David Belles founded Power Modules, Inc. several decades ago to ply his trade at designing high end audio components. Flash forward to 2011 and Mr. Belles offers everything from budget minded, but beautiful sounding entry level gear, to state of the art, ultra powerful amplifiers, and thoroughbred preamplifiers. Mr. Belles covers a good part of the spectrum, hybrid tube preamps, phono stages, and sweet sounding solid state integrated, power, and mono block amps. David Belles has quite a following in the audiophile community worldwide. His products are sold around the globe, including Asia and Europe. As a matter of fact, Belles has enjoyed a barrage of rave reviews in various British audio magazines for some time now.  Several years ago, I was in need of some amplification for a second system I was setting up and a friend recommend the ...

Over 2010, there were a plethora of media players released in the consumer electronic space from brands like Western Digital, Apple, Netgear, Roku, etc…  Add in the iterations of digital cable boxes released with similar features as well as new Smart HDTVs with built in apps and the space is already insanely crowded.  In order to appeal to the average CE consumer, you really have to bring something original to the space. Enter the Boxee Box created by D-Link, a uniquely designed set-top box that brings file functionality and organization to streaming web content.  It’s a result of the evolution of a piece of software called Xbox Media Center, an interface designed for the original Xbox that cataloged all of your media.  This software is still highly popular for the diy home theater PC crowd, but Boxee has taken it ...

Getting gifts is great, there's no one debating that.  Giving gifts may be less rewarding financially, but there are some things you just can't put a price on.  Imagine your brother-in-law's face when he sees his first Blu-ray or the sheer joy emanating from your parents when you introduce them to 1080p for the first time.  Blu-ray players are a great gift, and we've got the best of them compiled in one simple list.Entry LevelWhen we talk about entry level, we're talking about players for those completely new to Blu-ray, or those upgrading from an early system without the benefit of online firmware updates and BD-Live.  They're not at the top of the list for the best ever, but they do top the list in their class – a few hundred dollars or less.Panasonic DMP-BDT100 The BDT100 from Panasonic is ...

Back in my jaded days of audiophilia I can remember clearly discounting the iPod as any serious means by which to listen to music. Sure, they were convenient and sure you could put a lot of songs on them but at what price. I knew the answer as I had heard music ripped to the mp3 format with even more jaded ears and pronounced them unfit. Done, game over. It’s ok for kids but…I have since lightened up quite a bit but I am still not willing to compromise too much on certain things and sound quality is one of them.I finally bowed to the iPod phenomena only because I was given the ability to control the quality of the format I used to store my music. I bought the 160 GB iPod Classic and ripped my CD collection to ...

There are certain names in the speaker business that it seems like everyone knows.  Boston Acoustics is one such name. The company has been building speakers since 1979 but hasn't forgotten its two-channel “stereo” roots. But even a dedicated two-channel guy like myself has come to appreciate the home theater experience, so I split the difference for this review and asked Boston Acoustics for a traditional pair of floorstanding loudspeakers along with a subwoofer. I received a pair of BA's CS (Classic Series) 226 floorstanders ($229.99/each) in tandem with the company's 10Wi wireless-ready subwoofer ($499.99) I've found that nearly every loudspeaker benefits from having a bass-focused brother on the floor, and this 2.1 setup was no exception. CS 226 SpecsThe CS 226's are 2-way, rear-ported speakers sporting a pair of 6&1/2-inch woofers and a single 1-inch tweeter. The woofers are ...