Exclusivo: Patentes Registadas Para a Tecnologia 'Alta Definição Em Vinil'

Exclusive: Patents Filed for ‘High Definition Vinyl’ Technology

Imagine a vinyl record that has 30% more capacity, 30% greater volume, and double the audio fidelity of a typical LP sold today.

The technical specifications for High Definition Vinyl, or ‘HD Vinyl,’ have now been detailed in a European patent filing exclusively shared with Digital Music News on Tuesday.  This is a concept that could potentially be on the market within three years, according to details shared by Rebeat Digital, the company that filed the patent.

Rebeat, based in Tulln, Austria, submitted the EU-wide patent with Joanneum Research, with plans to quickly secure additional patent protections in the United States and worldwide.  The patent filing was viewed by Digital Music News in a private session, and we were not allowed to keep a copy of the filing.

The ‘HD Vinyl’ name is a working title, though the basic idea is this: instead of the manual and time-consuming process currently used for creating vinyl LPs, the ‘HD Vinyl’ process involves 3D-based topographical mappingcombined with laser inscription technology to more quickly generate a far superior product.  Not only will the end product be vastly improved, but the time required to produce the LPs will also be radically reduced.

“…you don’t need to buy a new system…”

The result is a record that looks like the LPs being sold today, and more importantly, plays like them.   According to the companies involved, the HD Vinyl disc will play on all currently manufactured turntables, though enhanced features will be better realized on upcoming, HD-compatible turntables.  “This is a completely backwards-compatible technology,” said Guenter Loibl, Rebeat CEO.  “It will play on any existing turntable, you don’t need to buy a new system to enjoy the benefits.”

One of the largest problems that HD Vinyl solves is the gigantic production bottleneck that is currently stunting the vinyl resurgence.  Currently, most vinyl is produced using 1960s-era, antiquated technology, with processes that are both extremely time-consuming and horrible for the environment.

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Basically, two production methods exist:

(a) Mechanically scratching audio grooves into a lacquer foil, followed by an electro-plating process involving lots of chemicals; or

(b) The ‘DMM’ direct-to-metal mastering process, which involves manually scratching the audio directly into a copperplate, followed by electro-plating (and also using a lot of chemicals).

“mastering the topographic data…”

The HD Vinyl process, by contrast, involves a longer period perfecting the topographic, computer-generated, 3D modeling imprint before any physical manufacturing takes place.  “We adjust the distance of the grooves, we correct the radial/tangential errors, and we optimize the frequencies,” Loibl continued.  “You could say we ‘master’ the topographical data, which is a totally different approach.”

After that, a ‘pulsed high-energy Femto-laser’ burns the audio directly onto the stamper.  Distance between the grooves and depth adjustments happen automatically, with a 90-degree burning angle eliminating possible distortions.  All in, Rebeat and Joanneum estimate that stamper-related costs will be reduced by 50 percent, while the time required to produce a new piece of vinyl slashed by 60 percent.

The timing of this new technology could be absolutely perfect.  The music industry witnessed another surge in vinyl demand last year, with sales booming 29.8% in the United States alone, according to Nielsen Music.  That is being followed by an echo of turntable sales: late last year, Amazon reported that a $50 Jensen turntable was its best-selling home audio product for the holidays.  Even better, the vinyl resurgence could be having a spillover effect into retail, with smaller record shops suddenly resurfacing.  Bands are also realizing greater revenues from vinyl: according to financial details surfacing last year, vinyl is actually producing more revenue than ad-supported streaming.

So what’s next?  After the broader, global patents are secured, Loibl will be seeking early-stage financing, with several backers potentially in play.

Sony Compra o Catálogo de Michael Jackson Por $750M

Sony buys Michael Jackson’s music catalog for $750M

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson’s estate has agreed to sell its remaining stake in a lucrative music catalog to Sony Corp. for $750 million, the entities announced Monday.

The agreement for Jackson’s half-share of the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog will give the company sole ownership of works by The Beatles, Bob Dylan and other hit making musicians, including Eminem and Taylor Swift.

