Leica M11 Handgrip

I've spent more than two decades as a freelance writer, musician, teacher, and even film actor. I'm stoked and ready to write about home audio and video for Crutchfield.

Refining my gear has been a way of life since even before my dad helped me put together my seventh grade hi-fi setup — Garrard stacker/changer turntable and Onkyo TA-630D cassette deck through a Sanyo JCX2300K receiver into Bose 201s (thanks Dad, for the best kind of hand-me-downs!). Today, my streaming rig is an iFi Zen Blue into a 1960s Harman Kardon Stereo Recital through MartinLogan Motion 40s. I like to pair vintage and modern components. And I've experimented with virtually every vacuum tube known to audiophile and electric guitarist alike.

My extensive studio and stage work has taught me two lasting lessons about gear. How crucial it is to get the technical details right. And the value of finding the clearest path to great-sounding audio.

In the dozens of magazine articles I've written, the lessons are similar. Finding the clearest path to my subjects has been a matter of letting them speak for themselves. It's also about organizing the details in ways that bring them into better focus for the reader. My writing at Crutchfield will continue what I've been doing all along. Distilling details into concise snapshots, so that you can understand the gear that interests you.

About Ned

• Wrote for magazines including Fretboard Journal, The Oxford American, Baltimore Magazine, Virginia Living and many others
• Taught English composition at the college, high school and middle school levels
• Performed on and/or engineered dozens of recording sessions and live shows
• Hands-on experience with a wide variety of amplifiers, processors, microphones, speakers, cables, adapters, power supplies, headphones and basically any and all gear that makes music sound great