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Oh yes! I am excited about this. I am in love with this. Why? Because this is what audio should be. Frans de Rond, founder and recording engineer for Sound Liaison has released a stunning new album in Pure DSD256 with Carmen Gomes Inc. It is phenomenal. It is clarity, purity and utter transparency at... Read More »

Bob Witrak has been busy in recent weeks releasing a nice assortment of albums. Among them is an outstanding set of Bruckner's music in modern recordings from the excellent recording engineer, John Proffitt, and provided to HDTT by John directly from his edit master files. Also included below is a marvelous Lewis Layton recording of... Read More »

Rhino Entertainment again celebrates Roctober with 43 limited edition reissues and new release LP offerings. For 2025, the series presents an eclectic mixture of rare and previously unreleased LPs, including box sets, ultra-cool colored-vinyl LPs, and multiple selections from both the premium Rhino Reserve and Rhino High Fidelity series. A broad range of musical genres... Read More »

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 »

Sometimes, the most improbable juxtaposition of musical styles, sounds, and textures just works and, when spotlit in breathtaking clarity, as with Mobile Fidelity's Platinum Ultra Disc One-Step version of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, it's brilliant.  When I was a child, my mother cooked and served our meals at home. Occasionally, some spillover occurred between the... Read More »

I can't tell you about all the new releases from this past week now available at NativeDSD. I haven't had time to listen to them all, and certainly not yet time to write about them all. But I have selected six that truly piqued my interest, and they turned out to be just excellent releases... Read More »

Buckingham Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks, Rhino High Fidelity Records (33 RPM LP) Kevin Gray's success with the Fleetwood Mac discography and related recordings continues to amaze. My go to copy for Rumors is the 2020 45 RPM reissue cut and mastered by Kevin Gray along with Steve Hoffman. My go to copy for... Read More »

If you were buying music in the mid eighties, then you might remember when the music industry  expected us to replace our records with "perfect sound forever" compact discs (CDs). Even though I own a lot of CDs, and I still buy them on occasion, few were ever purchased to replace the same title on... 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 »

HDTT has been hard at work once again with two very nice Redux re-releases in better sound quality and four new releases. Fans of Judy Garland will rejoice in this outstanding release of her live performance at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco from 1952. Amazingly, her voice sounds as if she is standing right... Read More »

This new release in the ongoing series of outstanding organ recordings from APSoon Recordings is their best yet. If you love great organ recordings, just get this now! It will blow you away. Aare-Paul Lattik, Live at Riga Cathedral. APSoon Records 2025 (Pure DSD256) Edit Master Sourced HERE This is the most recent release of... Read More »

Here is an audiophile's dream—an exploration of superb performances remastered in Pure DSD from the original DSD tracking channels. Tom Peeters, founder and recording engineer of Cobra Records has gone into his archives to find his original DSD64 tracking channels from albums released between 2007-2014 and remastered selected tracks in Pure DSD256 for this Producer's... 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 »

Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti (1975, Swan Song Records) is undeniably the band's magnum opus, and quite possibly the most comprehensive statement of who Led Zeppelin were and how they evolved into the world's greatest rock ‘n' roll band. Fans obviously agreed by voting with their wallets, taking the album to 17x platinum in the US... 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 »