The deal is another posthumous blockbuster deal for Jackson, whose estate has erased the singer’s massive debts through a mixture of new music and movie ventures and re-releases of the singer’s most popular music. Jackson’s estate benefits his mother and three children, known as Prince, Paris and Blanket.

“This agreement further demonstrates Sony’s commitment to the entertainment businesses and our firm belief that these businesses will continue to contribute to our success for years to come,” Sony Corp. president and CEO Kazuo Hirai wrote in a statement.

The sale does not include rights to Jackson’s master recordings or songs that he wrote, and the singer’s estate will continue to have a stake in EMI Publishing, Inc.

“This transaction further allows us to continue our efforts of maximizing the value of Michael’s Estate for the benefit of his children,” the co-executors of Jackson’s estate, attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain, wrote in a statement. “It also further validates Michael’s foresight and genius in investing in music publishing.”

Jackson purchased the ATV portion of the catalog in 1985 for $41.5 million, and he later merged it with Sony. It remained his most lucrative asset at the time of his death in June 2009 at age 50, though by that point Jackson was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

The deal for Jackson’s half of the Sony/ATV catalog is expected to close by the end of March.

CANNES LIONS - MUSICA COM JOSH RABINOWITZ

TALKING MUSIC WITH JOSH RABINOWITZ

Josh Rabinowitz serves as the EVP, Director of Music at Grey Group. Personally responsible for over 8,500 tracks for brands, cinema, recording labels and television, he was the natural choice to lead the new Entertainment Lions for Music jury. As people prepare their entries, Josh explained what sort of work he’s hoping will be entered, what makes a compelling submission and why Chipotle's version of 'Back to the Start' was better than the original.

What are you hoping to see in the Entertainment Lion for Music this year?

"I want to see great music-inflected work that has been crafted and curated for branded content. I also want to see interesting executions that employ musical properties as their inspiration; ideas where something musical is the principal medium of the concept."

"I also expect that the media and the platforms through which we consume and discover music will be integral aspects of the debate."

"In short, we will be considering great advertising and branded work, music platforms, social media engagement and fan interaction, alongside the traditional consideration of the craft and use of music in general. Music in/of the Media as well as Media in/of the Music."

In 2014, Josh was credited as the Director of Music on ‘Unload Your 401K’ for States United To Prevent Gun Violence, which won a Titanium Lion. Learn more in the Cannes Lions Archive

What new and emerging trends are you hoping to observe at Lions Entertainment 2016?

"The emerging trend of music creation and/or use that translates into a social media 'hit' via branded executions drives me, and I hope to observe this the music category."

"More generally at the Festival, my expectation is for a larger, broader spectrum of attendees, especially folks from the space where entertainment, music and branding intersect – in a phrase, more culture. This will make for an even more exciting networking scene. I really hope to see great standout and innovative work, originally conceived, not copycat executions. I expect the Entertainment Lions to be an exciting business breeding ground for many of the attendees."

Your jury is going to be packed with very senior people with strong opinions. What’s your leadership strategy going to be with them?

"My vision is to celebrate the most creative, innovative and well-crafted work. A good leader has a strong vision and knows how to execute that vision on behalf of and in tandem with his or her team, company, unit or group. A successful leader engages in the aforementioned but does so correspondingly via a network of trusted collaborators generally from outside the unit. That’s my strategy: to engage in a steadfast collaboration with the jury by tapping into each of their fields of expertise. My expectation is that we bond and develop an innate trust of each other by the time we begin to award the work from the shortlist."

"I'll be telling my Jury that even when you feel as if you’re quite certain in your opinion and or vote, be open to the point of view of your jury members – we all know a great deal about music and our areas of expertise, but can learn a great deal from a varied perspective.

"My experience as a jury participant at Cannes Lions has been that if someone else is truly passionate about an entry, it’s worth another look, and they may actually change your mind."

When it comes to the entries, what will you be looking for?

"Elements of surprise and originality as opposed to ideas that are expected and derivative are a must-have. And don't use crappy music to tell the story."

'Dumb Ways to Die' won multiple Lions in 2013, thanks in part to its infectious song. Learn more in the Cannes Lions Archive

If you just had one piece of advice for prospective entrants, what would you tell them?

