Hardware

Beats is now part of the Apple organization. Pundits and professionals have been trying to sort out why Tim Cook and the Apple board decided to spend just north of $3 billion dollars on a second rate set of headphones, a streaming music service, and the expertise of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. ...

As most of you know, I've been an unabashed fan of Oppo since I got my hands on their first Blu-ray player, the BDP-83. They've managed to build a well-deserved reputation for reliability, support, sound and video quality AND VALUE. These days, it seems my entire facility has items with the Oppo logo on them. Except the latest additions are not spinning discs but rather delivering the last couple of steps in the music reproduction chain. Their PM-1 Headphones came out several months ago and now you can plug them in to the new HA-1 Headphone Amplifier. But the HA-1 is much more than a simple headphone amplifier.

I was fortunate enough to get a sneak peak at the new HA-1 unit at the recent AXPONA 2014 show. The good folks at Oppo got their very first shipment and asked me if I would like to use it at my demonstration/sales table. Of course, I said yes and was pleased to find a box waiting for me at the front desk of the Westin Hotel. Inside the box, I found a silver HA-1 and a new set of the PM-1 headphones. Combined with the BDP-83 that I brought with me, the AIX Records sales table was almost 100% Oppo powered.
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