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Image courtesy of Accustic Arts A bloody busy year so far, with much more to go. One of the projects that I took on very early in 2018...with some hesitation, I confess, due to the workload that was already building...was an offer to hear the Accustic Arts Tube Preamp II Mk2 and Mono II Monoblock... Read More »

The other day a friend of mine with keen ears, though not an audiophile, walked into my living room system and said "Hmmm… you changed something, I am hearing much more bass, more dynamic slam and less sizzle on top." Well then. Me, somewhat stumped as I was scratching my head trying to think of... Read More »

This article, as reviewed by Mike Pappas, originally ran when Positive Feedback was in print. Volume 6, Issue 4. A Pure Class D Project How did I get into this? Well, our fearless editor David Robinson called me about eight weeks ago and told me one of the most fantastic tales I have ever heard...... Read More »

The 1900 Building in Kansas City, Missouri, is the original HQ for Lee Jeans, and last week I got a tour, courtesy of Mr. Karbank, the owner. The "new" 1900 Building is a very posh and modern affair, with space for industry and a fantastic restaurant, but most interesting to you, dear reader, is that Mr. Karbank is also a client of a local Sonus Faber dealer Elevated Electronics, and that relationship allowed Sonus Faber the opportunity to bring some friends in to introduce a new toy, or rather, a collection of such toys, to celebrate their 35th Anniversary. The Sonetto

Cuerdas Cubanas, Toomai String Quintet. CD and downloads available at CDbaby.com. TT: 30.55 López: A Gozar con mi Combo. Lecuona: Gitanerías; Zambra Gitana; Andalucía; En Tres por Cuatro; La Comparsa*; Danza Lucumí. Castro: No Encuentro Palabras*. Moré: Bonito y Sabroso*. Brito: Cómo fue*. Morales: Dame Bururu*. (*with Alina Roitstein, singer; all selections arranged by Andrew Roitstein)... Read More »

I’ve owned three of the NAD 316BEE integrated amplifiers. They are my go to budget integrated for a few reasons; power, finesse, and simplicity. Each time I have parted with one I’ve known it was to initiate a budding audiophile towards making a move into the hobby.

Technics RS M63. That was the first cassette deck recorder I bought with my own money. On monthly installments, I paid $21.50 for 24 months with my funeral home’s attendant part-time job. I would prefer the RS M85, but I couldn’t afford the payments so, I was very happy with my new acquisition.

For the first time ever, I present my reviewer's high-end balance sheet. ROI (Return on Investment in High-end Audio) Grado Epoch Cartridge: $12,000 "State of the Art" Grado Aeon Cartridge: $6000 "85% Overall Performance of Epoch" Savings selecting Aeon over Epoch: "$6000" Aeon Gains: acquire up to 200 re-issue LPs from your favorite vendor Aeon... Read More »

This is a unique situation: the same company owns two cabling brands that are significantly different from each other. The manufacturer is INTERNATIONAL AUDIO HOLDING BV, and it owns two brands: CRYSTAL CABLE and SILTECH . What's more, the cables of both brands do not compete, but complement each other. It is possible, due to the unique... Read More »

At the last Diana Krall live concert I attended, I happen to be seated next to an elderly woman who took great pleasure in singing, with all abandon, along with Ms. Krall for most of the concert. What made it worse was that she seemed to be quite tone deaf and sang totally out of... Read More »

"Get your station at the touch of a finger!" shouts the vintage ad for General Electric radios. "Touch tuning - Does away with tedious dialing!"  Now, that's an innovation one can hang a fine felt Cavanaugh fedora on. True, the pushbutton worked better in a VW bug than in the home, but you get the... Read More »

Cables, cables everywhere. Thin, thick, round, flat, flexible, stiff, heavy, light, silver, copper, gold, silver plated copper, silver with gold. Just about every possible permutation under the sun. That brings us to Audience's latest Au24 SX interconnect and speaker cables. Audience's newest top-of-the-line cables are a rare and endangered breed falling into the thin, light... Read More »

I described the noble first attempt by Unique Innovation Technology (UIT) to bring their outstanding new technology, demonstrated by their groundbreaking interconnects, to full bore with their speaker cables. I am truly excited by their progress and underscore UIT’s explanation of their current superb results as follows: "Perfect Music Purifier technology within the Perfect Music Purifier... Read More »

Founded in 2013, Alta Audio is the creation of long-time industry presence Michael Levy. Alta's first speaker, the Celesta FRM-2, came about as a result of encouragement from his good friend and client, reviewer Martin Appel. With the support from those he respected, Michael was convinced he could develop a great line of speakers that... Read More »

Audeze produziert Magnetostaten in handwerklicher und klanglicher Perfektion. Mir wird die Aufgabe zuteil, unser Audeze-Testportfolio um den LCD-X zu erweitern. Dass der Testablauf keinesfalls der namensgebenden Odyssee glich, sondern mich auf angenehme Weise ans Ziel führte, werde ich im Folgenden schildern.

Totgesagte leben länger! Dieser Spruch bezog sich ursprünglich auf eine kleine Molkerei in Österreich, lässt sich aber durchaus auch auf unser neues Testobjekt, den Ayon CD-T II anwenden. Auch aus Österreich, übrigens

I get emails from audio enthusiasts and music lovers around the world asking for recommendations of a relatively affordable phonograph cartridge that is warm, dimensional, musical, and has relatively high output so you don't have to use an expensive step-up transformer with it to play music. I have found that particular combination of traits in... Read More »

Andy Zimmerman, Half Light. Newvelle Records NV014LP, LP available as part of subscription at newvelle-records.com I came to a stunning realization about my musical tastes the other day. I was discussing Haydn with a friend, and he asked why I wasn't a bigger fan of his music. I hemmed and hawed for a while before coming... Read More »

Last year at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest we had a chance to listen to the AR-M200 player. It is a great sounding player and compact in size, and at a list price of USD $399 it's a great deal. In this tag-team article, we both give our thoughts. Carol At last year's RMAF Dave... Read More »