"Music is probably the most significant aspect of culture globally. It stays with us longer than any other sensory input – more than images, concepts, graphics and even emotional responses. As music and branding become interdependent, that synergy will become exceptionally significant in culture and thus a Lion in Music or Entertainment will have as much value as an Oscar, Grammy, or any other type of high-end award."

And finally, if you had to pick one piece of Lion-winning work that you think is a game-changer in the category, what would you select?

"'Back to the Start' is an excellent example of great music curation, and excellent rearrangement with a distinctive voice and a memorable reverberation with a meaningful concept. In my view, it yielded a version of the song that was superior to the original and gave the brand an elite presence in both social and traditional media."

Creative Artists Agency won the first Branded Content & Entertainment Grand Prix in 2012 with the 'Cultivate' campaign for Chipotle. Learn more in the Cannes Lions Archive

Barulhos - Que Você Necessita Escutar

Noise What You Need To Hear

Os 15 Melhores Álbuns de Todos os Tempos! Você Concorda?

15 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time

15

King Crimson, 'Red' (1974)

Like most of their fellow prog-rockers, King Crimson began as a crew of English pastoral fantasia-slingers, though more schizoid than most. By Red, with the Sixties little more than a bad hangover, guitar guru Robert Fripp had distilled his approach down to a trio playing the most bone-crunchingly heavy music prog had yet heard. The sound of his serrated guitar abstractions slashing through Bill Bruford's beat jungles and John Wetton's low-end theorizing defined the idea of a power trio, and it's not hard to imagine, per legend, that Kurt Cobain dug this record and took notes. Ultimately, the intensity imploded; Fripp broke up the band soon thereafter, following a spiritual path, before reforming it with Bruford years later. But it was never as powerful as this. W.H.

14

Genesis, 'Foxtrot' (1972)

Arguably the first great Genesis album, Foxtrot took the eccentric worldview and symphonic grandiosity of 1971's Nursery Cryme and upped the ante with more consistent songwriting and a tougher musical attack. It also added two prog-rock classics to the Genesis canon: the UFO-via-Mellotron fantasy "Watcher of the Skies," which gave the album a bracingly powerful opener, and the 23-minute closer "Supper's Ready,' which would become a highlight of Genesis live sets for years to come. Partly inspired by some unsettling supernatural events experienced by frontman Peter Gabriel, the stunning seven-movement suite offered up heavy doses of Biblical and Greek mythological imagery, some of the band's most adventurous playing and the use of several unusual time signatures, such as the roaring self-explanatory section "Apocalypse in 9/8." D.E.

13

Pink Floyd, 'Animals' (1977)

Loosely based on George Orwell's book Animal Farm, Roger Waters' third consecutive concept album replaced Orwell's critique of Stalinism with a scathing indictment of capitalist oppression during Margaret Thatcher's term as England's prime minister. The band derided by punks like the Sex Pistols as epitomizing "dinosaur" rock performed thick, rich protest music here, with some of David Gilmour's most glorious blues playing amid bleak panoramas of processed sound. Consisting of three long tracks bookended by the gently acoustic "Pigs on a Wing," Animals was the first album Pink Floyd recorded in its own studio. R.G.

12

Emerson, Lake and Palmer, 'Brain Salad Surgery' (1973)

For prog-rock excess, this power trio took the cake and serving platter: Keith Emerson's keyboard showroom; Carl Palmer's motorized, rotating behemoth drum kit; sports-arena gigs with full orchestra and choir, etc. But here, they masterfully balanced the bombast and brilliance. Brain Salad Surgery opens in full-tilt English-poetic-visionary style with a soaring arrangement of William Blake's "Jerusalem." It then moves through funky baroque folk-rock ("Still. . . You Turn Me On"), Emerson's virtuoso riff on a piano concerto by 20th Century Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera ("Toccata") and the nearly half-hour-long, multi-part dystopian fantasy "Karn Evil 9," in which intoxicating entertainments (a sideshow where a "Gypsy queen/In a glaze of Vaseline/Will perform on a guillotine") distract us from evil computer intelligence and modern surveillance-era Interwebs. Prescient and pretty damn rocking. W.H.

