the print version or the new electronic version, from Maggie. Of course either one will be sent only in September, but you can be among the first to see it. Just go to our Individual Issues page. Or to our subscription page.
     We hope it's not too early to be mentioning this, but we've lined up a long list of gear we plan to review for issue 91, coming later this autumn, and indeed some of that gear is already here and has been undergoing break-in. We'll give you the tentative list as soon as we get a moment.

August 11th: The Beats are purchased

     Well, well. We were just mentioning the Beats by Dr Dre headphones, and what happens? The company gets bought up.
     The original Beats headphones, reviewed in UHF No. 86, were launched by Monster, the cable people, with hip hop producer Dr Dre as the front man. Beats Electronics and Monster are only partners, however. Now Beats has been bought by smartphone maker HTC.
     You can see what they're up to. A prominent competitor, Sony-Ericsson, already has its own brand of headphones, Walkman (the brand has been allowed to go to seed, but never mind). HTC is a major maker of Android phones, with a strong contingent of presumably street savvy young customers. Can being associated with a rapper be a bad thing?
     HTC now has 51% of Beats (for $300 million), and there's speculation that it is interested more in the brand than in the original headphones (which are more than pretty good, by the way). Beats continues its partnership with Hewlett-Packard (it designed a branded sound system for laptops), Chrysler and Monster.
     We don't know how much mileage Sony-Ericsson is getting from the Walkman association, but it has sunk to tenth position in the list of the world's top ten phone makers according to a Gartner report released just today. Taiwan's HTC is seventh.

August 8th: Following the Beats

     When we ran across these headphones, our first thought was that the Beats by Dr Dre, the phones marketed by Monster, were available in a new color. No. Not quite.
     We were actually at the launch of the Beats headphones in Vegas, and we were somewhat pessimistic. Headphones fronted by a hip hop producer, promising to let you hear everything he hears in the studio (boomy bass and sizzly highs was our guess). But we were sent a pair for review, and we changed our tune. We reviewed them in UHF No. 86, and called them the best noise-cancelling phones available.
     It seems they paid attention over at Soul, another maker of headphone. This near lookalike SL300 (except for color) is also active and noise-cancelling, with a tangle-proof detachable cord, and is also backed by a hip hop artist, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges. Like the Beats, the Souls are available at the Apple Store, Amazon, and the usual suspects. The price, $299, is slightly lower than the list price of the Beats.
     So...are they as good as the Beats? Beats us!


August 5th: Pioneer Elite return (sort of)

     UHF's reference HDTV is a Samsung, as you probably know, and we've said good things about recent Panasonic plasmas as well, but we know some videophiles are still mourning the Pioneer Elite plasmas, once the greatest TV sets of their day. Now these legendary sets are back...but not exactly.
     They do bear the Elite name, and the claims for their performance match or exceed those of the old Elites, but there are a couple of differences.
     First, these are LCDs, not plasmas. Second, they are actually made by Sharp (which uses the Elite name under licence). Now that's not such bad news, and they even include Sharp's extra (yellow) subpixel for better reproduction of fields of sunflowers. But did we mention that they're LCDs?
     However the price will seem familiar to Elite aficionados. The 60" (152 cm) model is $6000. And that's the smaller and cheaper of the two models.

BY THE WAY: Over at the weekend Flash Sale, which runs until Monday morning, there's good music at a bargain price.

August 4th: Hitachi and Mitsubishi

     Rumor has it that these two Japanese giants of the electronics industry are negotiating a merger. Both are highly diversified, however. Though UHF's one-time reference TV monitor was a Hitachi, you may have seen the Hitchi logo on cranes and front-end loaders. As for the other company, it makes cars, and its full name is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. One thing they have in common -- and this could explain the need to pool resources -- is that they both build nuclear power plants. Business may have fallen off since a little incident you've possibly read about.
     At one time Mitsubishi made genuine high end preamplifiers and other components. It then shifted to mass market stuff, which prompted some of our British colleagues to claim (unfairly) that the name was an acronym for "made in Taiwan, supposedly under British influence, shipped here incomplete." Today, its best-known high end product is its LaserVue 3D television, an expensive but excellent DLP retroprojector using lasers instead of ordinary light.
     Hitachi still makes TV sets too, though the Wall Street Journal, that bastion of Murdoch goodness, says that it may outsource its TV business to Taiwan.
     Hitachi is the bigger of the two companies, by the way, so it's thought that the merger would in fact be a takeover. We'll see what happens.

