John Sciacca Writes...

I had the unique, two-hours-only-a-parent-could-love, pleasure of attending my daughter’s ballet recital this past weekend. And if you’ve never had the opportunity, I can assure you that watching dozens of 4-12 year old girls dancing ballet and tap to covers of Michael Jackson hits is every bit as fun as it sounds. (Did I mention that there was no intermission? Or bar? And that it was two hours?)

Here's a picture of Lauryn-don...

My sister-in-law, Keely -- the same one who Pwns the Internet -- shared a great story the other day via email. A story so interesting that I immediately asked her to turn it into a blog.

When you think "hot bed of music

“With the bass kicked in, the Vegas are pumpin'

Quick to the point, to the point no faking

I'm cooking MC's like a pound of bacon

Burning them if they're not quick and nimble”

Vanilla Ice, “Ice Ice Baby”

Be honest. You didn’t think that you would come to the blog today an...

Talk of compressed, quantity-over-quality lossy MP3 audio seems to dominate music discussions lately. And there’s no question that compressed-audio formats like MP3, AAC, and WMA have changed the way people listen to music, and that they definitely have their time and place. For mobile listening, compressed music files let you carry 10,000 songs around in your pocket—a pretty amazing feat that is especially appreciated when you find yourself on a lengthy flight or d...

Typically I would say that if you’ve purchased an iOS device – Pod, Phone, or Pad – the first thing you should do to improve your music listening experience should be this: Take the free, white, pack-in headphones and carefully unwrap them from their packaging. Admire them for a moment – so white and gleaming! – and say a quick word of thanks to Jobs and gang for including a complete, ready-to-listen, user experience right out of the box. And then&...

Walk the floor at a tradeshow like the CEDIA EXPO – held this September in Indianapolis and if you click here to register and use code CT07 at check-out you can attend the show for FREE! – and you will quickly notice that the A/V world is filled with what many outsiders would consider “unique&#...

aka: A woman's journey to becoming the Tech Chick

Call it chauvinist or sexist or extremist or whatever other “ist” you care to use (well, maybe not "botanist" or "hairstylist") but for the most part, the audio/video industry is a man’s game.

(I’m adding this nice little paragraph space to allow tempers to cool, riled bloods to unrile and thoughts to tem...

It’s been a while since I’ve purchased any new music. (I believe the last disc I bought was They Might Be Giant’s “Join Us.") I have nothing against iTunes, but I just don’t like buying music as digital files. Maybe it’s because of my age – as I grew up first buying cassettes and then switching to CDs – but I like to have the physical media. I like to hold the sleeve, see the artwork on the disc and look through the liner n...

I like Fiona Apple. And by “like” I mean I really like her. A lot.

Ever since she broke onto the scene with Criminal – “I’ve been a bad, bad girl…” – in 1996, I have been a big fan and have purchased all of her albums; Tidal, When the Pawn…, and Extraordinary Machine. And I listen to them over and over. And then over some more. (It's really one of Dana's favorite things a...

There’s been some kinda-sorta negative stuff going around on the Interwebs lately about Kaleidescape and their awesome media server. They were handed down a pretty negative judgment at the first of the month which may or may not impact them from being able to continue selling their product in its current, DVD-importing form. (Kaleidescape is hopeful that the verdict will be stayed pending their appeal, which has already been filed.

To know me is to know that I love – and HAVE loved – the band They Might Be Giants, or just TMBG. From the first moment that I discovered them – a cassette of Flood blasting on endless repeat over a giant, portable boombox back in the early 90s – I have been smitten. What other band can weave in deep, obscure literary references along with quirky riffs and hooks? Or have a song where “Minimum wage!” and a whipcrack are the entire thing? And d...

Without a doubt, there is *a lot* to love about Sonos’ incredibly innovative audio distribution system. Sonos definitely turned the traditional rack-filled-with-stacks-of-black-boxes and single-point control location on its head with its system that is wireless and decentralized. It’s one of those systems that as you start describing it to people, and telling them all the things that it can do and all of the features that it has, YOU start getting as excited as they...

"To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening." -- R.E.M.

Chances are, you heard the news that R.E.M. decided to disband this week after 31 years ...

It occurs to me that I’ve already put up several CEDIA blogs and have pretty much avoided talking about ANY of the tech at the show. (Well, except for the Lutron shading thing. That was just too cool to pass up.) Lest anyone should forget, the one of the principal points of the CEDIA Expo is to show off all the latest and...

Music. Seriously. Music. It is a hugely important, practically constant part of my daily, waking life. Usually from the moment I wake-up – which is almost as quickly followed by a, “Turn that down! That’s too loud for starting off the morning!” from Dana -- to my car ride to work, to some system on all day at work, to my car ride back home, to walking back into the house and being told, “Turn that down! That’s too loud when we’re...

I’m going to be totally honest and up front before I even begin here… I have yet to use Spotify’s music service. (Even though I signed myself up and someone else says they sent me an invite. Harumpf!) So, I am going to be throwing out some gripes and comparisons and some, “What the hell’s?!” here against a service that I haven’t actually personally used yet. Which is not normally how I likes to do. So, if I’m off in some ar...

One of the on-going blowbacks from the unceremonious severing of ties between us and They Who Shall Not Be Named (TWSNBN) was that we now have a showroom full of speakers and electronics still on display for which we are no longer authorized dealers. At current count we have a 7-channel Diamond-series system, a 5.1-channel 700-series system,...

Few things in life have the power to trigger memories and instantly transport you to another moment in time like music. A song that is coupled with some event in your life can become so deeply ingrained into the personal, specific you-ness which is YOU, that they will one day likely find a way of extracting the individual musical memory notes from our  DNA to recreate the entire being of WHO we are.

That’s what the best of albu...

A friend of mine was found dead in his bathroom yesterday. His name was Ken Draper. This news was shockingly unexpected and it sucks. I got the news in that most impersonal of 21st Century delivery methods, via voicemail. “Don’t know if you heard, but Ken Draper was found dead this morning.”  I guess it could have been worse; it could have been a text message. Please promise me that you'll never text message someone with news of a death. I hung up and was...

If you’ve been stealing darkness for all of these years, just closing your eyes and basking and focusing in that cool, refreshing blackness, there’s a new company that wants to put a stop – and a price – to that. First, you’ve been doing it all wrong. Second, you just show me where it says that “darkness” is one of your inalienable rights, and I’ll show you a company that says, “We’re from the Netherlands! We don’...