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Herb Reichert (left) and Lynn Olson at RMAF 2015:  a moment (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Although some of you may know me as the sometime Tech Editor of PF (and that only occasionally, when the mood strikes me), and the designer of the Ariel loudspeaker and Amity and Karna 300B triode... Read More »

This is an ongoing project by Claude Lemaire of Soundevaluations 91. Deep Purple, Machine Head. Purple Records – TPSA 7504 IE 064 (UK) (1972), Warner Bros. Records, Rhino Vinyl – R1 75622 (2006), 33 1/3 rpm. Genre: hard rock, heavy metal, proto-speed metal, blues rock. "We all came out to Montreux..." Surely one of the most recognizable... Read More »

Vladigerov: Piano Music. Victoria Terekiev, piano. Da Vinci Classics C00134.  TT: 69.01. Classique et romantique, Op. 34; Choumene, Op. 29; Episodes, Op. 36; Aquarelles, Op. 17. Downloads: amazon.com, play.google.com, qobuz.com (mp3) The music of Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov (1898-1978) has already appeared on an earlier album, Wind from the East (Gega New GR 31), on which Victoria Terekiev,... Read More »

Here's an opportunity to celebrate excellence in various disciplines, and the greatness of the human spirit! Every now and then I stumble upon a musical performance that just fills me with so much joy, and then I hasten to pass the word on. What a talented young lady, and what a talented mother she has!... Read More »

First, a quick recap for readers who missed the initial installment of this two-part review. (HERE). Very early on in the course of the Fuuga review I realized that the cartridge's relatively high mass and low compliance and my reference VPI 3D printed tonearm's 10-gram effective mass weren't exactly a match made in heaven. Not... Read More »

It happens from time to time that a Japanese traveling in the world falls in love with a place or person and that's where he sets up his business. But for a Westerner to start a company in Japan - it's a real rarity. And in the audio industry it is an absolute rarity. This... Read More »

Happy Little Accidents Bob Ross (1942-1995) was the loving host of the 1980's TV show The Joy of Painting. He enjoyed the peace, serenity, and most importantly; the process of creating a beautiful painting on a blank canvas. Many of our listening spaces are blank canvasses. But, despite the usual claims that great low-frequency reproduction... Read More »

The enormous WM-4 FINKTEAM loudspeakers caused a lot of confusion among people during the High End 2018 exhibition  in Munich. Looking at them and not knowing what it was all about, it was hard to say why, however. They did look a little different than most loudspeakers at the exhibition, but they still seemed to... Read More »

Over the years, I have had the privilege of hearing some of the best power conditioners out there. My view on the topic is simple: a good power conditioner is the ultimate “three-for” for audiophiles as it helps in all three areas of the frequency range: bass, midrange, and treble.

For us analogoholics, you can never have enough LPs or turntables to play them on! For the last few years, I have been blessed with the company of an AMG Viella V12 turntable. It’s big, it’s fast, and generates a sound that I have not been able to surpass with any digital setup to date. To change things up, I decided to put it on ice for a couple of months and listen to something smaller and simpler to see how it could fit the bill. Speaking to Garth Leerer of Musical Surroundings, US importer of Clearaudio, we decided to pull together a synergistic combo of the Clearaudio Innovation Basic Turntable, Clearaudio TRACER tonearm and Hana ML moving coil cartridge. The total Clearaudio combo totaled $8500 USD plus $1200 USD for the Hana Cartridge.

I just checked out the AudioQuest and Vandersteen room back at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest last fall, so walking into this room at AXPONA 2019 felt like it might be more of the same–an excellent same, but. Within seconds I noticed the presence of Rob Robinson of Channel D rushing around the giant room, keeping the music flowing, while Richard Vandersteen sat in the back row of the room and nodded approvingly.

It’s here! Three decades in the making, and revisiting every electromechanical and musically natural design known to the House of Cardas, has led to the Cardas Clear Beyond Interconnects. With the XL Power Cord and the Clear Beyond Phono Cable covered by me in previous PF reviews, the bigger, extraordinary interconnects are now up to... Read More »

When it comes to room acoustics, size matters. The axiom that smaller listening rooms lead to larger acoustical challenges holds true in my experience. Room-mode resonances, which greatly affect bass response, generally manifest higher in frequency in small rooms, leading to coloration, not just in the bass, but further up into the midrange. Those of... Read More »

As you know if you've been reading along, I've been experimenting with different combinations of the Duelund DCA tinned-copper tone cables for the Duelund-Altec Project (HERE), both as speaker cables and for connecting the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers to the Altec 804A 16-Ohm compression drivers.

"It's style over substance," I thought, seeing the Tentogra Oscar turntable for the first time. It was during the Audio Video Show 2017. "It's probably style over substance," I said to a friend when I saw the same turntable a year later at the Audio Video Show 2018. The change was subtle, because "probably" does... Read More »

Twenty questions with an audiophile who is also an artist. For this premiere, we feature Joshua Miles of JWM Acoustics. What's your background? My primary background is in visual arts and industrial design. After establishing myself in this world, I began my engineering work in acoustics and recording technology. What's integral to the work of... Read More »

I am very grateful to Stereophile's John Atkinson for alerting me to an extraordinarily well-thought-out and, to me at least, persuasive identification of the "Hidden Theme" of Elgar's "Engima" Variations. Here's the link to Ed Newton-Rex's case that, when Elgar commented: through and over the whole set [of variations] another and larger theme "goes", but is not played... Read More »

This year's European AES show was in Dublin, which seemed a bit of an odd choice for a location because there is not a huge audio production community there. So the show was small, but it was interesting because the people who did show up were dedicated folks. Room Treatment Usually at the US shows... Read More »

Okay, so let's cut to the chase, the Black Cat Matrix line of cables (specifically the 3202 interconnects, 3232 speaker cables, and the DIGIT USB) are exemplary. Stunningly good for the price. Competitive with cables I have here that cost several times the 3202 interconnect's $699.95 per meter, 3232 speaker cable's $649.95 per 1.5 meters,... Read More »