11

Rush, 'Hemispheres' (1978)

Rush moved away from multi-part conceptual pieces in the Eighties, but the trio unleashed two more great ones before the Seventies ended. "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres" (the sequel, of course, to "Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage," which ended 1977's A Farewell to Kings) led off Hemispheres with 18 minutes of mythological allegory set to air-drumming-worthy changes, while "La Villa Strangiato" concluded the record with a complex nine-minute instrumental based on a surreal dream experienced by guitarist Alex Lifeson. Lying in between were "Circumstances" and "The Trees," both of which pointed the way to the shorter, sharper — yet still philosophical — power-chord blasts that the band would deliver in the coming decade. "Everything that went into the making of that record came in a difficult way," Geddy Lee said years later. "The material was ambitious." D.E.

Yes, 'Fragile' (1971)

Pop radio had never heard anything like "Roundabout," Yes' mind-bogglingly unlikely breakout single. Built on Steve Howe's kaleidoscope of classical acoustic and electric guitars, Rick Wakeman's Jan-Hammer-in-an-Anglican-church organs and Bill Bruford's wild-ass polyvalent drumming (especially the galloping, bonkers midsection), it reached Number 13 on the Billboard charts and, along with the album, went on to become a classic rock staple, shaping generations of ambitious rockers. "When I was 7 years old I found Fragile in my dad's record collection," said Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante, who considered Howe his favorite guitarist. "I would put the record on and watch the living room turn into a womblike, cozy place. Their music was so magical and seemed almost unreal." W.H.

9

Genesis, 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' (1974)

One of rock's more elaborate, beguiling and strangely rewarding concept albums, this double-vinyl classic stars the ever-theatrical Peter Gabriel as Rael, a Puerto Rican street punk who descends into the New York underground to experience a series of surreal adventures. ("It seemed that prancing around in fairyland was rapidly becoming obsolete," Gabriel explained to his biographer.) Bassist Mike Rutherford, however, wanted to base the band's last album with Gabriel, who'd announced his intention to leave Genesis, on Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. The recording sessions were stressful, particularly for Gabriel, who solitarily added his lyrics to the band's music, and commuted long hours from the studio to spend time with his premature newborn daughter. The Lamb ultimately veers between wild improvisation and tight control, while highlights like "Carpet Crawlers" and "The Colony of Slippermen" testify to the band's unique blend of art and power. R.G.

8

Can, 'Future Days' (1973)

"Future Days is for me the best album I made with Can," vocalist Damo Suzuki has said. "Because it was very easy to quit from Can after that album. I wanted nothing from them after that. Musically, I was very satisfied." Indeed, the four tracks on the German experimental rockers' fifth studio album synthesize everything they did weirdly well. Can could strip back for three minutes of skewered psychedelic pop ("Moonshake") or split the difference between Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and Isaac Hayes's Hot Buttered Soul ("Spray"), or find new craters on the moon for "Bel Air," a lounge suite dizzying up the entire second side of the record. All of it is Can, and none of it is commonplace. R.F.

7

Jethro Tull, 'Thick as a Brick' (1972)

Miffed that many critics mistook 1971's Aqualung for a concept album, Tull leader Ian Anderson decided to follow it up by parodying the entire concept-album concept. Consisting of one nearly 44-minute song stretched across a dizzying array of movements, Thick as a Brick came wrapped in a Monty Python-esque newspaper sleeve that attributed the song's lyrics to a fictional schoolboy and even "reviewed" the album within. It was a brilliant prank — one so seamlessly executed, in fact, that most people didn't get the joke. Not that they needed to in order to enjoy it. As Rolling Stone noted at the time, "Whether or not Thick as a Brick is an isolated experiment, it's nice to know that someone in rock has ambitions beyond the four- or five-minute conventional track, and has the intelligence to carry out his intentions, in all their intricacy, with considerable grace." D.E.

