Roger Sheker, left, Chief Engineer for Audience LLC, with President John McDonald. Born in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, on Christmas Day, 1942, Roger was a self-made man and a certified (Mensa card-carrying) genius. Though he never attended college, his diverse and comprehensive education came at the hands of both the U.S. Army and his time working at General... Read More »
All of us who love music and audio have some sort of history that goes way back into our past. In my case, it was my Dad's love of all things classical and flamenco related in the vast world of the guitar. I grew up listening to Segovia, the Romeros, Sabicas, Montoya, and Bream, on... Read More »
Manufacturer plans big launch for first non-cable product in its thirty-one year history Rendering of the Vero HCA 29 Class A/B Headphone Amp MIT Cables new Vero line of products has thrust the manufacturer into the more popular personal audio and headphone market. The newest product in the Vero line, the Vero HCA 29 Headphone Amplifier, is... Read More »
Audeze Nails It Yet Again As I sit on the back porch bobbin' my head to A Tribe Called Quest's "Lyrics To Go" off Midnight Marauders via TIDAL through Audeze's new Titanium EL-8 closed-back planars, I'm feelin' the music like I do when I'm using one of my usual portable systems. The sound is full-bodied, engagingly... Read More »
Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and with over 20 years of experience building world‐class systems forclients, David Lewis Audio has established itself as a premier dealer. Representing some of the mostaccomplished brands in High‐End Audio, we are extremely proud to announce that David Lewis Audiohas selected the Endeavor Audio Line of loudspeakers by VSA as the... Read More »
Aurender, a leader in award-winning, high-resolution audio products, introduces the N10 Caching Music Server/Player. Designed to be used with high performance digital-to-analog converters, the Aurender N10 is the only Music Player to support on-the-fly precision DSD to PCM on SPDIF and AES/EBU outputs with user-selectable choice of 88.2 or 176.4 output sampling rate. Enjoy DSD... Read More »
What Could Make a Phono Stage Worth $45,000? When an audio company proposes to sell a phono stage with a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price in the United States of $45,000, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind would seem to require that they explain and justify such a remarkable price. Pass Laboratories is... Read More »
Andrew Singer has earned a well‐deserved reputation as a discerning audiophile and business ownerwho personally selects all the components he represents for uncompromising musicality. VonSchweikert Audio is honored to announce our loudspeakers will now be showcased at Sound by Singerof New York, NY. The greater New York metropolitan area is a vibrant market and having... Read More »
High Fidelity Partners Co., LTD., a Japanese corporation, has acquired the intellectual property for the products produced under the brand "Black Cat Cable”, as well as the brand itself, from The Signal Collection, LLC, a U.S.-based corporation located in Cumming, GA. “This is mostly a formality pertaining to our physical move from Atlanta, GA to... Read More »
So there is this controversy of sorts… well not really for many of us, but certainly for some of us. See, the argument is that USB cables cannot and will not change the sound since it is just passing along 1's and 0's from point A to point B. It is all digital and so there... Read More »
This is one of those tests I've been wanting to do for a few years; but it kept being postponed and at one stage it seemed like it would never happen. In the meantime ownership of the company changed, the Model 88 I was originally planning to test has been eclipsed by the Maggiore ("reference")... Read More »
If you return to previous interviews with journalists that I have conducted as part of "The Editors" series, you will find out that they represent both print and online magazines, as well as those that used to be printed and now are published on the Internet. You can use the same categorization to divide my... Read More »
Stefan Wolpe. Compositions for Piano, 1920-1952. David Holzman, piano. Bridge 9116. I decided I couldn't leave Wolpe where I left him last time out. Yes, he can be cerebral but there are other Wolpes whom I really only hinted at, mainly because Four Studies (1935-36) on the Bridge 9344 recording left such a strong impression.... Read More »
85% of DirectStream performance, built-in Bridge II, $3,999! PS Audio, maker of fine audio components for over forty years, is pleased to introduce the DirectStream Junior DAC. Junior offers the same FPGA (field-programmable gate array) technology that is at the heart of the original, award-winning DirectStream, at a much lower price. Following the success of DirectStream,... Read More »
Elijah Audio Konvertible Lite (160mm version shown): The first USB audio cable that allows removal of the 5V lead before or after the PC/DAC “handshake” without requiring 2 USB ports at the source. DATA: twisted pair of Mundorf Silver/Gold solidcore conductors in silk sleeving. The fixed GND and detachable 5V leads are Audience Cryo Cu.... Read More »
Industry leaders, critics and audiophiles alike praise the QP1R’s “Current Mode” amplification and True DSD lossless music playback The QP1R continues to receive praise for its design and product concept and just received a coveted international iF Design Award for product design Questyle Audio, the innovative leader in digital music players, headphone amplifiers, Digital-to-Analog Converters... Read More »
High-res dual-mono DAC supports 11.2MHz DSD, 384kHz PCM, and DLNA network audio TEAC has produced the NT-503, an exquisite-quality dual-mono USB DAC and Network Audio player that supports the latest high-res formats. The AKM 4490 DACs is one of the finest available, supporting resolutions up to 11.2MHz DSD and 384kHz/32-bit PCM rates for unparalleled audio... Read More »
David Belles of Power Modules is proud to announce the new ARIA integrated amplifier. The old adage that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line has application in the realm of high‐end audio. When the distance between the various components necessary to reproduce a clean, accurate audio performance is straight and direct, the results can be truly... Read More »
I cherished this spectacular article Harry Pearson wrote for his HPSoundings blog a couple years ago about his stereo systems being Time Machines. It was like he channeled my brain directly for that piece, because I feel the same way about my systems: Headphone and stereo in-room.
