A few months ago we wrote that, “In recent years we have seen the rise in popularity of a headphone that use a plastic film usually with metallic traces on it surrounded by powerful magnets, a design known as a planar magnetic. Most planar headphones are inefficient, heavy, large, and expensive, but known for their excellent sound quality.” Oppo Digital, the respected manufacturer of Blu-ray decks, entered the fray with a new line of personal audio products, and recently introduced the PM-2 Planar Magnetic Headphones, a lower-cost follow-up to their ultra-luxurious and critically acclaimed PM-1 Planar Magnetic Headphones. The first mention of the PM-1 set the audiophile world aflutter, even amongst the fan boys at head-fi.org, but with the PM-2 available at half the cost, should you be considering them? How good are these newly affordable models? To find out we put them to the test with the aid of recent releases from HD Tracks. Read our review to find out how the PM-2's performed!

Harris Fogel, with editorial assistance from Nancy Burlan, posted 10/22/2014

Lost in the various product and service introductions at Apple's very significant September 9th event was a big and expensive strategy change for Apple – they are no longer a "one size fits all" company. Consider: from the first iPhone to the iPhone 5S, there was always just one top-of-the line iPhone. Now, there are two top-of-the line iPhones – and their biggest difference is their size. Morever, this new strategy isn't just in evidence with the iPhone.

John Mulhern III, Posted 9/17/2014

Lately, it has become quite easy to improve upon your computer's Digital Audio Converter (DAC) with a slew of units from incredibly affordable to stratospherically priced. Now that high-resolution downloads becoming more common, inexpensive USB DACs promise audiophile sound on a budget, especially when combined with some good player software and headphones. Of the two formats for digital audio recordings, the most popular is Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), followed by Direct Stream Digital (DSD) pioneered by Sony. Most of the time when you play a DSD file through a DAC, it is actually converted to PCM. Enter the Korg DS-DAC-100M 1Bit USB Mobile DAC, offering native DSD support, as well as PCM, and a promise to make MP3 files sound better as well. Coupled with a new version of Korg's AudioGate 3 software, Korg is making DSD available for everyone. Read more to learn our experiences!

Harris Fogel, Posted 8/31/2014

It’s an undeniable fact that our data storage needs are in a constant growth pattern. Apple introduced the 512K Macintosh to great fanfare, yet we now speak of terabytes as an everyday reality and petabytes are on the horizon for some users! We have spent a considerable amount of time working with Seagate’s storage products, from a very fast, portable, and enormous USB 3 drive to a pair of their new Enterprise Level drives driven as a mirror by the venerable SoftRaid 4 software. In the first of this multi-part article on Seagate’s approach to storage, we discuss the 4TB Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive.

Harris Fogel, with additional research by Frank Schramm, Ken Kramar, and John Mulhern III posted 8/5/2014