6

Genesis, 'Selling England by the Pound' (1973)

Dreams of Merrie Olde England turn into consumerist nightmares on Genesis's third album — and its last as a cohesive creative unit. "Can you tell me where my country lies?" sings Peter Gabriel in "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight," the first of several songs that pillory and parody the island nation's hey-nonny stereotype. For guitarist Steve Hackett, who trips the light fantastic throughout, Selling reflects "the sense of old England being taken over; the cornershop giving way to the multinational [corporation]." Selling also contains "Firth of Fifth," the longish composition that many consider the band's finest moment, as well as "More Fool Me," their first Phil Collins vocal vehicle and a taste of poppier things to come. Gabriel carried the record's sometimes Monty Python-esque Arthurian caricature to the ensuing tour, appearing onstage costumed as the knight Britannia. R.G.

5

Yes, 'Close to the Edge' (1972)

"To my mind, Yes may be the single most important of all the progressive rock bands," said Rush's Geddy Lee, who calls Close to the Edge "among my favorite rock albums of all time." And if, like Pavement's Stephen Malkmus, you wonder how Lee's voice got so high, look no further than Jon Anderson's cloudbusting vocals here. Yes' greatest prog statement is a complex pair of multi-part suites, plus the dazzlingly unintelligible showpiece "Siberian Khatru." A headphone journey with cryptic lyrics that message boards have devoted countless pixels to parsing (Is "Khatru" even a word?), it was released just eight months after Fragile. But the astonishing run was too good to last: Genius drummer Bill Bruford defected after the grueling recording, joining peers King Crimson, and taking their beats to the gonzo-jazzbo next level. But this might be his ultimate showpiece. W.H.

4

Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here' (1975)

Alienation has rarely sounded as majestic as on this sentimentally psychedelic follow-up to the landmark Dark Side of the Moon. Inspired by Floyd founder Syd Barrett's disappearance down a psychic black hole, Wish You Were Here sandwiched an extended nine-part ode to their bandmate ("Shine on You Crazy Diamond") around a pair of songs castigating the music industry ("Welcome to the Machine," "Have a Cigar") and the haunting title track, also about Barrett. For Roger Waters, who wrote the album, Barrett was a "symbol of all the extremes of absence some people have to indulge in because it's the only way they can cope with how fucking sad modern life is." Recorded amid clashes over process and content (band members rarely spent studio time together), Wish was titled by cover artist Storm Thorgerson, who designed its striking series of surreal photographs, including the iconic cover shot of one businessman literally burning another. R.G.

3

Rush, 'Moving Pictures' (1981)

"You'd have to be a fool to ignore constructive criticism," drummer-lyricist Neil Peart told Rolling Stone upon the release of this album, which featured Rush's shortest tracks to date. Coincidentally or not, the Canadian power trio's conceptually downsized project would become its most popular and commercially successful. Their ability to establish a Rush sound "in six minutes, as opposed to 20 minutes," as Geddy Lee put it, led to such elegantly accessible headbangers as the swaggering "Tom Sawyer" and the Morse Code-rhythmed instrumental "YYZ." And while the John Dos Passos-influenced "Camera Eye" clocked in at 11 minutes, shorter gems like the freedom-riding "Red Barchetta," the introspective "Limelight," and the reggae-flavored "Vital Signs" were the prog equivalent of punk-rock tunes. R.G.

2

King Crimson, 'In the Court of the Crimson King' (1969)

One of the most influential progressive rock albums of all time, King Crimson's debut eschewed the bluesy bluster of late-Sixties British rock for a Mellotron-drenched mixture of jazz and classical influences, dragging psychedelia to a darker place than it had ever been before. "King Crimson will probably be condemned by some for pompousness," wrote Rolling Stone's John Morthland at the time, "but that criticism isn't really valid. They have combined aspects of many musical forms to create a surreal work of force and originality." With guitarist Robert Fripp and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald piling on layers of majestic sound, and bassist Greg Lake intoning evocative and foreboding lyrics, tracks like the unrelenting opener "21st Century Schizoid Man," the haunting "Epitaph" and the stately closer "The Court of the Crimson King" set the tone and template for the coming prog revolution. D.E.

