Old Listener
Senior Member
I thought about the new tech stuff I've acquired over the last 2-3 years. Some things stand out as the best and the worst.
The very best for me has been streaming video. I'm no longer tied to a cable channel's schedule and I'm not paying for all those channels that I never watch. I binged through some TV series that I already liked and then moved on to material that was new to me. Lots of Korean and Chinese TV series and movies. More recently, I've been sampling Bollywood movies. Watching TV is very different now.
The first step was buying a smart TV with Roku functionality inside. I just love it! One remote control and a very usable Roku interface.
I also watch streaming video on a 10" Levovo Android tablet. I bought it for casual web surfing and for use for selecting music in my main system. It did those jobs very well. Then I started watching streaming video on the tablet and loved it. I had a 5-6" smartphone and a 7" tablet but the 10" tablet is qualitatively different. Great battery life and a USB-C connector that works every time to charge the battery. (Unlike the micro USB connectors on those older Android devices.) It feels like tech done right.
The USB measurement microphone (and the REW room measurement software) have been the best ~ $ 100 I've spent on audio. I do measurements and create some DSP filters in the JRiver software to correct problems.
Very bad tech? Windows 10 by a mile. Windows as a dis-service. Every time there is a major feature update, something goes wrong. I'd pay Microsoft not to force feature updates on my PCs.
The runner up for bad tech? Dramafever was one of the streaming video streaming services that I relied on for Asian content. One day it just shut down without any notice. I had used their watch history and list functions to keep track of what I was watching and what I wanted to watch. All gone in a flash. The worst was that the company (owned by Warner/AT&T) had some exclusive content that I really liked. It's locked up until the parent company decides what to do with it. A cautionary tale about streaming audio and video services.
Most of the tech I've acquired in the last ~3 years has been pretty good but rather evolutionary. The Dynaudio 3-way studio monitors are a fine replacement for the previous main system speakers. The Intel NUC PCs we use as our personal PCs with 1 TB SSDs are much nicer than the under-desk towers was used before them. The Audioengine HD6 powered speakers replaced older Audioengine speakers with an improvement in sound quality. Sennheiser wireless headphones work fine to keep TV sound away from my wife's ears. The old Sony TV (pre-HD) had such functionality builtin.
The very best for me has been streaming video. I'm no longer tied to a cable channel's schedule and I'm not paying for all those channels that I never watch. I binged through some TV series that I already liked and then moved on to material that was new to me. Lots of Korean and Chinese TV series and movies. More recently, I've been sampling Bollywood movies. Watching TV is very different now.
The first step was buying a smart TV with Roku functionality inside. I just love it! One remote control and a very usable Roku interface.
I also watch streaming video on a 10" Levovo Android tablet. I bought it for casual web surfing and for use for selecting music in my main system. It did those jobs very well. Then I started watching streaming video on the tablet and loved it. I had a 5-6" smartphone and a 7" tablet but the 10" tablet is qualitatively different. Great battery life and a USB-C connector that works every time to charge the battery. (Unlike the micro USB connectors on those older Android devices.) It feels like tech done right.
The USB measurement microphone (and the REW room measurement software) have been the best ~ $ 100 I've spent on audio. I do measurements and create some DSP filters in the JRiver software to correct problems.
Very bad tech? Windows 10 by a mile. Windows as a dis-service. Every time there is a major feature update, something goes wrong. I'd pay Microsoft not to force feature updates on my PCs.
The runner up for bad tech? Dramafever was one of the streaming video streaming services that I relied on for Asian content. One day it just shut down without any notice. I had used their watch history and list functions to keep track of what I was watching and what I wanted to watch. All gone in a flash. The worst was that the company (owned by Warner/AT&T) had some exclusive content that I really liked. It's locked up until the parent company decides what to do with it. A cautionary tale about streaming audio and video services.
Most of the tech I've acquired in the last ~3 years has been pretty good but rather evolutionary. The Dynaudio 3-way studio monitors are a fine replacement for the previous main system speakers. The Intel NUC PCs we use as our personal PCs with 1 TB SSDs are much nicer than the under-desk towers was used before them. The Audioengine HD6 powered speakers replaced older Audioengine speakers with an improvement in sound quality. Sennheiser wireless headphones work fine to keep TV sound away from my wife's ears. The old Sony TV (pre-HD) had such functionality builtin.
