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When I started reviewing high-end audio in the early 1980s, I was young, naïve and easily fascinated with the fast-evolving technologies in the audiophile speaker sphere. I drooled at state-of-the-art designs and the exotic materials used in the top-of-the-line models from the leading brands. I admired the people designing these models, which were, more often... Read More »

My first encounter with the Aries Cerat was back in 2019 at the Munich High-End show. All I really remember was a truly magical experience—even under show conditions (noisy background, people coming in and out). The Aries Cerat system was very natural and analog sounding, surprisingly, I was listening to a digital set-up. Fast forward... Read More »

The KECES P14 Ultra Low Linear Noise Power Supply is a relatively new addition to the KECES Pier product line and it replaces the P8. The P14 is a four-channel power supply and the channels are labeled as zones I - IV.  Zones I – III gives you a selection of different voltages ranging from... Read More »

Bob Levi:  a moment. LAOC Gala Board Banquet, 2022 (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) One of my pet peeves in listening room acoustic treatments is devices that not only enhance the sound quality, but also cause an irregularity to the musical reproduction at certain frequencies. I run across these items almost weekly... Read More »

I first heard the now-acclaimed Parasound Halo JC1 amplifier during the January 2002 CES, though this soon-to-be-acclaimed amplifier was not officially available for purchase until March of 2003. But on that January day, the late Bob Crump had used four pre-production JC1s, a soon-to-be-acknowledged overachieving amplifier from renowned electronics designer John Curl, to drive a... Read More »

My first encounter of the Hyper Sonic X4 cartridge kind occurred in the VPI room at Capital Audiofest 2023. The next year, Laurence Borden, proprietor of Distinctive Stereo in NJ, also turned to the Hyper Sonic X4 to anchor his vinyl playback setup at Capital AudioFest 2024. Both times I left the show incredibly impressed... Read More »

Michael Fremer and Lee Scoggins, a moment. Los Angeles, CA, 2017. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) In my recent experience, I have discovered that lowering noise is one of the most beneficial things you can do for better music playback. It's a true three-for-one deal for audiophiles. Bass, midrange, and highs all... Read More »

The Pass Labs HPA-1c (photo by Juan C. Ayllon) If you don't already own one, you've probably seen them on the equipment racks of high profile audio reviewers: rugged and utilitarian, a milled metal block with an oversized volume knob that sounds sumptuous. For the past two years, I've been enjoying the lush delivery of... Read More »

For many modern music lovers, listening to songs from FM-radio stations in the car or streamed over computers at home from websites like You Tube is how they (er… we) discover new music. If you're lucky enough to have a Sirius-XM radio subscription or can afford to stream high-resolution digital music from various online providers,... Read More »

Listening Impressions There's an elephant in the room, and I mean that almost literally. Certain frequencies, the lowest ones, simply aren't reproduced faithfully by most loudspeakers. They'll wobble along, giving the impression of bass, but when you sit in the chair you're left wondering: can you feel it? Subterranean frequencies are not just meant to... Read More »

Sliding the PS Audio PowerPlant 20 into my system wasn't like unboxing a new amplifier or speaker. It doesn't announce itself with power meters or driver cones. Instead, it quietly rebuilds the very electricity your system relies on. Yet, from the first few tracks, it was obvious this wasn't a subtle change. For my particular... Read More »

After living with a handful of Class D amps over the past few years, it's been a real joy to get back into a serious Class AB amplifier. The Pass Labs X350.8 has reminded me why these big, heavy beasts are still so special. There's simply more weight, more authority, more current on tap, and... Read More »

When the Support System One (SS-1) from Node Audio came to my attention, I was smitten by its elegant looks, intrigued by its intelligent design, and impressed by its very sensible list of materials. Welcome to SS-1, a modular component support eco-system that isolates equipment from its support, drains equipment vibrations, and focusses stray magnetic... Read More »

  What happened to all of the luxury Japanese turntables? You know the ones I mean: those tall, chunky, rosewood-veneered JVCs and Denons and even Hitachis, with their fully-automatic feature sets, dead-on direct drive propulsion and wildly over-engineered parts like servo-damped tonearms? While other companies like Rega were trying to simplify turntable design, these folks... Read More »

So you want to travel back in time to the mid-1970s to buy a brand new (back then) 1975-era pair of Quad ESL-57 loudspeakers. Okay… I get it. The primary difficulty, of course, is that all of your efforts to build a time machine out of a Delorean have failed; completely and utterly failed. Is... Read More »

Rarely does technology trickle up into the high-end realm of two-channel audio playback. Yet, in the case of Class D amplification, this has indeed happened. The Class D circuit was invented in the mid-1950s by Alec Reeves, and the first commercial product was released by Sinclair Radionics in 1964. A bit further down the road,... Read More »

Kapow! Right in the noggin! Wobbling like a UFO saucer in the finest Ray Harryhausen tradition, the record sailed crazily in the air, then jetted straight into the hapless boy's forehead. Score! A direct hit! The lesson here was, while some may argue about a Dynaflex record's sound quality, it's pretty tough to dodge in-flight.... Read More »

Bob Levi, a portrait. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) I am delighted to have the first opportunity to experience the perfected Schumann Generator S1 and the Inline Speaker Signature Silver for the first time in America. They are both exquisitely finished products and enhance the listening experience in vastly different ways. From... Read More »

When Nelson Wu, CEO of RAY Tubes offered earlier this year to send a full complement of RAY Select and Reserve tubes for evaluation in my PrimaLuna EVO 300 tube integrated amplifier, I jumped at the chance. I've never looked back; RAY Tubes have lifted my analog system performance and musicality to new heights, providing... Read More »