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Don’t be alarmed. I am not Brent. Don’t worry. He’s fine, but he has stepped down from SoundStage! Solo. You’ll still see his byline once in a while, though. He, along with founder Doug Schneider and Editor in Chief Jeff Fritz, have decided to hand the reins over to me. A decision steeped in genius. Or folly. Bit of both? We shall see.

Read more: Greetings!

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I’m sad to say this will be my last column for SoundStage! Solo. I’ve accepted a full-time staff position at the consumer-review site Wirecutter (for whom I’ve worked part-time for several years), and won’t be able to do any audio-related freelance work going forward. If everything goes as scheduled, my last review will post on January 20, and my last measurements sometime in February.

Read more: A Fond Farewell

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Numerous as misunderstandings are in the world of audio, I’d guess that in consumer audio, there’s nothing more misunderstood than the amplifier. I think that’s because many audio aficionados base their understanding of amps less on technical knowledge than on what they’ve read in subjective reviews, where writers—almost none of whom possess substantial knowledge of amp design—are typically encouraged to sling exaggerated, exotic adjectives to make what’s often a rather generic product sound like a transformative experience.

Read more: When Is the Amp Important?

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As I reported last month, the number of target curves for headphone and earphone response is growing. Honestly, I’m a bit dismissive of some of these curves. I’m fine with it if people like them, but based on my decades of communication with readers, I’m skeptical of the idea that any target response is a surefire prescription for listener satisfaction—although they certainly can serve as reference standards against which other models can be compared.

Read more: Evaluating the Knowles Preferred Response Curve

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I should have expected this. The original paper that eventually resulted in the Harman curve was published ten years ago. Like practically every paper on audio that takes a strong stand, it was met with a mixture of praise, scorn, and indifference. Now others are responding by suggesting their own alternatives to the Harman curve—and headphone enthusiasts are left scratching their heads, wondering which, if any, of these will agree fully with their own ears.

Read more: Do We Really Need All These Target Curves?

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As I write this, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just published its long-awaited final guidelines for over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. There’s a lot of buzz about this development because it should make effective hearing aids more affordable. But it’s also going to revolutionize the headphone industry—and in ways that might not be good for the listener.

Read more: The Problem with Hearing Correction in Headphones

  1. RF: A Phantom Menace?
  2. Understanding Current
  3. The Big Mistake Many Headphone Makers Keep on Making
  4. How Consistent Is the Quality of Headphones and Earphones?
  5. David Chesky’s New New Revolution in Headphone Sound
  6. Why You Shouldn’t Always Rely on Measurements
  7. The Shocking Truth About Truck-Stop Earphones
  8. Are There Valid Objections to the Harman Curve?
  9. Is It Possible for Headphones to Sound Fast? (Or Slow?)
  10. The Four Things that Recording an Album Taught Me About Audio
  11. What Playing Music Taught Me About Audio
  12. Voicing Headphones, Part 3: Campfire Audio's Ken Ball and 64 Audio’s Vitaliy Belonozhko
  13. The #1 Red Flag in Audio Articles, Ads . . . and Everything Else
  14. How Not to Go Deaf from Headphone Listening
  15. What’s the Future of High-End Headphones?
  16. How Audio Writers Are Killing the Audio Industry
  17. Why Buying High-Quality Headphones Is a More Responsible Purchase
  18. Does It Make Sense to Demo Audio Over the Internet?
  19. The New Standard That Killed the Loudness War
  20. Headphones 2020: The Year in Review
  21. Three Cases Where Measurements Didn’t Work
  22. How Much Can We Really Tell From Listening?
  23. Balanced Armatures: Why You Might (or Might Not) Want Them
  24. The Coming Revolution in Headphone Sound Quality
  25. Can Accuracy in Music Reproduction Exist?
  26. The Biggest Lie in Audio
  27. Voicing Headphones, Part 2: HiFiMan’s Fang Bian and Focal’s Mégane Montabonel
  28. What Will the Next Generation of Headphones Be Like?
  29. How Far Have Headphones Come?
  30. Voicing Headphones, Part 1: PSB/NAD's Paul Barton and Dan Clark Audio's Dan Clark
  31. How Will Headphone Testing and Reviewing Change in the 2020s?
  32. What the AKG K371 Headphones Tell Us About "Slow Listening"
  33. Where Are We At With The Harman Curve?
  34. Why Headphone Amps Are More Interesting Than Speaker Amps
  35. 2019’s Most Important Headphone Presentation
  36. Noise Canceling Is Much More Complicated Than We Thought
  37. How Does Aging Affect Audio Perception?
  38. Noise-Canceling Headphones for 17 Cents?
  39. Is Chesky Dumping Binaural?
  40. Why My Fi Ain't Hi-Fi
  41. Latency: A New Concern for Audiophiles?
  42. How to Read Our Headphone Measurements
  43. Eardrum Suck: The Mystery Solved!
  44. Should Audio Gear be Considered Luxury Goods?
  45. Headphone Equalization Using Measurements
  46. Why Is It So Hard to Rate Headphones?
  47. Five Things Headphone Enthusiasts Get Right (and That the Two-Channel Guys Get Wrong)
  48. The Best Possible Way to Test Audio Products (and Why Most People Don't Do It)
  49. Will aptX Adaptive Improve Headphone Sound?
  50. Is the miniDSP EARS the Death of Headphone Measurement? Or its Savior?
  51. What Are Measurements Good For?
  52. How Much Noise Do Your Headphones Really Block?
  53. Why We're Launching "SoundStage! Solo"

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