Pioneer BDP-09FD Elite Blu-ray Player – Benchmark

Chris Heinonen and Adrian Wittenberg

Many people have been waiting for Blu-ray players to hit the magic price point of $200, where people think mass adoption will start to take place and it will slowly overtake DVD as the dominant home video format. However, there's also another range of players that are starting to come out now, those of reference quality designs with virtually no expense spared. The BDP-09FD from Pioneer is their entry into that arena.

(Check out the video tour of the player's features at the bottom of Page 2.)

Blu-ray Players

ARE Audio Light Roast Speakers

Jared Rachwalski

ARE Audio consists of two East Coast Canadian childhood friends who have created interesting speakers with a twist. They currently produce two models, the bookshelf Light Roasts and a floor stander called the Grinder. These guys do more than just build speakers; they also customize the speakers to your taste.

Bookshelf Speakers

ButtKicker BK-Kit-4 Wireless Tactile Transducer

John E. Johnson, Jr.

ButtKicker has been making tactile transducers (shakers) for several years now. These are devices that make your chair, couch, or floor vibrate when low frequency material is playing. They were always very powerful, and in fact, more intense than many consumers wanted. You could always just turn down the volume, but then, you were paying for high power shaking that you were not using. So, ButtKicker decided to produce a shaker that is smaller, with less maximum shaking potential, and include a smaller amplifier. The BK-KIT-4 is the result.


Shakers

Denon AH-D7000 Headphones and Headroom Ultra Desktop Headphone Amplifier

Chris Groppi

My first "high end" system consisted of Sennheiser HD-580 headphones, an original HeadRoom headphone amplifier, an Audio Alchemy DAC in the Box, and a Sony Discman with an optical digital out. I was a college student at the time, and there was no way of having a real, properly set up hifi system in my dorm room. It was clear to me at the time, listening to both my system and uber high end Hifi in shops, that my little headphone setup blew away many high dollar loudspeaker based systems.

Headphone and Earphone Reviews

A Collection of New Vinyl Releases – April, 2009

Jason Crawford
Janelle Monae doesn't lack for ambition. That much is for certain after just a cursory listen to her debut E.P. "Metropolis: The Chase Suite." Monae has some heavy hitters in her corner, and they bring a lot to the production side of the recording. It's Monae's voice, however, that carries the day on this concept record. It gives the listener the impression that she can handle any style of vocal delivery that the job calls for, and many of those styles are accounted for during this brief first offering.
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