ultimate

If plastic guitars were 2007 and drums 2008, then the 2009 plastic-peripheral throwdown of choice is definitely the turntable. Whereas Activision showed off their goods in a Twitter leak a few weeks ago, Genius Products waited to spill the reveal of their Numark-designed rig, the Scratch Deck, until the days before E3. It's the centerpiece peripheral for the upcoming Scratch: The Ultimate DJ. First impressions suggest it's more compact than Activision's plasti-turntable, while also bearing greater similarities to the old Konami Beatmania controller.

The Scratch Deck has a spinning, "touch-sensitive" turntable, as well as a … Read more

Ultimate Ears has been a familiar name to musicians and other audio professionals for a decade, but the company has gained quite a following with its consumer line as well. Earphones in its various lines range in affordability and scale nicely, from those geared toward casual but discerning listeners to sets for audiophiles. At the bottom end, you have the MetroFi line, which has recently enjoyed a refresh in the form of the 220 and 170 earphones, the former being the subject of this review.

The MetroFi 220 Noise Isolating Earphones are a step up from the bottom of the … Read more

This post was updated at 11:30 p.m. PDT with a corrected photo credit. The photo of Alyson, aka Nin9ty Nin9, was taken by Stephen Couratier.

On Tuesday, after eight weekly episodes, video game enthusiasts--and others--saw a winner crowned in the Sci-Fi Channel's reality TV show, "World Cyber Games Ultimate Gamer."

Pitting 12 hard-core gamers--whom the public knew only by their first names and their "gamertags"--against each other in what could be called the video game version of "Big Brother," the show highlighted the difficulties of top-level gaming, as well as … Read more

Ultimate Ears has been a familiar name to musicians and other audio professionals for a decade, but the company has gained quite a following with its consumer line as well. Earphones in its various lines range in affordability and scale nicely, from discerning listeners to audiophiles. At the bottom end, you have the MetroFi line, which has recently enjoyed a refresh in the form of the 220 and 170 earphones, the latter being the subject of this review.

The MetroFi 170 Noise Isolating Earphones are the cheapest set in the Ultimate Ears family and come in two versions: a standard … Read more

The Ultimate Troubleshooter aims to help computer users detect and avoid the problems that plague their system. By acting as a coach and healer, this program wants to do it all. Despite strict trial limitations, we found it delivered.

Ultimate Troubleshooter's interface is a little crowded, with the majority of the display taken up by a screen outlining the programs and whether they are a threat. Around this box are several smaller ones, showcasing performance, diagnosing problems, and giving solutions. The main screen can be toggled between different tabs showing the user Tasks, Services, and Startups. Once a user … Read more

Audiophiles are on a quest; we're always lusting after the perfect fill-in-the-blank (speaker, amplifier, turntable, CD player, etc).

Catch is, perfect gear wouldn't automatically make every recording sound life-like. At that point the gear wouldn't have a sound per-se; the recordings' sound would be laid bare.

I wrote "How high do you want your fi?" for the April 2009 issue of Stereophile magazine, and I'm still getting a wide range of feedback about that piece from readers and friends.

I'm defining a "perfect" hi-fi as one that's indistinguishable from the sound of live instruments. No hi-fi has ever fully recreated the sound of a symphony orchestra, jazz group, or rock 'n' roll band. Solo instruments fare better, i.e. guitars, flutes, and vocals; you can almost get a glimpse of their sounds over the best high-end systems. But a drum kit? Piano? No way!

Audio components are far from perfect, so it's no surprise their sounds aren't 100 percent convincing. As imperfect as the gear is, the recordings themselves are even further away from documenting the sound of vocals and instruments.

The age-old analog/digital divide is the least of it. The musicians do their thing, and then the microphones, their positions relative to the instruments, the skill and imagination of the engineer/producer/mastering team's use of equalization, compression, processing, etc., create the sound we hear.

Pop or rock music is rarely played by the complete band, with vocals, live in the studio. Out-of-tune singers and players are pitch-corrected, drummers' off-kilter rhythms are tweaked, there's not a lot of there there to reproduce. Most recordings are so heavily processed they could never sound real.… Read more

The Ultimate Ears 700 Noise-Isolating Earphones are the latest upscale earbuds to hit the market for your listening pleasure. What sets the new headset apart from previous Ultimate Ears models is that each bud includes two separate channels--one for high and midrange frequencies, the other for lows. (By comparison, the almost twice as expensive and considerably larger Shure SE530s cram three drivers into each earbud.) Other niceties included are five extra pairs of ear tips, so you can customize the fit to the size of your ear canal (small, medium, or large), as well as an airline attenuator (to tap … Read more

BumpTop replaces your desktop with a visual environment unlike any you've used. It's a bit like a futuristic gesture-based interface, but it's tied to your mouse. Were it capable of simultaneous Web browsing, its utility would be much more apparent.

BumpTop makes the items on your computer's desktop more like their real-world counterparts. Icons and folders are assigned a virtual weight based on the amount of memory they take up and their importance to you. You can move them by click-and-drag, or fling them across the BumpTop space. The program determines their importance based on how … Read more

A new kind of Natali Del Conte joins The 404. She references "Octopussy" and makes us play Marry/Boff/Kill. We can already tell that HR is going to be on us any second. She brings some big news to the show by announcing CBS will be streaming live online via Ustream.tv "The Early Show" on Saturday morning. It's their first attempt at an interactive, live show. We anticipate a rowdy chat room with Natali on.

On today's show, we chat about the worst kind of fanboys--forgetting the fact that almost all of … Read more