The $18,000 Challenge, or: "Where the heck was I just now?" The gods of inspiration picked the moment I was fishing out leaves from my pool to wallop me in the head with an idea so unassailably right and fair and potentially fun it felt like I'd been granted a power to make the average... Read More »
It's Still Good… Roger Skoff writes about buying and enjoying older gear My sister called me the other day and said that she and her husband (a no-kidding world famous junk sculptor) had fifty or a hundred old vinyl records; nearly that many tape cassettes; and "a bunch" (unspecified) of CDs that they wanted to... Read More »
Homo Ludens. Piano Music of Lera Auerbach. Eli Kalman, piano. Centaur CRC 3441. There are three Lera Auerbachs (1973) in this program, held together by a powerful, singular voice that only becomes clear after extended listening. The first Auerbach we hear is in Images of Childhood (2000), a dozen short idylls focused on Auerbach's childhood... Read More »
The Von Schweikert Audio VR-55 Aktive Loudspeaker Von Schweikert Audio is pleased to announce its newest dealership, Blue Smoke Entertainment Systemsof Chicago‐area Deerfield, Illinois. This is a vital US market and having a quality and knowledgeabledealer to introduce our products to music lovers is very important to us. Ron Lapporte (Owner) and therest of the... Read More »
J.S. Bach, Motets. Fabio Bonizzoni, Capella Cracoviensis. Alpha ALPHA 199, Compact Disc. Alpha label has been known for years for their sophisticated releases. It was founded in 1999 by Jean-Paul Combet and it's also known for very special covers of their releases, chosen by Denis Grenier. In December 2014 Mr Didier Martin was named the new director, which... Read More »
San Marcos, CA, January 26, 2016 – Audience announced the introduction of its new top of the line Au24 SX interconnects, loudspeaker, phono and digital cables designed to achieve extraordinary audio performance and musical accuracy to complement the finest audio systems. Au24 SX substantially exceeds the performance of Audience’s long-standing and acclaimed Au24 cable... Read More »
The first high-end listening chair created to minimize reflectionsfrom the surroundings. Instead of having acoustic sound treatmentson the wall behind and next to your listening position, the GamuTLobster Chair effectively dampens these. The effect is dramatic –The soundstage becomes more precise and natural and the musicsprings to life in your living room. The GamuT Lobster... Read More »
Prism Sound, makers of recording studio and pro audio A/D and D/A converters and the SADiE digital workstation, has announced plans to enter the home audio market with their first product later this month. The announcement follows similar entries into the home audio market by a series of companies that started in the pro audio... Read More »
In the world of Jazz, there are the greats, the near greats, the great-but-obscure, and the close-but-no-cigar. It's easy (but contentious!) to list the obvious first tier…my own list, in no particular order, would have artists like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Count... Read More »
When in 2005 Arcam, a company specializing in multi-box, mid-priced systems introduced their new Solo systems it seemed like a crazy move. The very first Solo 5.1 was in fact a home-theater system. It combined a multi-format transport (DVD, CD, but also SACD and a HDCD decoder!), home theater decoders and five power amps. Soon... Read More »
I know, Carol when are you going to give the perfect song idea a rest? Well, unlike a 'favorite' song, I think there can be many versions of a 'perfect' song. In fact, this edition of my perfect song series revisits a song from the first article. The difference here is the venue, and the... Read More »
The JBL Model 4367 Studio Monitor premiered in October 2015 at CEDIA, and soon after that was also presented during Audio Video Show 2015 in Warsaw. This review is one of the first, if not the first, review of this product in the world. The goal that was set when designing these speakers was simple:... Read More »
I've told this story before, so bear with me. I first met Janet Feder at the 2012 California Audio Show in San Francisco. That was the show that marked the US debut of the KEF LS50 loudspeaker—I know that because I supplied the Unison Research amplification that powered those amazing little Halloween-colored monitors. Janet walked... Read More »
I needed music tonight, and I needed something new. As I drove home in the early-morning hours, cruising at the kinda speed that says to the world: I just don't...
"I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it, like it, yes, I do" —The Rolling Stones Not that long ago, I was working under contract at a big software company in Silicon Valley. However, I had been having tremendous pain in my right knee, largely from a sports injury, and got the... Read More »
Joan Tower. Violin Concerto. Stroke. Chamber Dance. Cho-Liang Lin, violin. Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor. Naxos 8.559775. New Seasons. Gidon Kremer. Glass, Pärt, Kanchelli, Unabeyashi. Kremerata Baltica. Deutsche Gramophone. DG 4794817. Rosary Sonatas. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Rachel Podger, violin. David Miller, theorbo and arch lute; Marcin Swiatkiewicz, harpsichord, organ; Jonathan... Read More »
With its worldwide debut at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (“CES”) in January 2016, Audio Desk Systeme of Germany and their USA agent, Ultra Systems Inc. are pleased to announce their next generation, upgraded version of the award-winning ultrasonic LP cleaning system, the new Vinyl Cleaner PRO. “Incorporating five years of evolutionary enhancements in... Read More »
Wilhelmina Smith, Cello. Britten, Schnittke, and Shostakovich. Thomas Sauer, piano. Arabesque 26801. I had known of Wilhelmina Smith since her career began in the 1990's, knew especially that she played on the wonderful Arabesque album of Copland's chamber music. But I did not know until recently that she had also made a recording as lead.... Read More »