August 3rd: The solid gold DAC

     Well, no, it's not actually solid gold, not at a "mere" $399. This new digital-to-analog converter from NuForce, a company known for its inexpensive class T amplifiers, is 24 gold plated. And oh...see that little index circle on the volume knob? That's a Swarovski crystal.
     NuForce is aiming this luxurious devices at those travelling with laptop computers. The uDAC-2 is powered directly from the laptop's USB connection, and that includes the built-in headphone amplifier. It can decode high resolution files (24 bits, 96 kHz sampling rate), something a surprising number of DACs cannot do.
     We love the idea of this device, though we recognize that, today, travellers don't always use a laptop as a music source. We wish the uDAC-2 had a connector for an iPad and an iPod. Of course it would then need an external power supply, which means it would no longer be portable. Running a headphone amp from a USB circuit is already a challenge, but doing it from a pocket device is a non-starter.

BY THE WAY: In the next couple of days we'll be doing some minor tweaking to the table of contents and the cover of issue No. 90 of UHF. You can see them over at The Reading Room, and the complete versions (print and electronic -- from Maggie) will be in production in the next few days.


July 29th: The Super Antenna

     Of all the products offered in our 23-year old Audiophile Store, nothing has sold better than the Super Antenna. The original one, based on a commercial design which we modified, was such a success that we exhausted the world-wide supply of the antenna for six months. We then brought out the MkII version, much improved, and built from scratch.
     And then we exhausted the supply of parts, and we went back to an existing design for the MkIII version. Even so, we have trouble keeping those key parts in stock, and we had been out of them for weeks.
     But now we have more. However the antenna no longer looks like the one at right, because we can't get that one anymore. The new one actually looks sleeker (but it also costs more, which means the price will be rising shortly).
     By the way, notice the rotary knob on the antenna? That's the NCDN control. That stands for "not connected, does nothing," a long-running gag among engineers. Oh it did something in the original antenna: it knee-capped the performance!
     If you've been waiting for a Super Antenna, watch your mailbox. If you've been thinking about it...get one while we have them!

July 22nd: Why recording tapes age

     We pay a lot extra for CDs and LPs that have been remastered from the original master tapes. Question: are those master tapes as good as when they were made?
     Well, we've written about this before. The answer is possibly yes, but often no. And UHF No. 90, which we are preparing for the printing press, will feature an article on this very topic.
     Paul Bergman will look at the remarkable history of tape recording, and at the evolution of tape formulations. And how, some years back, they went terribly wrong. Everyone knows about the sticky tape syndrome, but that turns out to be only a small part of the story.
     That's one of the articles in the next issue, which you can preview at The Reading Room. The full article will be available in the print version of UHF, and also in the electronic version, which will be available from Maggie, our new source of DRM-free iPad friendly magazines.

BY THE WAY: Some high-end AC products are featured at our Flash Sale, but only this weekend, and only until Monday morning.

July 12th: The shrinking DAC

     With so many audiophiles movin their digital music to hard drives, suddenly the market for quality digital-to-analog converters has exploded. And so, perhaps, has the market for small DACs.
     The DACPortLX, from CEntrance, is probably about as small as a converter can get. It's a tube with a mini-USB plug at one end and a stereo phone plug at the other end. Power supply? That's the job of the USB circuit.
     Yes, the output is a stereo phone plug, like the ones on full-sized headphones, which means that, for your high end stereo system, you'll need an adapter. You'll also need a cord between your computer and the DAC itself.
     It's widely believed that USB connections are not capable of handling greater resolutions than 16 bits and (at most) 48 kHz sampling rate. The reason it's believed is that several makers of consumer DACs say so. They're wrong, as audio pros know. The DACPortLX can handle resolutions of 24 bits at 96 kHz.
     The price is press release includes no price, but we believe it's around $400 is $350.

July 8th: Overprotecting Blu-ray?

     You could say that the standard DVD includes anti-copying protection, but it was broken many years ago, and the formula for breaking it is so simple you can write it on a Post-It note. Blu-ray discs are tougher to copy, but there's software for that too.
     Naturally, the movie industry is less than happy with the situation, and it apppears desperate to keep the "pirates" at bay, even if the collateral damage hits the paying customers.
     See "Blu-rays That Won't Play," the May 12th entry on this very blog. A new anti-copy scheme from Fox made such Blu-ray movies as Alien and Moulin Rouge unplayable on our expensive Pioneer player...and of course many others. A firmware upgrade solved the problem for us, but it required a level of computer knowledge not everyone has. Throwing the player out and buying a new one is the more likely solution.
     Get ready for some more fun.
     The BD+ encryption standard is owned by a company called Rovi. It used to be called Macrovision, but its products made it so unpopular with the public that a change to its new meaningless name seemed advised. BD+ has now been purchased by Irdeto, which will combine it with its own technology, called ActiveCloak, which sounds like something from Hogwarts. Our take: don't buy a Blu-ray player without checking its "best before" date,
     Irdeto, by the way, is a true multinational, with headquarters in Amsterdam and Beijing, with 25 locations worldwide. It is a subsidiary of Naspers, a South African media group.


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