Editorial

Staff Updates 2024

The audio world is a constantly evolving genetic bouillabaisse of products, technology, marketing, and people. We here at SECRETS, having been around for 30 years now, have seen plenty of these changes come and go and consequently have established a stable of skilled and talented reviewers to keep tabs on all this. Every so often we find the need to bolster our staff with some new blood and promote some of our existing clan when they have taken on new challenges or demonstrate performance that goes consistently above and beyond.

It is my great pleasure to announce the promotion of Staff Writer Taps Das to the new position of Senior Editor. As practically a “One Man Video Production Band” Taps has been integral in the steady growth of the SECRETS YouTube channel. Taps combines his unique and unpretentious reviewing style with skillfully produced video imagery to help round out our website content and to help appeal to a wider audience. Taps is also responsible for creating our fun “Sorta-HiFi” video podcast series which is getting more attention with each subsequent episode. Many in the industry we serve tout video as the next big frontier in reviewing. We at SECRETS see video content as an important addition to what we do, not necessarily a replacement, and Taps has been an important ingredient in that strategy. Please join me in congratulating him on his new position!

 

It is also my distinct pleasure to announce the addition of Dr. Eric D. Hieger, Psy.D to our reviewing staff. Eric has an established and well-regarded reputation as a headphone and personal audio review specialist. With both an in-depth knowledge of the industry he writes about and the deeply inquisitive nature of his reviewing style, we are excited to welcome Eric aboard and look forward to his contributions to the SECRETS website. Eric’s first gig for us will be reporting from the upcoming CanJAM SoCal show along with our own Lory Hawley. Please join me in welcoming Eric to our little band of audio miscreants!  

 

And with that, let me end by saying…

“Mischief Managed!”

 

Carlo Lo Raso

Editor-In-Chief 

Carlo Lo Raso

A native of Toronto Canada, Carlo's interest in audio began at a young age when, unbeknownst to his mother, he started taking apart her numerous transistor radios to see how they worked. This desire for “knowledge through deconstruction” continued through to the family’s 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. Through that formative experience, Carlo developed an appreciation for good music and good sound reproduction. Also, as a budding graphic artist, the aesthetic aspects of a given piece of gear became increasingly of interest to his eyes. It was at about that time as well that Carlo began purchasing “Audio Magazine” on a regular basis and came to appreciate, in particular, the writing and reviewing of the late Leonard Feldman. Later on, he was also influenced by the writing and observations of the staff at Sound and Vision Canada, helmed at the time by Alan Loft. Carlo graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in Classical Animation and was subsequently employed by Walt Disney Consumer Products for 10 years as a Character Artist and Art Director. Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. Carlo started his own company and has been freelancing artwork, from his home studio, primarily for the toy and publishing industries since 2001. In 2013, on a bit of a lark, Carlo answered a “Call for Writers” ad from an AV website that he had been regularly reading for about 5 years called Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. He had come to appreciate the website’s combination of subjective impressions along with the objective bench-testing available in several of the reviews. The “B-Team” must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. Carlo has been continually writing, editing, traveling, listening, and learning on the company’s behalf ever since. Carlo currently lives in Granville, Ohio with his wife, two sons, and a very old, but chill dachshund.

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