A decade ago, a full-featured audio system in your automobile meant AM/FM with a CD player … no longer! New cars ship with built-in GPS, digital tuners, sophisticated displays, and a multitude of features. Americans are holding on to their autos longer and longer, so upgrading to a state-of-the art audio system like the Pioneer AVH-4100NEX makes a lot of sense. In the first of this multipart story, we explore the equipment, process, and features.

Harris Fogel, posted 11/2/15

A few years ago, we witnessed the first truly portable USB-powered DAC (digital-to-analog converter) headphone amplifiers. The idea was that with a simple plug-and-play unit, not much larger than a flash drive, you could bypass your computer’s low-cost and often inferior audio-quality DAC and headphone amplifiers. The price ranged from $200 to $300, but most consumers thought the step up in audio quality was a bargain. HRT has long offered superior external DAC solutions, which we have reviewed in the past. With the introduction of the i-dSp and dSp, at a price under $70, have they rewritten the rulebook for external DACs? How do these bargain priced units stack up? Read our full review to find out!

Harris Fogel, posted 9/25/15

Laptops never have enough storage, and like many others I needed to upgrade one of my MacBook Pro computers from Mac OS X Lion to Yosemite... Fortunately, I had a 240 GB Kingston HyperX Savage SSD drive at my disposal. Read our full review to see how the process went and the performance improvements that resulted.

Ken Kramar, posted 8/26/15

One of the great joys of advances in storage technology is that Network Attached Storage is no longer scary or difficult. And to prove it, consider the recently released Seagate Personal Cloud 2-Bay 4TB NAS device. At a price point barely any higher then a normal external hard drive, the Personal Cloud builds upon earlier products like the Seagate Central, and offers a refined and easy to use feature set for consumers. Last year we reviewed the Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable USB 3 Drive with two internal drives in a stripe. With the introduction of new 4TB hard drive mechanisms, Seagate can now offer the 4TB Backup Plus which should prove to be more reliable then a stripe which is built for speed. Read our review to see how these new products did in our tests.

Harris Fogel, posted 7/26/15