high

I recently dropped by EarsNova's spacious new high-end audio store, which has the best-looking showrooms I've seen in a long while. The vibe was relaxed, and the demo rooms' sound was pretty special, but it was the little Magico Q1 speaker that bowled me over.

Were my eyes deceiving me? How could this big sound come from such a small speaker? The sheer physicality and beauty of the sound required some recalibration of my senses to take it all in. Most bona fide high-end speakers are big, imposing things that dominate a room. They're so huge that … Read more

Apple shares hit an all-time high today, underscoring the growing hype and anticipation over the company's next major product.

The stock reached a peak of $413.23 before retreating slightly to $411.63--still up nearly 3 percent from the previous day--at the close of the trading session. The company finished the day with a market value of $381.62 billion. Last month, it passed Exxon Mobile as the most valuable company in the country; the other major tech company, Microsoft, has a market capitalization of $228 billion.

That next major product driving the stock is almost certainly going to … Read more

Investors are fleeing Netflix's stock and many subscribers have turned their backs on the Web's No. 1 video-rental service.

A combination of skimpy selection in Netflix's Internet-streaming library, problems acquiring content, and an unpopular price increase have led the company's leadership to what appears to be a crucial moment. Observers are beginning to wonder if Netflix's stunning growth of the past two years is coming to an end.

Netflix said today that it expects to report 1 million fewer U.S. subscribers in the third quarter than previously anticipated, a 4 percent shortfall. That number includes almost 800,000 fewer DVD-only subscribers than expected.

If you're one of those who cancelled a subscription hoping it would send a message to company managers, well, they got it and so did Wall Street. Netflix's stock closed trading today at $169.25 a share, down $39.46 or 18.9 percent.

Today's revised expectations raise important questions about the company. Netflix is supposed to have near perfect customer data and is supposed to be better than competitors at gauging customer tastes and trends. So, how could it set up Wall Street for disappointment by being overly optimistic about reaction to the price increase?

And with fewer subscribers and less subscription revenue coming in, will that hurt Netflix's ability to acquire content, which already appears to be flagging? … Read more

Most headphones have tiny dynamic drivers, basically miniaturized versions of the drivers used in box speakers. The Audeze LCD-2 features a completely different technology: it uses thin-film planar magnetic drivers. I first checked out the Audeze LCD-2 headphones last year and absolutely loved them. The company redesigned the drivers to produce even better sound, made the earpads thicker, and now covers the headband in real leather. I found the sound improvements of the revised model significant enough to warrant a new review.

The styling is bulky and retro, but the quality feel of the LCD-2 is more than skin deep; … Read more

My Sketch makes your photos into hand-sketched artistic drawings in only a few easy steps. Upon launch you get the option to take a new photo or choose one from your iPhone photo library. Once selected, My Sketch immediately has you crop the image to your liking, either in portrait or landscape layouts. The next step is to choose a style, and My Sketch offers 20 different types of sketch styles, from long-line sketches to pastel styles. It takes a couple of moments, but once the high-res sketch is finished, you have a chance to apply some finishing touches with … Read more

Customers who purchase a 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302 will be able to push the limits of the performance vehicle at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.

Ford on Thursday announced "Boss Track Attack" days, a program to provide comprehensive hands-on track experience for Boss 302 owners.

The program will be offered by Team Mustang and Ford Racing instructors at the Ford Racing High Performance Driving School at the high desert track.

The street-legal 2012 Boss 302 was announced last summer as a performance vehicle, but drivers may not get a chance to really test the limits … Read more

Audio Research Corporation (ARC), based in Minnesota, was in the vanguard of the American high-end audio movement in the early 1970s. By then mass-market transistor electronics had all but killed off the vacuum tube, but ARC's founder, William Z. Johnson, not only believed his tube amplifiers sounded better than solid-state gear, he thought tubes were technically superior. That's why ARC billed itself as a "high-definition" company since its start, decades before HDTV came on the scene. ARC was in large part responsible for starting the tube renaissance, and time has proven Mr. Johnson correct, as there … Read more

Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Wednesday announced his office is dispersing an additional $336.2 million in funds toward the massive U.S. high-speed rail public works project underway.

This time, the money is going for the trains themselves.

Including this latest release, $782 million has been dispersed for purchasing 33 locomotives and 120 bi-level train cars for California, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington.

The federal government has now allocated a total of $10.1 billion, set aside via the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, for the introduction of high-speed rail as well as updates … Read more

An emphasis on speed and a lack of security makes automated trading in financial markets ripe for exploitation and fraud, a security researcher warned today.

Most stock trades in the U.S. and many around the world in general are now made by data-crunching computers that buy and sell stocks in microseconds--something that used to take human traders minutes to do. With these algorithm-based, high-frequency trades a fraction of second can be worth millions of dollars for an investor. (See CBS 60 Minutes report on this.)

In the push for greater speed and thus higher profits, security is sacrificed, James … Read more