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Noise canceling is kinda magic. Not literal magic—it’s just physics and electronic shenanigans, but the effect is magic. Being able to put something in or over your ears and have the world get significantly quieter? That’s brilliant. Unfortunately, as good as noise canceling has gotten, it’s still not perfect. “Canceling” is a bit of an oversell. In reality, “noise attenuation” or “noise reduction” would be more accurate. “Some stuff gets a little quieter” is even more descriptive, if less pithy.

Read more: Perfect Noise Canceling?

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This is a little deeper into the weeds than I normally wade, since it has to do with a fairly esoteric piece of technology and a bunch of companies who are trying to make money with it. However, said thing is interestingly controversial, and it definitely intersects with what we cover here at SoundStage! Solo.

Read more: The Rise and Fall and Maybe Rise Again of MQA

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Some studies have shown that tastes in music solidify when you’re young and rarely change. Some say your musical interests lock in during your teenage years. Basically, once you’ve settled on what you like, that doesn’t change once you hit adulthood and middle age.

Read more: Have Your Music Tastes Changed?

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A recent episode of the Audio Unleashed podcast touched on something important to audio enthusiasts of all kinds. Important enough that I felt it worth diving into a bit more here. If you haven’t heard of the Audio Unleashed podcast, it’s cohosted by my predecessor here at SoundStage! Solo, Brent Butterworth, and the editor of SoundStage! Access, Dennis Burger. The topic was AI, and if you’re Very Online like I am, I’m sure you’re tired of hearing those two letters even remotely near each other. More than a buzzword, AI has the possibility of changing the web in dramatic ways. None of them, in my opinion, good. But we’ll get to that. Where it’s going to directly affect you is the increasing potential that you’re going to stumble upon an AI-generated review, or even more likely, an AI-generated review aggregator. First, though, a quick primer.

Read more: Beware AI “Reviews”

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It’s been six months since I took the reins of SoundStage! Solo from Brent Butterworth. While this is a small percentage of the total time I’ve been reviewing audio gear, it’s been an interesting stretch, with a much more intense focus on headphones. As such, I had a few random thoughts that I wanted to put down somewhere, none of which were worthy of a full article. So consider this a clip show from my first half-year here at Solo.

Read more: Six Months In

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For a while now I’ve been noticing an increasing number of TV and movie scenes, as well as real-life instances, of people thinking headphones are magic. Specifically, that by wearing any type of headphones, they’re completely isolated from the rest of the world. A cone of silence so powerful that shouting, gunshots, and explosions can’t intrude on the wearer’s solitude. If only. Even if you play the music at dangerously high levels, you’re not totally isolated.

Read more: Why Do People Think Headphones Are Magic?

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

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    Paul D'Amboise 6 hours ago The Formats Time Forgot
    I still have and use my HD DVD Toshiba A2 and A3 players (have about ...
    Dustin 13 hours ago Bryston BHA-1 Headphone Amplifier
    @Doug SchneiderOk, fair points.
    Doug Schneider 15 hours ago Bryston BHA-1 Headphone Amplifier
    @Dustin I would say I'm not that far from your point of view. HOWEVER, I don't ...
    Dustin 17 hours ago Bryston BHA-1 Headphone Amplifier
    Sorry if I come across a little flippant, but barring some extreme exceptions, I don't ...
    Doug Schneider 19 hours ago Bryston BHA-1 Headphone Amplifier
    @DustinHow so?
    Doug Schneider 19 hours ago The Rise and Fall and Maybe Rise Again of MQA
    @K MurrI was going to drop Tidal because of MQA. The problem was that Qobuz wasn't ...
    Doug Schneider 19 hours ago The Rise and Fall and Maybe Rise Again of MQA
    @SteveI'm surprised I didn't see this post before. I suspect you're talking about the MQA ...
    Dustin 7 days ago Bryston BHA-1 Headphone Amplifier
    The placebo effect is strong here.
    K Murr 1 months ago The Rise and Fall and Maybe Rise Again of MQA
    @K MurrTidal!
    K Murr 1 months ago The Rise and Fall and Maybe Rise Again of MQA
    @SteveTotally agree and I miss MQA very few tracks now available on Tidal. Even with ...