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Mention Crystal Cable in an audiophile conversation, the adjectives that likely come to mind are thin, elegant, top-drawer fabrication, and expensive. With an unflinching eye on aesthetics, the color scheme has always featured silver, often accented with gold—the regal metals—in a visual palette resembling the colors of a painting. The association with luxury goods has... Read More »

Photo by Bryant Larsen The Quadratic Audio MC-1 was influenced by a triumphant tradition that rose from the Great War's ashes to avant-garde and worldwide influence that continues today.  It was 1919 in post-World War I Germany when, under Berlin architect Walter Gropius' leadership, the Weimar School of Applied Arts merged with the Academy of... Read More »

Dean Waters with Cigar:  a Portrait. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson.) The Merrill Audio ELEMENT 110 Monoblock Amplifier (image by Dean Waters) As we continue our never-ending journey towards audio bliss, one of the things we look for is transparency. That is to say, music presented without colorization or modification by the... Read More »

McIntosh MC830 Solid-State Amplifier (courtesy of McIntosh) McIntosh amplifiers are the type of ultra high-end audio components that cause fist fights at estate hearings. When the opportunity to review a pair of McIntosh's MC830 solid-state amplifiers, ($8000 per pair) arose, I was quite excited to begin listening. Product Description Each MC830 single channel amplifier is... Read More »

Varèse Sarabande is a specialty imprint of Craft Recordings, and is one of the world's most prolific producers of motion picture and television soundtrack recordings. While originally established in 1972 as an avant garde classical music label, it has since found a successful niche specializing in the release of film scores, original soundtrack recordings, and... Read More »

Perhaps the principal joy in attending audio shows is sitting and auditioning insanely expensive speakers, many with six-figure price tags. As long as I live, I will never tire of it. If nothing else, it puts everything in the audio world into some sort of perspective. At the most recent AXPONA, I heard plenty of... Read More »

I live on the fourteenth floor of an apartment building on a busy avenue in NYC. Even this high up with the windows closed, the sounds of the city—automobile horns, pulsating boom boxes, people arguing—filter in. It's annoying, especially when I'm having a session. Unexpectedly, though, I found it sets up a good test. If... Read More »

When singer, songwriter, disco diva, and queer icon Sylvester walked onto the stage of San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House on March 11, 1979, it would prove to be not only an important pinnacle in his all too brief career, but also a historic moment for the city's LGBTQ+ community. The evening would become a... Read More »

Rhino Entertainment's High Fidelity Premium Vinyl Series continues with a pair of classic LP reissues from influential country rock performers Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, both of whose lives and music were inseparably entwined. Included are Gram Parsons' second and final studio album (and his undeniable masterpiece), Grievous Angel (Reprise Records, 1974), along with Emmylou... Read More »

Craft Recordings' revival of the Original Jazz Classics (OJC) series continues with another pair of exciting new 180 gram LP reissues. Including The New Miles Davis Quintet's classic 1956 session Miles (Prestige Records), along with a noteworthy collaboration between trumpeter Clark Terry and Thelonious Monk, 1958's In Orbit (Riverside Records). Both are landmark recordings of... Read More »

There are few if any male rock voices that I find more interesting and pleasing than the one possessed by Alex Chilton (1950-2010) during the sixties. The gritty, soulful, and expressive voice that Chilton used during his tenure with The Box Tops never, to my knowledge, reemerged on recordings after 1970. Rock historians are quick... Read More »

Mahler: Symphony 4. Netania Davrath, soprano; Utah Symphony/Maurice Abravanel. Vanguard Classics SVC-24 (CD, 1995, orig. rec. 1968). TT: 52.14 Downloads: archive.org (processed from LP); ca.7digital.com (Canada only); us.7digital.com (U.S. only) The charismatic Leonard Bernstein, with his equally prodigious gifts for music and self-promotion, has been accepted unquestioningly in many quarters as the great Mahler pioneer, but... Read More »

When I hear that Gonzalo Noqué is releasing a new Pure DSD256 recording on his Eudora Records label, my ears prick up. When I find that he is recording the excellent pianist Susana Gomez Vazquez, I'm doubly on alert. Her playing is just scintillating and her choice of programming is always intriguing. And so, when... Read More »

Bob Levi:  a moment at the LAOC AS Board Banquet. Los Angeles, CA, 2023. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) I have been listening to and testing cables and other connectivity from UIT for about a decade, and have marveled at their progress. Their Perfect Music Purifier technology has improved and propelled their... Read More »

The labels represented in NativeDSD's catalog continue to deliver outstanding performances in great sounding recordings. NativeDSD is just a stunning resource for those who love immaculate high resolution recordings made by some of the best recording engineers working today (Jared Sacks of Channel Classics, Brendon Heinst of TRPTK, Gonzalo Noqué of Eudora, Jake Purches of... Read More »

I've been working with John Soriano of Apos Audio on a number of recent equipment reviews, and through our regular contacts, I discovered a few months ago that Apos would soon be marketing their own line of self-branded premium vacuum tubes. That news excited me to no end, especially when I learned that among the... Read More »

Quite possibly, if you were to ask my non-audiophile friends, their perception of me would be one of a guy who is on the cutting edge of technology. They walk into my home and are usually overwhelmed by all the whiz-bang gadgets adorning my listening spaces. However, the truth is I was slow coming into... Read More »

Craft Recordings' latest noteworthy release of classic jazz has just arrived, and it's a compilation of some of the finest recorded works by legendary alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. Ornithology: The Best of Bird features a selection of classic studio tracks from Parker's mid-1940's sessions for Savoy Records; the studio sessions are supplemented with a group... Read More »

Rhino Entertainment is heralding jazz guitarist and vocalist George Benson’s return to the Warner Music Group with the release of his long lost orchestral album, 1989’s Dreams Do Come True: When George Benson Meets Robert Farnon. The orchestral tracks for the album were recorded in London during a fertile and prolific period while Benson was... Read More »