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I was student-teaching at Whitney Young Magnet High School and waiting tables several nights a week at Reza's, an upscale Persian restaurant in Chicago's River North neighborhood. Now closed, in 1994 this posh eatery sat on the site of the former Berghoff's Brewery on Ontario Avenue just west of the Rte. 94 turnoff. Before the... Read More »

Relished by many for their low cost, high quality audio components and accessories, iFi is renowned for enhancing sound quality and eradicating distortion, noise, and hiss from equipment like headphones, speakers, audio devices, cell phones, and televisions with their products. And, at a price of $329, the GO bar is their flagship pocket totable USB... Read More »

Concerned about vibrations in your home negatively impacting your vinyl listening experience? If you're like me, you want to extract every bit of performance out of your high fidelity music system, and eliminating unnecessary noise and vibrations is one way to do that.  In a previous system in a former home, I used A/V RoomService... Read More »

Snoop Dogg and Dave Malekpour at Snoop Dogg's Beach City studio complex (photo courtesy of proaudiodesign.com) As a 36 year veteran of the professional music industry, founder and president of Professional Audio Design, Inc. David Malekpour has come a long way.  "I started working in pro audio for an acoustic designer and studio tech in... Read More »

The Usher R-1.5 stereo amplifier is built like a tank. Its utilitarian industrial design bears a striking resemblance to the Threshold 300 Stasis designed by audio guru Nelson Pass, which should come as no surprise. In 1972 Usher Audio's owner and head engineer Lien-Shui Tsai built the first Usher R-1.5 amplifier as a copy of... Read More »

Staring out from the darkened hotel room, two sculpted, burly figures stand guarding the glistening golden and onyx tinted treasures between them. Suited in matching, high gloss Macassar Ebony with piano black faceplates angled back and studded with a tweeter and two drivers, at nearly four feet tall, they can swing and punch with the... Read More »

SCHAUMBURG, IL - Wildly popular among high fidelity audio enthusiasts, due to COVID related cancellations, the annual three day Audio Expo North America—or AXPONA—last showed here in 2019. And now on Day One, it's Friday noon and people have come out in droves. Frankly, I cannot find a parking space at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel... Read More »

So, you want to build a dedicated audio-visual room, but don't know where to start? We faced that same quandary this past summer after we downsized to a smaller, new construction house with an unfinished basement, where the A/V room would be located. Having profited well from this frenzied real estate market fueled by historically... Read More »

If you enjoy headphone listening but prefer spending more of your cash on quality cans than amplification, the Soncoz SGA-1 headphone amplifier may be your new go-to device. Possessing XLR balanced and RCA outputs, teamed up with your favorite 'phones, a quality source and DAC, the Soncoz sets the stage for hours of pleasurable listening.... Read More »

Somewhere off shore, just west of Pillar Point Harbor in northern California, the 432 EVO High-End reference music server is riding a mammoth wave at Mavericks Beach. Championing the superiority of 432 Hz tuned music, via connection with the rhythms of Mother Earth, over today's 440 Hz standard, the surging swell is gaining momentum.  ... Read More »

Chances are, you spend a lot of time either behind a desk, on a computer, or out and about without access to a quality home high fidelity stereo. Or, if you're like me this past season, your system is out of commission, tucked away in storage while renovations are being performed in your home. That's... Read More »

Mike Moffat still photo sourced from Schiit Audio video VALENCIA, CA—Mike Moffat, 73, is co-founder of the wildly successful Schiit Audio, which turned home audio on its ear with its affordable direct sales model. With manufacturing plants in California and Corpus Christi, TX, Schiit makes electronics ranging from $100 Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) and... Read More »

Ever notice that our passion for audio sometimes mimics affairs of the heart? For example, as you muddle through a series of infatuations, disappointments, and "upgrades," you may find yourself gravitating to "the one that got away." For me, it was the Ayre QB-9 Digital to Analog Converter in 2009. A siren of song spot... Read More »

Years ago as news editor for the Cyber Boxing Zone, I witnessed the special veneration that insiders held for the late Emanuel Steward, a boxing trainer who headed Detroit's famous Kronk Gym and transformed the careers of world champions like Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko, and Tommy Hearns. Then after signing into my first AXPONA show... Read More »

Most tube electronics enthusiasts are content to live with the stock tubes chosen by the manufacturer. And yet for others, comparing various types and grades of vacuum tubes into audio equipment poses an endless point of fascination, as they impart different qualities on signal passing through them, thus affecting the listening experience; some are more... Read More »

The Torus Power AVR2 ELITE 20 Isolation Transformer is a powerful friend to discerning audiophiles, consumer and pro audio specialists alike. It serves as both a guardian and cleanser to high performance audio visual systems. Modern minimalist in design, it only flexes its muscle when needed, employing an impressive array of 21st Century features, a... Read More »

Steven Hill, president of Straight Wire, Inc. (photo courtesy of Spencer Burke) "Many of our customers are engineers," says Steven Hill, 63, owner of Straight Wire, Inc., a straight-shooting, cigar-chomping graduate of University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School, former CPA, and 37-year veteran in the audio industry. Mr. Hill has no time for nonsense or... Read More »

Like the biblical hero depicted in Florence, Italy's famous David statue by Michelangelo, the diminutive PA-10 is angular and elegant, but capable of bringing down a giant or two by slinging notes with speed, precision, and wallop. Compact at 8 ½" W x 3 ⅜" H x 11 ½" D and 8.82 lbs., it's the... Read More »

When it comes to high end audio, there's no lengths—or distance—some will spare to squeeze out that extra bit of performance from their kits. And now, globetrotting to the ends of the earth has yielded Serbia-based Final Touch Audio's Callisto USB Cable (MSRP $865 for one meter), an entree promising sonic bliss that some pundits... Read More »