Loading...

I enjoyed hearing ATC's 40A (then $12,999) speaker four years ago; enough so I was tempted to buy them (see HERE for the review). They had a fuller range than my reference, and the sound was a bit sweeter. However, my reference ATCs employ an "SL" (super linear) driver for midrange and lower frequencies, as... Read More »

I don't suppose I'm alone in admiring those who can really work with their hands. Years ago, while serving a semester-long sentence in woodshop, I envied my pals who could cut, glue, plane, and sand mundane articles like planters and bowls into magnificent works of craftsmanship. Not being able to do any of this, I... Read More »

Monteverdi, L'incoronazione di Poppea. Les Ars Florissants, Willam Christie. Harmonia Mundi 8902622.24 3 CD's, 1 DVD. This new release of Monteverdi's last opera, considered by students of the composer's work to be his best, is an extraordinary musical enterprise, especially if you take into consideration Jan Lauwers' somewhat off the wall stage production provided on... Read More »

With a firm desire for innovation and iterative design, Schiit are a company which have taken the world of high-end personal audio by storm one product at a time. Their latest creation comes in the form of the Ragnarok 2—an integrated amplifier that improves upon the original with its modular design, heatsink components, and a... Read More »

I am sometimes ashamed of how little we know about audio, how little we understand about it. We fly to the Moon, we are getting ready to fly to Mars, we have quite good knowledge of how the universe is changing and what its structure is, we have found thousands of planets that are similar... Read More »

Phono preamplifiers come in all shapes and sizes and with varying amounts of user adjustability and convenience. The ARC Ref 3 phono preamplifier is hands down the smartest phono section I have ever had the pleasure of using and listening to. At the bottom of the intelligence pecking order are phono preamplifiers that only have... Read More »

Prologue: A Berning Desire Many years ago, I purchased a boxy little bespoke headphone amp for my Sennheiser HD600's called a MicroZOTL. Built by a mysterious mid-Atlantic, not-so-mad audio scientist by the name of David Berning, the MicroZOTL was a mighty tiny wonder. I loved it so much I had physicist / audio manufacturer Berning... Read More »

I tend to jump into things blindly, especially when it comes to this hobby. Most of the amps, headphones, and speakers that I am interested in are not sold locally. Some of the best things in this hobby are made to order, and they often times don't have a 30 day trail. Needless to say,... Read More »

RAFF: Ode au printemps, Op. 76*; Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 185; Caprice on Themes from König Alfred, Op. 65, No. 2. Tra Nguyen, piano; *Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra/Kerry Stratton. Grand Piano GP 771. TT: 67.06 Downloads: amazon.co.uk (mp3); classicalarchives.com (mp3); prestomusic.com (mp3, FLAC); qobuz.com (mp3, "Hi-Res") If you like Romantic music, it's worth exploring the... Read More »

Review By Dean Cacioppo With this article, Positive Feedback continues its content-sharing relationship with Enjoy the Music. Dean Cacioppo shares his thoughts about the Backert Labs Rhumba Extreme 1.3 Preamplifier. Read, and learn.... Dr. David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief In my humble opinion, the two most under appreciated aspects of high-end audio are room acoustics / speaker placement and... Read More »

Pure Audio are a Taiwanese audio company with years of audio design experience under their belt. Despite not being famous amongst audio circles, the brand have attempted to break into international waters with their first successful distributor, Underwood HiFi, residing in the U.S.  Part of their mission to win customers on a global scale has... Read More »

Keces Audio (stylized KECES) is a high end audio audio manufacturer based out of Taiwan. They curate several different components, mostly focused around power (both creation and conditioning), so this review will be in two parts. One for the BP-2400 Balanced Isolation Power Conditioner, and the other for the P8 Linear DC Power Supply (Dual... Read More »

Yes, V-TEE-I. That is not a typo. VTI is not from New Jersey; they don't make turntables (although they support them nicely); as far as I know, the initials stand for something other than Virgo Taurus Industries. Actually, I had never heard of them until recently, myself. I was mulling the prospect of replacing my... Read More »

In 2010, I declared, "If you're looking for a pair of standmount monitor speakers and you have about $1500 to spend, buy the Nola Boxers." The quality of sound at that price made the recommendation a cinch. Many other reviewers and audiophiles reacted with the same enthusiasm, so it's not a surprise that Nola continues... Read More »

The Unbearable Simplicity of Good Design At the start of the summer, I waxed enthusiastic about the arrival of a boatload of new goodies that have made listening to music here at Casa Jeffries an unalloyed pleasure (HERE). Amongst the newcomers, the spectacular Kubala-Sosna Sensation cable loom really stood out. In my preview, I praised... Read More »

I've bailed from the Hi-fi shows. The combination of expense plus the effort to produce a timely report (which could be intense) had become onerous. Of course, I miss the meet and greet, not to mention keeping up on trends and all the new gear. If my local New York show ever got out of... Read More »

Since Adrian Lebena reached out to me three years ago with the offer to review Sonore's first product, the microRendu, a Sonore streamer has been in my system ever since. The microRendu was amazing—especially when paired with Sonore's Signature Linear Power Supply. It took my streaming experience—which previously had been restricted to bandwidth-limited and feature-limited... Read More »

I have reviewed almost every Synergistic Research (SR) Power Cord over the last ten years. Each generation made a significant step forward in sound performance. In my opinion, each was a competitive, if not superior option at every price point. My last review included a full loom of the flagship Synergistic Research Galileo SX cable... Read More »

Vibrations. They occur in every aspect of the listening room environment, whether that room is dedicated to the listening experience, or just happens to be your living room—or any other room where your audio equipment resides, for that matter. The problem is—even when you think you've taken the greatest precautions to prevent spurious vibrations from... Read More »