If you spotted this ad for Monster’s Dr. Dre Beats headphones—which strips an out-of-context blurb from a news post—you’d think Engadget gave Monster Cable an awkward-sounding endorsement. But the mutilated sentence was lifted and applied without Engadget’s permission.
As part of our week long tribute to music tech, it’s fitting that we honour artists that challenge our definition of musical instruments. Here are ten examples that shatter our perceptions (and eardrums).
Humans have been writing music for at least as long as we’ve been recording history. It was storing it that took a little more time. Here are all the ways we’ve done it to date:
As promised, here are more details on the unscientific audiophile gear comparisons I did in Michael Fremer’s audiocave. They range from the mildly crazy to the borderline batshit—and they were all fun as hell.
At first I thought my first was a cassette single of Bel Biv Devoe’s Poison I bought from the Bergen Mall, but then I realised I had a record of Michael Jackson’s Thriller at 5.
Say what you will about Bose, but more than once, we’ve found their low-end docking products to be alright. And besides, this concept is perfect for a company focused on ease of use.
Beatles’ record producer and arranger George Martin—the Fifth Beatle—once said: “You’ve never really heard Sgt Pepper until you’ve heard it in mono.” As it turned out after hours of listening tests, it’s completely true.
Proving that more expensive is not always better, a $US25 “value” stereo system has obliterated $US1,000 equipment from Sony and JVC in a British customer choice award as voted on by 500,000 people.
The first album I owned was Still Cruisin’ by the Beach Boys. It was 1989. Shoulder pads were big. Hair was bigger. The Beach Boys were on Full House the previous year. I was eight.
In 1994, I painstakingly crafted the greatest hip-hop mixtape cassette I would ever make, comprised solely of songs on the radio at the time. I was 8.
