Kevin Reylek's blog

We here at B&H are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Steve Jobs. Our sincere condolences go out to Steve’s family, and we wish them the best as they deal with this tragic and difficult time. Apple products have been a very important part of the B&H catalog, and we take pride in our position as one of the premiere retailers of Apple computers, tablets and portable media players. Steve’s creative spirit and amazing legacy will always be with us. Rest in Peace, Steve. You will be missed.

Steven P. Jobs, co-founder of Apple, passed away on October 5, 2011 following years of declining health.

Grado Labs is a small, family-run headphone company based in Brooklyn, NY. For years, they’ve been known for producing high-quality traditional-style headphones that deliver top-grade sound in retro style designs. In the past couple of years, Grado has taken notice of the ever growing popularity of mobile music, and have recently introduced their first ever in-ear model, the GR8. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be “G-R-8” or “great”. If it’s the latter, it’s certainly a bold statement for a company that’s never made a set of in-ear headphones before, no matter how good their track record is for traditional headphones.

There was a time when shooting HD video meant big equipment and even bigger budgets. Nowadays, you can shoot amazing HD footage with something that costs under $200 and fits in your pocket. But how about great sound, or even surround sound, to match that awesome video? Like HD video, surround sound used to be bulky, expensive, and reserved for use by the pros. Nowadays, thanks to a company called Holophone (not to be confused with the instrument from Futurama) just about anyone can add 5.1 surround sound to their home movies or independent films without having a duffel bag full of equipment or a Hollywood budget.

Over the last few years here at B&H, I've done my fair share of hands-on headphone reviews. However, I haven't really spent much time looking at the wireless options that are available. To be honest, I've never really had a great experience with various wireless headphones in the past. Recently, I took 3 offerings from Sennheiser for a spin and let me just say, I may be a wireless convert from here on out.

Recently, I wrote a review about the Beats Studio and Beats Tour around-ear and in-ear headphones from Monster and Dr. Dre. Well, the Renaissance doc has teamed up with the sound monsters again to bring you an on-ear headphone called the Beats Solo (left). There's also a new artist in town, whose in-ear headphones might just make your HeartBeats go Gaga. Let's plug in and see how

With tons of microphones available, how do you choose the right one? Some are all-purpose; others are meant for vocals and musical instruments; still others are designed for specific applications such as picking up the tones of a harmonica. We'll be focusing here on broadcasting microphones and what makes them ideal for capturing speech. Broadcast mics are widely used in radio studios. They're ideal for voiceovers and announcing.

We've all experienced audio that's out of sync. When audio doesn't match up with video, it feels like we're watching a poorly dubbed movie. When your studio hardware isn't synced to a good clock, it creates an odd echoey scenario that can be so subtle you may not realize your overall sound is being degraded. So what can be done in order to keep audio in perfect sync? In a word, a word clock. A word clock is a nifty bit of technology that has the sole purpose of keeping perfect time and preventing data errors with digital audio.