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Wofür mehr Geld ausgeben? Lohnt sich die Investition in die Vor-Endstufen-Kombination im Vergleich zum Vollverstärker der noch jungen Eco Line von Audio Exklusiv? In jedem Falle sind sie eine preisgünstige Option gegenüber der kompromisslosen Classic Line.

Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner The intrigue usually starts with a message from Yoshi-san or Elia-san from the MuSon Project in Osaka, Japan, who export Japanese audio exotica to The World. Every time I get a message from Messrs. Hontani I get pretty excited, because long experience has taught me that with their extremely... Read More »

I really couldn't resist the splendid speaker and interconnect cables from Göbel Audio. To be on the safe side I therefore listened only briefly to the power cables, but exchanged them before I got used to it. However, the most recent digital cables I cannot hide from you—and really don't want to—despite this being a... Read More »

Merrill Wettasinghe with his Merrill Audio Christine Preamplifier at Nack Labs When you think about it, the room is arguably your most important component. I am well aware of the sound of mine, a 12' W x 8' H x 32' L living room. I had a choice: setup on the long wall for soundstage width,... Read More »

The National's sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, continues the Brooklyn-based band's streak of melancholy mellow, indie rock. It's reminiscent of the rhythms and monotone vocals of Joy Division and with the suffer-in-silence-like lyrics of The Smiths. "Don't Swallow The Cap" and "Graceless" are dead ringers for Joy Division songs. Singer Matt Berninger and band... Read More »

Speakers—out of all the components in the audio chain— have seen the biggest advancements in performance over the last couple of years. Cabinet design. Driver design. Enclosure and driver materials. Computerized speaker design and crossover modelling. In house machining and construction. These factors and a few more have gone a long way to elevating high-end... Read More »

Positive Feedback has reviewed a number of products from Sophia Electric. Way back in Issue 8 of audioMusings hardware reviews, I was fortunate enough to review their "Baby" tube amplifier. Recently, I reviewed their gorgeous Coke Bottle KT-88 ST tubes. The subject of this review is the Sophia Electric Magik Box. If any component in... Read More »

Greetings from the underground, fellow music lovers and seekers after audio nirvana. As I may have conveyed in my last ruminations many, many moons ago, I am luxuriating in the aural glow of an extended series of incremental tweaks, which coming as they have, in drips and drabs, have brought me to the point where... Read More »

This is an ongoing project by Claude Lemaire of Soundevaluations. Here is the first 10 of his Top 500 SuperSonic List... "This is a journey into sound. A journey which along the way will bring to you new colour, new dimension, new value..." What better way to introduce this new long term project than to quote Geoffrey... Read More »

The NAS element of my Roon/QNAP/microRendu setup is a QNAP TS-251, which has the requisite 64-bit processor and sufficiently upgradeable RAM to run Roon Core effectively. And at a significant cost savings when compared to Roon's recommended QNAP setup ($500 vs. nearly $2000 USD). During my initial explorations of Roon late last year, I quickly... Read More »

Part 2 of John Marks' Christmas recommendations:  This time, the hardware. Like the wise men's gifts, in a set of three. Simple. Affordable. And each clearly excellent at its price point. Very helpful, friend John! Dr. David W. Robinson, Ye Olde Editor Part 1 covered recorded media (CD boxed sets, and an SACD/CD hybrid). Part... Read More »

Very nearly too late, we publish a pair of reviews by God rest ye merry, gentleman, John Marks. He takes us through a set of gift recommendations on this twelfth-like day of Christmas, with worthy recordings suitable for bringing glad tidings of good cheer throughout this new year. Like the wise men who came to... Read More »

The Esoteric K-01X SACD/CD player that I recently reviewed was an amazing performer. It was my first experience with an Esoteric product and I found it to be extremely impressive—one of the most impressive components that I spent time with in 2016. In support of my extensive series on integrated amplifiers, I was also given... Read More »

I continue to reflect on the time my father and I drove out to Old Tucson and visited the set of Heaven with a Gun, a western movie starring Glenn Ford. I'm not saying it was a great movie, but it continues to carry great import for me. The text for the film poster reads like this... Certain questions spring... Read More »

I'm no stranger to reviewing Raven Audio gear having previously reviewed a pair of the Raven Audio Silhouette Reference amplifiers and Silhouette Reference preamplifier, and the Shadow Reference stereo amplifier for PF. All Raven gear shares something in common, and that is the ability to reproduce music in such a way that it never fails to... Read More »

GRIEG: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 (rev. Grieg and Grainger)*; Piano Concerto in B minor (fragments); EVJU: Piano Concerto in B minor (on fragments by Grieg)*; GRIEG: Two Songs (trans. Evju for solo piano). Carl Petersson, piano; *Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra/Kerry Stratton Grand Piano GP 689.  TT: 56.35 Downloads: prestoclassical.co.uk (320-kbps mp3, FLAC);... Read More »

The Super Audio CD Player, Ayon Audio  CD-35 turned out to be significantly different from typical products of this type, both in terms of technical aspects, the sound quality and price/performance ratio. We believe that this is the player that changes—in a micro-world, but still—rules of the game, because it aspires to the level previously... Read More »

It was clear from the very beginning that the Harmonix X-DC Studio Master Million Maestro power cable was a highly limited product, so it was intended for a small group of customers. Its price only this sealed this exclusivity. I envy the lucky ones who have it in their systems—it is the best power cable, I... Read More »

Serge Prokofiev, Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1. Nos 2, 6, and 8. Alexander Melnikov, Harmonia Mundi HMC 902202. For those of us who find early twentieth century modernism one of the pinnacles, Prokofiev's piano concertos and piano sonatas are among its richest assets. What I have always found especially attractive in this music is a sense... Read More »