luxury

A set of headphones is often considered an audio accessory, but the truth is that this "extra" can outlast your MP3 player if you treat it right. After all, headphone technology doesn't evolve swiftly enough to warrant purchasing a new pair every year or so. As such, investing a hefty chunk of change in earphones isn't really a waste, and though it's true that $100 or less can get you a decent model, there are even sweeter-sounding options available for those with luxury-level budgets.

To that end, we've rounded up a selection of high-end … Read more

International Battery and Electric Marine Propulsion have partnered to build a yacht that runs on wind energy even when its sails are lowered, both companies announced on Tuesday.

The Tang is a 60-foot hybrid-electric Tag Yachts catamaran with twin E motion 18-kilowatt permanent-magnet motors powered by a 144-volt lithium ion battery pack. The batteries charge onboard from wind-generated electricity of sorts, though this boat isn't exactly sporting small-wind turbines.

"The main renewable energy input to the large-format battery pack is electricity regenerated by wind power as the boat's propellers spin in the wake, under sail. The propellers turn the 18-kilowatt propulsion motors, which automatically become generators and send electricity back to the batteries," according to International Battery.

… Read more

Not too many years ago, any laptop $999 or less was considered a budget machine, and spending between $1,000 and $2,000 was the standard buy-in for constructive computing. Starting around the same time as low-cost Netbooks came onto the scene, laptop prices across the board took a dive, and today's mainstream user can easily get away with spending less than $700 for a fully functional midsize laptop, or just a few dollars more to add high-end extras like Blu-ray or discrete graphics.

What this means is that one of the hardest things to find right now is … Read more

High-end audio, just like high-end everything else--cars, clothes, watches, boats--is in large part about style. Sure, high-performance is part of the appeal, but exquisite build quality and eye-catching designs are essential for market success.

With that in mind I put together a nice assortment of some of the more dazzling high-end components currently on the scene.

Magico's speakers are built with solid, massively inert structures designed to ensure the only sound you hear comes from the speaker's tweeter, midrange, and woofer drivers. No other speaker I've heard approaches Magico's resolution and precision. The company's latest designs upped the ante and now feature even more extensive frames designed to quell structure borne resonance to produce the highest-resolution sound possible.

Founded in 1991 by legendary audio designer Nelson Pass, Pass Laboratories, sells its unique amplifiers, preamplifiers and speakers throughout the world. The company has been based in Foresthill, California, since its beginning, and is widely regarded as one of the most innovative audio brands in the world. Many Pass Labs amplifiers, like my XA100.5 are pure Class A designs, and deliver breathtakingly beautiful sound.

The Ayre MX-R mono amplifier (you need two for stereo) is a looker, but pardon me for a second while I get tweaky and gush over the MX-R's zero-feedback and fully-balanced circuitry. Ayre's founder and chief engineer Charles Hansen invests vast amounts of time fussing over the tiniest circuit details, listening obsessively to eke out a sound that gets his designs ever closer to perfection. Some of the MX-R's resistors and capacitors are built to his specifications.

The Krell Modulari Duo Reference is a blatantly original, thoroughly masculine design, but at 44 inches tall, 11 inches wide, and 29 inches deep, it can still fit in average size rooms. Each speaker weighs 345 pounds, it's fair to assume the bulk of the weight can be attributed to its thick-walled aluminum construction. If the goal was to make an absolutely dead cabinet, I'd say Krell has done it. The speaker's design shows a clear aesthetic kinship with Krell electronics.… Read more

Jasmine picks up the slack on Donald's sick day and gets fab producer Jason Howell and "huge" CNET Labs editor Eric Franklin to co-host the latest Crave podcast. We scoured Crave to bring you only the best gems, and this week, we came up with a luxurious $15K speaker from Bowers & Wilkes, some Twitter-friendly dairy cows, a gadget porn crackdown, and the latest Japanese auto innovation. Also, no Crave podcast would be complete without a little something gross to cap it off. Tune in to find out what.

In quite a few TV commercials lately, Lexus has been touting its hybrid-car muscle. So I figured why not take Lexus up on its boasts and see what their current hybrid line is about? With that thought, I present today's video that takes a look at the 2010 Lexus HS250h.

The Lexus HS250h is the company's entry-level luxury hybrid sedan, and it is also its first dedicated foray into the production of hybrid vehicles. At the 35-second mark in the video, we see in plain print what some of the specs are for comparison with other hybrids. The … Read more

In my last article, we got to see and hear the Maserati Quattroporte, the car most likely to get a woman hot and bothered through the noise it emits in action, according to a study. In 2008, a British insurance company conducted a test to validate this theory; however, I imagine it would be hard to prove such a claim as indisputable fact. However, there are other aspects of the Quattroporte that are true--and that's what today's video is all about. So let's take closer look at the 2010 edition of this Italian stallion.

The 2011 Maserati … Read more

A New York appeals court has ruled in eBay's favor in its longstanding legal dispute with Tiffany & Co. over whether the auction giant is responsible for policing the sale of counterfeit goods. The legendary jewelry company had alleged that trademark law requires eBay to keep tabs on the legitimacy of products sold on its platform and that the sale of counterfeit goods amounts to false advertising on eBay's part; the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that this is not the case.

"The decision is a critically important victory for online consumers who … Read more

A few months ago, you had no desire for a tablet computer. The market, after all, has hyped tablets for years, to little effect.

Now, with Apple expected to launch its tablet, you've mortgaged your house so you can buy one. Analysts are projecting that we'll buy tens of millions of such tablets this year.

Why?

Because Apple has blessed the category as "cool."

Sure, Apple gets it wrong sometimes. How many Apple TVs do you own? "Zero" is the correct answer. But on balance, we're willing to bet Apple will get a … Read more