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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 »

Sometimes you write reviews. Sometimes you write raves. And sometimes you write love songs… Introduction "Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine to THE Show Newport Beach Michael Vamos. I met him a few years ago at a THE Show at Newport Beach. He had just started his high-end audio distribution biz, Audio Skies (http://www.audioskies.com), at around... Read More »

I've had my fair chance at messing with all sorts of amplifier technologies, from Class A, to AB, D, even T—you name it, and each one carries their own sonic signature. To this day, I still have a soft spot for Class A/B designs, only due to their sonic signature and efficiency. Class A is... Read More »

This article, by Victor Chavira, Larry Cox, and Dave Clark, originally ran when audioMUSINGS was in print - Issue 15, 2001 McIntosh Audio Labs is a classic American company. Since 1949, McIntosh has remained true to its design aesthetic: bullet proof build, black glass, chrome, and big blue meters. The MC352 is their 350 watt stereo power... Read More »

This article, by Dr. John Coletti, originally ran when Positive Feedback was in print - Vol. 8, No. 1, 1999. As a teaching exercise, the student of criticism might be assigned the task of comparing or contrasting the work of one author, artist, or composer to that of another. The object of the lesson encourages a... Read More »

This article, by Steve Lefkowicz, Larry Cox, Francisco Duran originally ran when audioMUSINGS was in print - Issue 15, 2001. I have a real problem with the pricing structure in "high end" audio. Though I tend to focus on affordable equipment, I have used, lived with, and evaluated many very expensive products over the years. I just... Read More »

This article, by Francisco Duran, Dave Clark, Larry Cox, and Victor Chavira, originally ran when audioMUSINGS was in print - Issue 9, 1999. Back in Issue 6, I had Clayton's S40 stereo amp in my system for review, when I had a somewhat different setup than I do now. I was using a Classe CP-60 preamp... Read More »

This article, by Carol Clark, Dave Clark, Larry Cox, and Francisco Duran, originally ran when audioMUSINGS was in print - Issue 3, 1998. Tubes, tubes, tubes. I'm not used to tube amps and preamps. I guess I always thought that I wouldn't like them. This goes back to an experience I had several years ago, when... Read More »

This article, by Dave Clark, Victor Chavira, Larry Cox, and Francisco Duran, originally ran when audioMUSINGS was in print - Issue 6, 1998.  Some things in life are inevitable. Death and taxes are the obvious ones, but I would add one more—the perfection of low-powered amplifiers, in this case an eleven-watt tube amp that uses two KT-88s... Read More »

Ayon Audio has over the last 15 years become one of the best known high end tube amplifier manufacturers, at least here in Europe. In particular, they have become known as one of the premier manufacturers of single ended amplifiers (SETs), preamplifers and digital sources and got their start in taking the designs from the... Read More »