Ah, yes, headphones again. The market for super–high-end headphones must be small, but manufacturers nevertheless keep introducing new designs. At least two manufacturers—Stax and Sennheiser—seem to have carved out a big chunk of this market for themselves, and are currently slugging it out with their respective takes on the best that electrostatic headphones have to…
Date: May 8, 2023 Location: VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, FL The Big Takeaway — Seth Rollins won the Raw side of the World Title tournament, beating Finn Bálor in the main event, and will face the winner of the SmackDown side at Night of Champions. Brock Lesnar cost Cody Rhodes his first-round match…
At the 2017 Hong Kong High End Audio/Video Show, I found myself sitting next to a turntable manufacturer who shall remain anonymous. A Reed Muse 3C turntable ($20,000) with 3P tonearm ($5500 for the 9.5″ version, footnote 1) sat on a display table across from us. I’d favorably reviewed both of those products, in the…
Friday’s live edition of WWE SmackDown drew an average of 2.354 million viewers on FOX, according to Nielsen, via Showbuzz Daily. This final number is down 3.12% from the previous week’s final viewership of 2.430 million viewers. Friday’s SmackDown drew a 0.61 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. This is down 8.95% from the…
Date: May 6, 2023 Location: Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, PR ********** Show Recap — KICKOFF SHOW – The pre-show hosts Jackie Redmond, Peter Rosenberg and Matt Camp aren’t hosting live in Puerto Rico but rather in-studio. They aired various video packages and called the Bad Bunny/Damian Priest match the co-main event. I…
In February 1994, when I reviewed the pricey ($12,900 with amplifier) Sennheiser Orpheus headphone system—HE 90 headphones and HEV 90 D/A processor/amplifier—I commented that the company had a similar, but less expensive, alternative available: the HE 60 headphones combined with the HEV 70 amplifier. At the headphone end, the HE 60s aren’t so different from…
A Women's Tag Team Championship match, the return of Roman Reigns, plus Cameron Grimes vs. Baron Corbin have been added to next week's WWE SmackDown. Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez will defend the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship against Damage CTRL's Bayley & Dakota Kai on next week's SmackDown episode. Bayley & Kai defeated Morgan…
The fog hung ominously thick as I climbed the 194 steps leading up to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. I’d been in Denver for the 2018 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and the weather had suddenly turned damp and cold—unusually so for early October. Due to dense fog and possible ice, my drive in from another Colorado city…
As mentioned by company founder Court Bauer in an interview recently, MLW will move into the live event business and will do so with FITE.tv. Announced Tuesday, live MLW events will now air on FITE+, their monthly subscription service that gives viewers access to all GCW and Wrestling Revolver events in addition to other indies…
In place of my usual Wilson Alexxes, a pair of small (though very fine) two-way speakers has been in my system this past month: the Marten Oscar Duos I review elsewhere in this issue. Without my usual reference speakers in the system, I didn’t feel comfortable covering anything that affects sound quality for this column,…