Happy New Year from Talk Audio Magazine

Well in the event, it was not meant to be that TA was going to ‘Vegas this year for CES. That said, last year was a bit sad to the end with the last buses all empty and the town feeling dead at the end of the weekend. I even heard that some hotels have stopped the mad subsidised buffets as they were losing money. But the odd thing has been that the PR machine has been better than ever before with all sorts of outfits getting in touch as I am a registered press Alumnus with the show.
There are all sorts of new technologies and products to report on during the show and I’ll burrow and keep you all up to date with what’s being launched. I did learn that a slew of old familiar faces at the CES simply are not going to be there this year so perhaps this was the year to save costs. The Crunch may be painful but the sheer rate of technological advance continues to grow and so the tech is going to carry on, it’s just the shape of it that is evolving.
I have had the MTX square woofer in its sexy box over Christmas and will be able to report on that soon and generally get back up to speed. One thing that does seem sensible for the new year is to start a little broadening of the Talk Audio remit. Always named Talk Audio rather than Talk Car Audio, we always intended the possibility of wider product bandwidth and if you are reading this then you are sat in front of a headphone socket and also most likely own an iPod or other player that uses ear buds or cans, so we are going to open discussions with the likes of Sennheiser and play with some ear buds from Kicker, initially, as after all, I have played with high end headphones up to the ones they call “Ear Speakers” from Stax like their Lambda Pro’s for £12,000 as well as professional ones and all sorts in between.
I have a serious screen from Necvox still in the rig and an increasing collection of coaxes – there has been a delay in the enclosures front though, so I’ll let you know when that gets under way. Meanwhile, a happy new decade and here’s to new tech, much fun, coolness and TV on the move – the USA is getting an all new Mobile DTV standard and where they lead…..
Adam Rayner – Online Editor