Loading...

The Grado RS1 headphones: a classic! (Photograph by clothfairy via Flicker; Creative Commons license is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/7403543@N04/2250991856. Used in accord with that license. No changes were made to this image; use of this image does not imply endorsement by the photographer.) Twenty-three years ago, in a city far, far away, I purchased the most expensive, mahogany headphones... Read More »

Quietly Musical That was my initial thought when I listened to the Pass Labs XP-17 Phonostage for the first time. Yes, quiet and musical, is an apt description. But there must be more. After all, this is not some run-of-the-mill update. This is a new product in the Pass line. That does not happen all... Read More »

The word Titan brings a whole lot of imagery to mind for most people. Titan Missile; the king of all intercontinental ballistic missiles. Capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads to other continents within a matter of minutes. Clash of the Titans; Gods at war using their giant minions to battle. It invokes the image of... Read More »

Regular readers of High Fidelity remember, I hope, the texts from two and three years ago, which served (me and the editor-in-chief of HF, Wojciech Pacula) to present the best albums of mainstream music (read HERE). However, we did not write about the discs, that were the best music of 2017 "in our opinion", but about those... Read More »

It's patently clear after countless years of reviewing that cables can—and often do—make or break the sound of better audio systems. Enter the Skogrand Beethoven speaker cables originally reviewed in Issue 75 of Positive Feedback (HERE). In the end—even with my patience being tested by the Beethoven's long burn-in time—the speaker cables truly excelled when... Read More »

Noa Fort, No World Between Us. Self-released, CD $15, available at https://noafort.bandcamp.com/album/no-world-between-us I've been really hard on contemporary jazz singers lately. Most of them are extremely talented, but I always feel like I need a little more from them. If they're going to raid the Great American Songbook, they should come up with a unique approach that... Read More »

Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed Ambrose Pierce "Fidelity to the source!" A ton of money has changed hands on the promise that some gizmo or recording can, "Put you right there next to the performers!" Unfortunately, those who actually make recordings are rarely content with raw footage.... Read More »

Enter Stellar… Early last year, PS Audio introduced a new line of audio components. Dubbed Stellar, the initial line includes the Gain Cell DAC/Preamp, the S300 Stereo Amplifier, and the M700 monoblock amplifiers. I caught wind of the Stellar M700 while at AXPONA 2017. Always on the prowl for reasonably priced, high-end audio components, I... Read More »

The Age of Bulk Occasionally I invite non-audiophile, classical music aficionados over to listen. I intentionally leave them unprepared for what they will see, except to mention that I'm an audiophile. It's a setup and it always works. They enter my living room and they freeze. After a pause, they point to the Kronos Sparta,... Read More »

Ever want to be the conductor of a world class symphony orchestra? Got a desire to enjoy a performance of a stellar big band and ease on to the Duke's piano bench during a Columbia recording session? Maybe you would like to take a chair during the performance of a Beethoven piano trio? Then just... Read More »

Takaaki, New Kid in Town. Albany Records B076F3X5GJ, CD $16.99 amazon.com If you're an audiophile, you're probably already familiar with the 70s jazz recordings from Japan's Three Blind Mice label. I'm lucky enough to own several of these titles on LP—everything from Tsuyoshi Yamamoto's legendary Midnight Sugar and Misty to Isao Suzuki's Blue City to Hideto Kanai's Q... Read More »

Gold Note of Italy are makers of bland black boxes for audio with a low functionality quotient. Not. I've had Gold Note's PH-10 phono stage in for review, and wow it's nice to look at. It's a distinctly elegant design with a clear attention to detail, aesthetic, and functionality. My sample arrived in black, but... Read More »

The following review is from our guest contributor, Sarah Grant. Sarah is a dear friend, as well as a music, coffee, and beer lover. Plus she is cool. This review might have an especially affirmative character to it but I have a deeply personal relationship with this product after months of use. And although I am... Read More »

F1 Fractal™ Interconnect by Townshend Audio On the heels of the ridiculously superb (passive) Allegri+ preamplifier (HERE), with its secret sauce…fractal wire…comes the introduction to America of Townshend F1 Fractal Interconnects. (There are speaker cables also, but I did not have them for review.) The interconnects are extremely exotic looking and terminated in excellent shielded... Read More »

As the science of astronomy moves forward, many of the ideas about how the universe has formed continues to evolve. The accepted theory used to be that galaxies formed from gas clouds and star clusters coming together. Over time gravity gathered enough material together to form the various galaxies in the universe. Only lately has... Read More »

About five years ago, I'd just gotten an HRT Streamer HD DAC with balanced outputs, and had also just upgraded my system amps to a pair of Emotiva XPA-1Ls. The Emotivas were (and still are!!) capable of fully-differential, balanced Class A operation, and I was itching for a balanced preamplifier to help me enter what... Read More »

Under the leadership of ​the brilliant Mitch Ko, President and Chief Designer of UIT Products, comes the long awaited PMP Speaker Cables. In both single-wire and bi-wire configurations, pricing is not the same type of truly super-attractive deal of the UIT interconnects—being in the $2500 - $3000 range—but the complexity of the speaker cable, silver... Read More »

You know the phrase "size matters", I'm sure you've heard it before. Does it matter with a speaker? If you're attempting to reproduce low frequencies, you bet it does. Most of the time I've had subwoofers not larger than 10". I was always under the impression that if you go too large, that you would... Read More »

The wind is in from Africa and last night I couldn't sleep. I laid there instead contemplating the review of the Mad Scientist Audio Flexible Carbon Fiber/Graphene balanced interconnects I was preparing. For those not familiar with Mad Scientist Audio, they came on the scene circa 2013, based out of New Zealand and run by... Read More »