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Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson of Virginia-based conrad-johnson feel that typical integrated amplifiers are compromised in performance compared to high-end separates. Audio manufacturers, they posit, build integrated amplifiers to meet a price point, sacrificing parts quality and sonics along the way. The CA150 Control Amplifier represents conrad-johnson's answer to the ubiquitous integrated amplifier. Note the subtle distinction in terminology—conrad-johnson refers to the CA150... Read More »

Chopin's Last Waltz, Robert Silverman pianist, Kimber Kable ISOMIKE 5606, LP. Producer: Ellen Silverman Editing: Aaron Hubbard Mastering: Chad Kassem, Aaron Hubbard Recording Engineers: Aaron Hubbard, Ray Kimber Mastering Engineer: Kevin Gray, Cohearent Audio, LLC Recorded using the ISOMIKE RECORDING TECHNIQUE recorded at DSD256 and edited in that format without any compression or equalization other than... Read More »

Audio Note Music – ANM 1601 ­(UK) (2017, March) Format: Vinyl (2x180 gram LPs at 45 rpm) Named official 'musical ambassador' for Audio Note Music, Canadian cellist Vincent Bélanger is part of an all too rare breed: an authentic audiophile/musician. Dedicated to raising awareness around his beautiful bicentennial or so instrument, the busy 38-year-old is on... Read More »

Streaming is the future of computer audio. Anyone who's serious about playback of digital files knows that streaming is essential to achieve the ultimate in effortless, totally transparent playback. Think of it like this: with computer audio, there's no transport, per se; you can have the world's greatest digital-to-analog converter, but you've still gotta have... Read More »

Yuko Mabuchi Trio; Yuko Mabuchi piano, Bobby Breton drums, and Del Atkins bass; Yarlung Records 80161 CD, pressed in Germany on high definition special composite materials. Available in PCM and DSD on HDTracks, and NativeDSD.com up to DSD256 (Quad DSD). 2017. Recorded before a live audience at the Brain and Creativity Institute’s Cammilleri Hall.   Yuko Mabuchi plays a Steinway Piano. Recording... Read More »

Have Class-D amplifiers gotten a bad rap? Despite my colleague Guido Corona's enthusiastic review of Merrill Audio's Veritas amplifiers (HERE) some four years ago, the sound and performance of all Class-D amplifiers still tends to be lumped together and in the words of the immortal Rodney Dangerfield, "…don't get any respect." Is or isn't that... Read More »

Many of our readers will have read my earlier rave review of the Unique Innovation Technology (UIT) interconnects back in Positive Feedback Issue 92. With some 18 meters of UIT Interconnect included in my two systems, I can now further report on the extraordinary performance of this under-$1000 per meter  interconnect development for audiophiles and music lovers. I... Read More »

Reviewing Reviewing has been a boon to me. I enjoy audio and music more than I ever have because of it. While my time for listening is pinched by my life outside of audio, I enjoy a greater variety of music than ever. I've discovered the wonder underneath the horror of the distant shore of... Read More »

I am so excited about this amplifier I don't know where to start. First and foremost is its surprising performance. Secondly is the price. For something so small and inexpensive, it seems only natural that expectation bias rears its ugly head. But that would be doing anyone with even a passing interest for this amplifier... Read More »

Air Tight's Supreme and Opus Cartridges What's the Pecking Order? "That would make life very interesting, but wouldn't it be overkill?" I was in the middle of a Thales turntable review and had the TTT-Compact II table and Simplicity II tonearm on the floor mounted with my Air Tight PC-1s MC cartridge ($14,500, $9200, and... Read More »

One look at the Arai Lab MT-1 step-up transformer (SUT) and you'll know in a moment that it is a very serious, ultra-quality, audio product. The fit and finish are impressive and impeccable, yet what really stood out for me was the Arai MT-1's considerable size and weight—it wasn't that much smaller than one of... Read More »

Exciting news! Astell & Kern has some really great new headphones that you need to know about. They're the A&K T1p, and I think they're terrific! Extravagantly made for A&K, the T1p is a modified German beyerdynamics Tesla Gen. 2 headphone that are hugely popular in Great Britain and the EU. The A&K T1p, which are Cartier-like beautiful and... Read More »

When the final rays of light faded from the horizon on what was widely perceived as the twilight of analog playback in this hobby, there was a tragic loss of cartridge manufacturers and their parts suppliers. In those days, the high point of cantilever technology had been realized, and the stylus assembly mass of cartridges... Read More »

I covered back in Issue 80 of Positive-Feedback an entirely new moving coil cartridge from Bernard Li and Charisma Audio in Canada. The $1495 Charisma MC-2 cartridge rapidly made itself at home and didn't embarrass itself in my reference system. Nor was there any doubt by the end of the review that the MC-2, "is... Read More »

The end is nigh. I've read the news and it sure looks bad. Hurricanes, forest fires, eclipses! Oh my! Oppression, discrimination, bigotry! Oh no! Chaos and bedlam are consuming the entire world. UV light waves are only the beginning. We have an inch of topsoil left.  And what about the irreversibly progressive depletion of the... Read More »

Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantatas for Bass. Matthias Goerne, baritone. Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Gottfried von de Goltz. Harmonia Mundi HMM 902323. If dark power is what you want in Bach's cantatas for bass—and you surely should—then Matthias Goerne is the answer to your prayers. Eloquent darkness is not always what we get from true basses, but... Read More »

With its top-of-the-range models, Transrotor plays a prominent role internationally in the highest league of analogue playback. However, to date there hasn't been a cartridge matching the high-end turntables in the company's portfolio. The JR Tamino now has come to change this. Of course, the analogue specialists from the traditional region of the so-called Bergisches... Read More »

No. 2, Op. 19; No. 3, Op. 27 ("Song of the Night"). Ewa Marczyk, violin; +Ryszard Minkiewicz, tenor; Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and +Choir/Antoni Wit. Naxos 8.570721. TT: 60.49 The symphonies of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski effectively arrived in the West with the start of the digital era; the musical press was effusive, but I didn't... Read More »

Up until the arrival of the Stellar Gain Cell DAC a couple of months ago, my home system—while capable of producing some very satisfying music—was basically a cluster fu©k, with a mish-mash of two  preamplifiers controlling all inputs. One for balanced (Luminous Audio Axiom II), a second one for single-ended (Acurus RL-11), and a constant... Read More »