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Today, I’m happy to share a tale of a good friend who recently not only got the opportunity to move away from a shared family space for his listening, but was able to design and build his own dedicated listening space from scratch! Check out how he filled this blank space and see this restaurant,... Read More »

There is something special about the Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems brand and legacy. For myself, every interaction has been first class from beginning to end. This not only includes the product and the performance, but even more important are the people that stand behind it. We of course have Petra and Dan D'Agostino, but... Read More »

Abey Fonn, President of Impex Records, always likes a good challenge. But Impex Records' latest project required Abey to dip deep into her bag of tricks to come up with the ultimate vinyl version of Patricia Barber's Nightclub. Nightclub was Barber's sixth, not to mention, one of her best-selling albums with sales peaking at 200,000... Read More »

Liszt, Les Préludes; Mephisto Waltz; Orpheus; Mazeppa. Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra/Paul Paray. Festival Classique FC 416 (LP). TT: 51.54 My "retrospective" reviews have usually covered compact discs of—ahem—a certain vintage. But I know some audiophiles still favor vinyl over digital formats—I've never given up my own vinyl, though, with age, I'm looking to pare down the sprawling... Read More »

Greg Weaver checking out...Greg Weaver! AXPONA 2023 was as stirring a success as portended! Here is a link to my promotional episode highlighting the then upcoming 2023 Audio eXPo North America event. https://youtu.be/39Xda-_nCao Now that it is in the books, I can't believe how many of you stopped me in the halls to say hello... Read More »

I'm all for unburdening oneself of unwanted crap. As George Carlin said, if you didn't have so much goddamn stuff, you wouldn't need a house, which is really just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. Of course, that doesn't mean stuff is inherently bad. I, for one, enjoy sleeping in a bed.... Read More »

You may have seen that NativeDSD recently decided to expand its catalog offerings to now offer albums originally recorded in PCM 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, and 192kHz rates in addition to the DSD/DXD recordings they have always featured. See the announcement HERE. So, after a month under the new policy, I've been watching to see what... Read More »

Consider the enigma that is the conical stylus, which is essentially the starting point for the earliest cartridges. While this stylus shape is widely used on modern entry level cartridges, curiously, it can also be found on a few select moving coil designs. Not all conical styli are created the same, as many are bonded... Read More »

Bob Witrak's High Definition Tape Transfer (HDTT) has long been known for its excellent transfers from analog reel-to-reel tape. Both Dr. David and I have written many articles about Bob's very fine digital releases of vintage classical and jazz recordings, many of which sound better than the digital reissues from the major labels.  And now... Read More »

Chicago based conductor and arranger David Carroll (1913 - 2008) made a lot of records for Chicago based Mercury Records. As he also held an executive producer position at Mercury, I suspect that some of his LPs, EPs, and singles were arranged and conducted by somebody else. Also, if you shopped for vintage LPs during... Read More »

Or about computer sound recording systems. Pt. 3 : MUSIC (II) It all started in January 1971 with the world's first LP with digitally recorded material. In a long chain of successive recorders - among Denon Digital, Soundstream, 3M, ProDigi, DASH, ADAT, RADAR - DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation, is the latest development. And this is... Read More »

This article by Gary Beard originally ran in Issue 10, October/November 2003, so while we call this section "New Old Stock - Articles from Our Days in Print" you are also going to see some articles from our early days of going online. Eminent Technology Eminent Technology's computer speaker system, the LFT-11 Planar Magnetic Multimedia... Read More »

This won't be about what you think it will be about. It won't be the typical audio rant about typical audio topics; no arguments about digital vs analog or tube vs solid-state or what music constitutes a worthy effort for a high end system. It will be something a little different. But first, I've noticed... Read More »

A small crowd murmurs and looks on as two sturdy men in navy company polos and slacks gingerly lift, rock, and place a pair of nineteen thousand dollar futuristic gleaming pearl white speakers into optimal audio positioning while their CEO, Paul McGowan, is off to the side chatting with a prospective buyer. Although the weather... Read More »

Craft Recordings is bringing an impressive slate of limited-edition LPs to stores for 2023's first celebration of Record Store Day (RSD), which takes place on Saturday, April 22. Craft's noteworthy offering of rarities and specialty releases are just a smattering among the hundreds of records from a multitude of record labels. Craft's seven releases include... Read More »

Recording label 2L and its well-respected producer and recording engineer Morten Lindberg are known for their surround-sound recordings, with multiple GRAMMY Awards and Nominations. If you have multichannel playback capability, and if music in the round is your thing, 2L's recordings are some of the best recordings in that style. I listen only to stereo... Read More »

When is enough, enough? That's a rhetorical question when posed to an audiophile, because in matters of the hi-end, we never cross the finish line. Just ask Joe Cohen, the proprietor and lead designer of PranaWire, for his take on the subject: "Common wisdom holds that there is a point beyond which continued effort and... Read More »

The Bobby S Ultimate Loudspeaker from Stein Music of Germany is a robust stand-mounted two-way monitor that is unusual in several ways. It has a unique horn tweeter/midrange on top of a moderately large, for a monitor style speaker, dynamic woofer. The cabinet is finished in 100% knife-veneered birch and this model is the top of... Read More »

Several years ago, I sold a very nice, expensive, music server to free up funds for better speakers, and sought a more cost effective one to manage and serve my digital recordings, streamed high res services like Qobuz and quality internet radio stations. It wasn't long until I discovered the Intel NUC. Dialing it in... Read More »