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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 »

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 »

Fergus Henderson—the chef who's the reason the hip restaurant around the corner from you serves bone marrow, sweetbreads, and other animal bits—opens his seminal cookbook Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, with a terse description of lunch at Sweetings. When you order the smoked eel at the bar of this London seafood... Read More »

ESS 422H Heil AMT/Moving Coil Hybrid Headphones: New Current Production Back in February when I reviewed these brand new headphones with their amazing drive system, they did not look like the current cans on the shelf today. They were pre-production and were supposed to be exactly like they are now in every musical parameter. Actually,... Read More »

I just had a rather arresting (in the sense of, one has to stop doing anything else, and just listen) listening experience. I want to share it with you. The music I was listening to is from an underappreciated (really, almost unknown) classic-era jazz recording; but I have heard it many times. However, I had never heard it... Read More »

We hold these audio Truths to be self-evident…until we don't. There are times when I feel that everything ever said or published about audio is only created so that people can have a good time arguing. One premise, however, is rarely challenged: system synergy. Plenty of manufacturers posit that it only makes sense to purchase matching components from... Read More »

Just about ten years ago, when I first started writing the Neoteric Listener column for Positive Feedback, editors Dave and Carol Clark invited me to their home. At the time, the heart of their system featured the substantial Clayton Audio mono blocks and the well-regarded Reimer speakers. Reflecting on my then modest Arcam and Tannoy... Read More »

Will Wonders Never Cease A recurring nightmare haunts my dreams. In the nightmare, some guy named Bill Parish of GTT Audio continually harasses me with phone calls, texts, and emails imploring yours truly to return the Audionet WATT integrated amp that took up residence hear at Casa Jeffries a little over a month ago (and... Read More »

True, ​from "Those Wonderful Folks That Brought You the Blue Hawaii"… …except, subtract the tubes, use different designers, develop for dynamic headphones, use bipolar transistors output in class A, have a much more extended frequency response, undergo extensive modification including new exquisite volume control, produce up to 6 watts into a pair of headphones, and... Read More »

The word Titan brings a whole lot of imagery to mind for most people. Titan Missile; the king of all intercontinental ballistic missiles. Capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads to other continents within a matter of minutes. Clash of the Titans; Gods at war using their giant minions to battle. It invokes the image of... Read More »

Enter Stellar… Early last year, PS Audio introduced a new line of audio components. Dubbed Stellar, the initial line includes the Gain Cell DAC/Preamp, the S300 Stereo Amplifier, and the M700 monoblock amplifiers. I caught wind of the Stellar M700 while at AXPONA 2017. Always on the prowl for reasonably priced, high-end audio components, I... Read More »

Goin' Back to Indiana A few weeks ago, I boarded from Orlando a packed United Airlines flight bound for Chicago's O'Hare Airport, the first leg in a trip that would take me to Goshen, Indiana, the home of my good friend Greg Weaver. Many of you will know Greg through his work here at PF,... Read More »

Thöress - A Tribute to Professional Equipment from the Golden Age of Electronic Tubes Among the audio equipment we awarded during Audio Show 2012 with the Best Sound there was a small, unusually looking phonostage from the German company Thöress. I met its owner, Mr. Reinhard Thöress, in May of the same year at the High... Read More »

When conrad-johnson releases a statement product, everybody listens. Particularly when the new 40th anniversary ART300 amplifiers are the team of Bill Conrad, Jeff Fischel and Lew Johnson's first crack at an amplifier design incorporating the newly designed Tungsol KT-150 output tubes. Make no mistake. The new 40th Anniversary ART300 monoblock amplifiers aren't the conrad-johnson Premier... Read More »

In which our hero meditates… The Audionet HEISENBERG Monoblock Amplifiers, bi-amped, with the YG Acoustics Sonja XV Loudspeakers and Kubala-Sosna Realization cables. In the fall of 2016 I reported on an extraordinary time that I had when I flew to Newark, NJ, and visited Bill Parish of GTT Audio for the launch of the brilliant... Read More »

When I listened to the Spatial Audio M3 Turbo S (read that review HERE) I was hoping to pair them with the Linear Tube Audio Micro ZOTL MZ2 preamp/heaphone amp and ZOTL 40 power amp. Clayton Shaw of Spatial audio opined that the pairing of the LTA components driving his M3 Turbo S was magical,... 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 »

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 »

What? My first "hi fi" stereo box, in 1957, was an elegantly constructed Magnavox LP changer with a built-in amp-preamp feeding two inch mono speakers. All of this consumed a minimal internal and external footprint. The device sat on splayed legs to raise it to easy access. It made sound of some discernible sort resembling... Read More »