1

Pink Floyd, 'The Dark Side of the Moon' (1973)

Easily the peak of prog rock's commercial success — and often cited as trailing only Michael Jackson's Thriller in total global album sales — Pink Floyd's lean concept album has soundtracked countless planetarium light shows and just as many critical unpackings. From its sync-up with The Wizard of Oz (press play after the lion's third roar) to the Flaming Lips and friends' track-for-track covers project to Krusty the Clown's lost Dark Side of the Moonpie to the endless hawking of the prism-and-rainbow logo, the album has endured as a pop culture touchstone since its release. Sonically, it covers classic rock ("Money"), soul ("The Great Gig in the Sky"), glam symphonia ("Brain Damage"), chiming clocks ("Time") and analog synthesizers (pretty much all of it). Lyrically, Roger Waters was universal yet personal, peeling back the human condition's paper-thin skin. For all its Alan Parsons-led studio innovations, the underlying accessibility of Dark Side is its greatest strength. After all, they're only ordinary men. R.F.

Um Projeto Excepcionalmente Diferente Para Fones de Ouvido

Hands on with unusually designed Yamaha-powered headphones

There are a mindboggling amount of different headphone types to suit user habits, but this could be by far the most unusual design we've seen yet.

The Shair from Japanese startup Vie does away with the cushion padding seen on regular headphones and replaces it with a 3D-printed cage for your ears.

While most headphones — whether its over-ear or on-ear — apply some pressure to the cushion area, the Shair's cage rests over the ear without touching it. Most of the weight is carried by the headband.

This way, the wireless headphones are more comfortable to wear for longer hours, because they don't press on the ear's soft cartilage or cup it and trap heat, the company promises.

Audio tech from Yamaha 

The product is currently looking for funding on Kickstarter, but unlike most projects on the crowdfunding site, the Vie Shair features audio tech from big brand Japanese audio maker Yamaha. That alone may be enough to convince people to back it on Kickstarter.

The headphones come with Yamaha's high-quality MACH-5 audio module, which allows users to change the character of sound, based on your preferences. 

Vie was founded by former Warner Music Japan exec, Yazz Imamura. He is joined by ex-Warner colleague Andrew Dunbar, who serves at Vie's COO.

Dunbar told Mashable the team is confident its manufacturing partners will offer assurance to people who feel wary of Kickstarter startups' ability to deliver the final product.

The 3D-printed cage will also be made by a big manufacturer — Nasdaq-listed firm Stratasys. It will be made of a nylon material similar to that used for glasses, to provide more comfort, he added.

Earlybird backers for the Vie Shair Kickstarter campaign will get their sets at $199, while the eventual retail price is expected to be $299.

Hands-on: Testing comfort

Comfort-wise, the headphones delivered on Vie's promise, and feel oddly refreshing to wear compared to my regular over-ear headphones I have on all day at work.

Here's the comfort dilemma for most people: If you choose over-ear headphones, it can be more comfortable than an on-ear set because over-ears have larger paddings that go around the ear, opposed to the smaller on-ear paddings that press directly on the ear. This can be especially uncomfortable if you wear glasses, because on-ear sets press the arms of your glasses onto your head.

But with the way over-ears sets typically cup your ears, you can get hot and sweaty more easily.

If you eschew headphones altogether and go with earbuds, your choices range between rubber in-ear opens — which have great sound,but get gunky and waxy — and less well-fitting plastic earbuds (think: regular Apple earbuds) that pick up less wax but can start to feel sore after long hours because they don't fit well in the ear canal and press on some spots.

Compared to all of these choices, the Shair's quirky design seems to solve a lot of the issues. The cage rests over the ear, and lightly sits on the skull, taking pressure off the ear structure.

The company's Kickstarter ad features a woman wearing a set while running, but I'm doubtful the Shair will stay snug if I took them out for a jog. Dunbar told me the version I had in my hands was a pre-production set, and eventually the Kickstarted version will have an adjustable headband.

Still, I'm not confident the set will stay in place with a lot of bouncing around due to the way it sits directly on the headband and doesn't hug the head.

Audio quality could be better

Vie touts the open cage design as a way for the user to hear what's around them, which can be safer if you want to hear oncoming traffic.

But that comes at a compromise on audio quality, because of the way the sound leaks out. This greatly diminishes bass response, so you won't hear the thumping sounds of your favourite electronic tracks.

