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So, we come to you with another cable review. Sorry, I know many of you believe that cables cannot have a sound or character—that is either they work or don't and any audible impact on the sound would suggest that something is broken… like my ears or inability to be swayed by hype or whatever…... Read More »

Nothing beats the convenience of digital music. For many years, I have stored and played back digital music (before the MP3) because of how easy it was. I loved having a huge collection of music just to play at the tip of my fingertips. Not only that, but it caused a surge of new music... Read More »

Sonneteer may not be a familiar company to many of my American compatriots, but they've been in business since 1994 and have a line of audio products receiving favorable reviews worldwide. There's something quintessentially British about the Sonneteer name, so when Arcadia Audio Marketing, Sonneteer's U.S. distributor, asked if I would like to review Sonneteer's... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about how our eyes, ears, and wallets may all be tied together The traffic on Pacific Coast Highway ("PCH") in Newport Beach, California is slow and awful, jammed most of the time with tourists, beach bums and bunnies, locals doing whatever they do, and others, from Orange County and elsewhere, on their... Read More »

As anyone who has followed my work for the past twenty years or so know, I am all about lower cost, high value audio. I love finding equipment that punches above is price class and attempts to give real, solid, quality sound with the potential for long term satisfaction. I feel I have been pretty... Read More »

"The speaker that changed my life?" said Jones. "Easy. The Quad ESL57. It's the first true Hi-Fi speaker I heard once I got to university. I have almost always owned a pair." No surprise, then, that the ESL57's creator, Peter Walker, continues to inspire Jones's own work. "I had many conversations with Peter," said Jones.... Read More »

I have been enjoying quite a lot of audio adventures over the last year or so while doing audio projects where I experimented with various wire types, capacitors, inductors, and resistors in audio circuits. As a result, my knowledge, skills, and confidence related to developing, modifying, and optimizing audio circuits have been progressing to where... Read More »

The Critical Mass Systems QXK Mk. III Rack in Four-Shelf Configuration, photograph courtesy of Critical Mass Systems. The latest chapter in a story… Some designs and products that I review are from new companies. This is a very good thing; it shows that the world of fine audio remains vibrant, creative, and open to innovation.... Read More »

In this column, republished from his blog site, John Marks of The Tannhauser Gate (http://www.thetannhausergate.com) shares his six pack of choices for a seven-league-boots traversal of 1000 years of Western Music. The full selections would take about an hour. List-making is inherent to all passionate pursuits of excellence. Music, films, cars, cigars, wine, books, sporting events...just about... Read More »

The focus of this review is to contrast the Sonore microRendu and Signature Series linear power supply with affordable power supplies from Channel Islands Audio and iFi Audio, in a Roon-based headless environment. But before we get into that, a brief summation of the recent past: from the point when I first came in contact... Read More »

Everyone jumped in their vehicles at the end of the factory tour and drove—or caught a ride—to the "VPI Man Cave" for some listening sessions. How did the VPI man cave come into being? "After Mom passed," Mat shared, "Dad wasn't living in the house since it was too big and we were paying taxes... Read More »

Stein Music's "The Perfect Interface" Carbon Signature Resonance Control mat in place on our EMT 948 turntable. Every now and then I receive a product whose benefits are so obvious, and whose design is so straightforward that there's no point in holding back or trying to write an extended essay. It isn't a complicated call,... Read More »

Lotus: Complete Edition, Santana (Photo: Sony Music Japan) Sony Music Japan will be celebrating Santana's upcoming concerts in Japan from April 22 to April 27, 2017 in a big way with the release of a new Complete Edition of the band's legendary Lotus album in DSD 11.2 MHz stereo (also known as DSD 256 or Quad DSD),... Read More »

The Oppo Digital HA-2 SE A while back, the good folks at Oppo sent me a review sample of their replacement for the HA-2 USB DAC and Headphone Amp, the HA-2 SE (Special Edition). This is their very compact DAC + headphone amp with battery, made for road/travel warriors who want extra finesse and punch... Read More »

Soundtrack:  The great patron of classical music over the past century, nearly...or since the "talkies" arrived, anyway...has been the voracious maw of the film industry. Better than any capricious emperor, king, duke, or philanthropist, Hollywood et al. has been a grand footer-of-bills for many decades now. Some of the results have been schlock, but some of... Read More »

File this under a story within a story. At the surface, this report details VPI's newest product line offerings and releases. Throw in on top of that a side order of an interesting factory tour where attendees were treated to a tour of VPI turntables' assembly line, quality control testing as well as meeting the... Read More »

So yeah, I like to dabble in tweaks and stuff that might add that much more to our musical enjoyment. Something that gets us that such more from our music. I admit it, I am a junkie for such things. People who have visited here look at the system and comment about its complexity and... Read More »

My Questions and Answers (MQA) An interview of and by Andreas Koch on the subject of digital audio formats In the age of digital audio it appears that a new format is trying to conquer the consumer market every few years, but their success-to-failure ratio is much smaller than 1. It makes us wonder why... Read More »

Bybee filters. These things have been available for audio in various iterations for nearly twenty years, as far as I can tell. The filters are said to employ some of the technology used to reduce the noise floor of military submarines to improve sonar performance. I first read about these in the early 2000s, if... Read More »