Tech Clinic Expert Q & A - June 2005

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Boosting Ho-Hum Headphones
Q: I'm thinking about buying headphone amplifiers but I'm not sure how they really work. Are they worth the money?

A: Ordinary headphones tend to produce sound that's, well, ordinary. (No surprise there, huh?) A headphone amp is simply a gadget that makes anything you listen to come through better. "Headphone amplifiers take the signal coming from your iPod, computer, Walkman, whatever, and boost it," explains Matt Myers, a recording engineer at Lagrange Point Studios, based in Kansas City, Kan. "This gives your headphones enough power to accurately reproduce all of the frequencies in the music."

All headphones have an impedance level, which tells you how much the headphones resist the power level of the audio signal. High-impedance headphones produce better sound, but they take more juice. Portable devices normally come with low-impedance hardware, sacrificing acoustics in an effort to extend battery life. But many affordable headphones, short of the lousy ones that come bundled with most portable players, are capable of decent sound. All they need is a small boost from an amp.

The amplifier, which runs off its own power source, sits in line between the player and the headphones, making your music not only louder, but also richer.

Headphone amps aren't just for portables. I use a small AC-powered headphone amp with my home computer to round out the sound from my speakers' headphone line out. If you don't listen to a lot of music with headphones, you probably can give them a pass. For budding audiophiles, though, a low-end $200 amp, such as HeadRoom's BitHead, can make a world of difference, whether you're at your desk or on the move.

Call For Camera Phones
Q: With so many products to choose from, I'm having a hard time picking out a camera phone. Can you tell me the best way to find what I want?

A: First off, if you want to buy a camera phone, you have to promise to use it for good, not evil. That means no candid shots of, well, pretty much anyone you don't know. Now that we have that out of the way, you could certainly try the standard stuff: reading various reviews online or asking your friends. But lately, I've been using Flickr (www.flickr.com), a free online image hosting and sharing service that lets you search all kinds of uploaded camera phone images. Go to the front page and type in the model number of the camera phone you're considering in the box labeled "Find a photo of ..." You can often find a few dozen images taken with each type of camera phone in real-world conditions.

Also, keep in mind that megapixels aren't everything. How the camera phone performs in low-light situations or when capturing moving objects isn't reflected by the megapixel count, but it's just as important. And don't forget to check how well it works as a phone. That's the core application, after all.

LIMBER LCD LG has bent over backward to make the coolest LCD on the market. Its new 19-in. Flatron L1980U LCD monitor not only folds back, but using AutoPivot technology, it also rotates up to 270° while keeping whatever you're looking at on the screen right side up. If you need to take it with you, the Flatron folds to 66mm slim. But in the end, it's the picture quality that makes the monitor. To adjust the image, check out the LightView presets--six preconfigured modes that let you optimize how you watch movies, play games, surf the Web or even work (if you must). Retails for $899. www.lge.com

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