I tested the set with Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" playing through a software equaliser pumping up the bass more. Still, the audio output wasn't very bassy, so I missed a fair bit of the low cello warmth on the track, and heard a lot of high and mid-high portions like the cymbals and snare and sharp clapping.

Dunbar noted people concerned about bass response can swap out the open cages for closed versions. These should keep sound in a little better, which will help you hear those bass notes.

He added that Yamaha will use its advanced Mach-5 audio codec in the final headphones, which will help make the audio sound clearer and drive up bass a little more.

Audio geeks will be excited to know the headphones are planar magnetic — typically found in higher quality audiophile headphones — compared with the more common dynamic coil technology that cheaper sets use. This means the Shair is capable of producing cleaner, clearer sound, so you can hear the slight crackle in the singer's voice. Cheaper headphones can suffer from muddier sounds.

Overall, the headphones look promising. For most people who want comfort and clean sound in a wireless package, these will probably delight.

If you're an audiophile, however, you're probably better off going with a more traditional design to capture all the nuances in those vinyls.

5 Maiores Contribuições Que George Martin Fez para os Beatles

5 great contributions George Martin made to The Beatles

Here are five of the many instances when Martin shaped the Fab Four:

1. He was partially responsible for Ringo Starr replacing Pete Best. 

Martin was impressed by The Beatles after they auditioned for him in 1962, with the exception of original drummer Pete Best. The band's manager, Brian Epstein, fired Best shortly after and he was replaced by Ringo Starr. Talking to Melody Maker magazine in 1971, Martin elaborated: "He never joined in with the others. He was always a bit quiet, almost surly. But the basic thing was that I didn't like his drumming, it wasn't solid and he didn't bind the group together. ... The boys had been thinking of getting rid of him anyway, but they wanted someone to do the dirty work for them."

2. He emphasized the importance of a catchy hook. 

Recording Can't Buy Me Love in 1964, Paul McCartney initially wanted to kick it off with the first verse (which begins "I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it makes you feel all right"). But as Martin told music blog JazzWax in 2012, "I said to Paul, 'Why don't we start with the tagline at the corners?' So I designed for him the 'can't buy me love' intro that starts the song." The strategy effectively paid off on many Beatles singles. "People bought records in those days based on radio disc jockeys, and you had to grab the listener's attention right away," Martin said. "If you could hook them, you had them."

3. He ushered strings into their music. 

McCartney originally sang 1965's Yesterday only with an acoustic guitar, but he added a string quartet to the ballad at Martin's urging. "I'd kind of resisted his suggestion, but he very cleverly or astutely said: ‘Let’s try it. I’ve got a feeling it will work, and if you don’t like it we can take it off,' " McCartney told Clash in 2009. "I just did it on my own with George Martin and the quartet thing, and when we did that I liked it." When the band recorded Eleanor Rigby for the album Revolver  a year later, McCartney and John Lennon brought it to Martin and said they wanted to do another string arrangement, only with a much larger section.

4. He helped fuse sounds and styles on the group's boundary-pushing tracks. 

Strawberry Fields Forever was recorded in sessions for the band's seminal 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, although it was instead included on Magical Mystery Tour a few months later. But the song stands out for Martin's uncanny ability to combine two very different arrangements. In his 1979 memoir All You Need Is Ears, Martin writes how the original Strawberry was a heavier rock number with drums, bass and electric guitars. A week later, Lennon came back to Martin and asked to redo the song with strings and brass, which they also recorded.

"I said, 'They're both good. But aren't we starting to split hairs?' " Martin says. "Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word 'split', because John's reply was: 'I like the beginning of the first one, and I like the end of the second one. Why don't we just join them together?' "

5. He thought outside the box. 

Some of Martin's most unusual yet influential work with the band was on Sgt. Pepper's. The track Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! required him to create a circus atmosphere, with a chaotic mess of sounds calling to mind rifle shots and people shouting. To do so, "I got hold of old calliope tapes, playing Stars and Stripes Forever and other Sousa marches, chopped the tapes up into small sections and had (engineer) Geoff Emerick throw them up in the air, reassembling them at random," Martin said in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. "Amazingly, they came back together in almost the same order. We all expected it to sound different, but it was virtually the same as before! So we switched bits around and turned some upside down."