Finally, a new music-streaming service. Just what everyone wanted. Just what the world needed. Pure Audio promises “high-quality, immersive sound experiences that transport listeners into the heart of the music,” as opposed to the high-quality offerings from, you know, Apple, Amazon, Qobuz, and Tidal. But OK, sure.
Read more: Is There Space for Another Music-Streaming Service?
A few years ago, I titled one of my first SoundStage! Solo columns “The Endless Hassle of Connecting to In-Flight Entertainment.” At the end of the article, I mentioned that some airlines were rolling out upgraded entertainment options that included the ability to connect to your own Bluetooth headphones.
Do you remember your first audio system? What were your first headphones and audio player? I use the term “audio player” broadly to cover portable devices and home gear. Were you plugging a huge pair of “cans” into the front of a record player, or was it a Koss CD player with eight whole seconds of anti-skip technology?
As I’m writing this, the last of the historic and horrific Los Angeles fires have finally been extinguished. A bit of rain, far less than we typically get this time of year, has quenched the dry brush and doused the remaining embers. I was lucky. My house was never in any real danger, largely thanks to the wind’s direction, though for several nights I could see the fires in the distance from my porch. They were close enough that, for at least one night, my friends and I had packed go-bags in case we needed to evacuate.
As I mentioned last month, one of the things I planned to check out at CES was MEMS, or micro-electromechanical systems. These tiny devices, made by California-based xMEMS Labs, are a different type of driver for both earphones and headphones. I was able to get a closer look not just at the currently available drivers like what you’d find in the Creative Aurvana Ace Mimi earphones, but some upcoming variations and several other uses of the technology that look equally, if not more, fascinating.
If the title didn’t give it away, I figured this was a perfect time to take a look at some tech and tech-adjacent things coming in 2025. In all three cases, they have potential ramifications for 2026 and beyond as well. Perhaps that’s a bit too grandiose. Maybe it’d be less hyperbolic to say “here’s some stuff you should be aware of” when it comes to the narrow niche we cover here at SoundStage! Solo.
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