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Image courtesy of Pear Audio Blue Damnation. Time is sand through the fingers, crap through the goose. Projects pile up, deadlines come and go, and the best intentions of rodents and humans crash and burn. Turntables. Tonearms. Cartridges. LPs. Reissues. New record companies. New pressing plants. A glory of riches, getting better and better over... Read More »

Quietly Musical That was my initial thought when I listened to the Pass Labs XP-17 Phonostage for the first time. Yes, quiet and musical, is an apt description. But there must be more. After all, this is not some run-of-the-mill update. This is a new product in the Pass line. That does not happen all... Read More »

Gold Note of Italy are makers of bland black boxes for audio with a low functionality quotient. Not. I've had Gold Note's PH-10 phono stage in for review, and wow it's nice to look at. It's a distinctly elegant design with a clear attention to detail, aesthetic, and functionality. My sample arrived in black, but... Read More »

The Zesto Audio Andros Allasso Step Up Transformer Once upon a time, full-featured preamplifiers like the ARC SP-3 ruled the audio scene and contained a phono stage. Phono cartridges were high output MM or MI, and so the preamps of the day had only about 40 dBs of gain, max. Then along came the low output... Read More »

The Ghosts in the Machine "Remember when we used to talk about hearing the inner voices?" Lynn whispered. "How listening to the system was like looking at the score?" I knew what she was talking about. "That was a long time ago." LN: "Well, those inner voices are back…and with dimension." We were spinning Capriccio... Read More »

One look at the Arai Lab MT-1 step-up transformer (SUT) and you'll know in a moment that it is a very serious, ultra-quality, audio product. The fit and finish are impressive and impeccable, yet what really stood out for me was the Arai MT-1's considerable size and weight—it wasn't that much smaller than one of... Read More »

This is the third installment of John Marks' very helpful series that guides our readers through various aspects and considerations for digitizing their LPs. In it, John...he of The Tannhauser Gate blog site...is seeking to help you by providing recommendations for quality components in a cost-effective way.  Could other components be used? Of course. But by... Read More »

Empiricism vs. Theory What was my biggest discovery last year? Bass traps. I installed them in the left and right front corners behind the speakers, as recommended. Having done my homework, I knew what to expect: low-end response would be smoother and tighter, clarity would increase, and some dampening would occur. The treble also would... Read More »

Zesto's audio designer and chief engineer, George Counnas, reminds me of the late great William Z. Johnson of ARC fame. Johnson just had to think about what he wanted to build and then he built it. Easy! George Counnas just thought about the ultimate phonostage with flexibility never before seen in audiophile design history and... Read More »

Tempus Fugit but Some Things Stay the Same Three nearly identical, "old school," black chassis took up position on my rack. It would be a stretch to call them eye candy—some visitors chided the pro audio cosmetics—yet the effect is nearly the same. The Lamm LP1 Signature Phono Preamplifier is an imposing sight that proclaims... Read More »

So for the past few months I have had the pleasure of using Ron Sutherland's DUO phono stage as the means of taking this from my Transrotor Leonardo 25/25/60 Doppio turntable, audiomods' Series 5 arm, and the Shelter 901 cartridge, and turning it into that for analog playback. Our current 'reference' phono stages are either the... Read More »

Perhaps I should start at the end. I love the XP-15 phonostage preamplifier. In fact, I love it so much that one night I dreamt I had barricaded myself in the Tune Saloon, armed with a cheap 1980's CD player blasting a non-remastered version of "We Built this City" at 120dB, forming an impenetrable sonic barrier against... Read More »

It happened only once before that High Fidelity tested the same product twice. It was the Nagra's PL-P preamplifier, that was firstly reviewed in our issue No. 19 (November  2005), and later in issue No 50 (November 2008). If memory serves it has never happened again within the whole 12 years history of High Fidelity. The... Read More »

There are times when High End audio puts me in mind of the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus. Condemned to an eternity of boulder rolling, he slowly pushed it uphill. Then, when the pinnacle was in sight, he watched helplessly, as it rolled back down and the cycle would begin anew. The ending is foretold:... Read More »

Phonostages. Or phono preamplifers. Same things. You know, the box or input on your preamp or whatever that takes what is coming from your turntable and makes it into something you can actually appreciate—like music. Right, so let me elaborate… it amplifies the signal and applies the required RIAA curve necessary for proper vinyl playback. Sounds easy,... Read More »

I have come across many audiophiles who have truly splendid turntables, tone arms, and cartridges, of which cost them an arm and a leg. Nevertheless, they still may not enjoy the best that vinyl has to offer if the bottleneck in their audio arsenal is their phono preamplifier. There is no doubt that the phono... Read More »

Pass Labs is on a roll. The new Xs lineup that includes the Xs Preamplifier ($38,000) and Xs-300 Monoblock Amplifiers ($85,000) has been receiving rave reviews worldwide. Definitely considered state of the art contenders by even the most discerning critics. Bottom line, my short time with them in my system was a revelation. Now we... Read More »

When one of the fellow audio journalists from abroad asks me about the best Polish audio brands among few I always recommend Warsaw based Amare Musica. It is a company that from the very beginning, from 2012 when they debuted during Audio Show in Warsaw, always offered highest quality products. They debuted with the De... Read More »

"I don't recall the name. It's a new product distributed by Merrill Audio of New Jersey." We were just starting a session when Jonathan, one of my regulars, mentioned a phono stage he heard at a meeting of The Audiophile Society in NYC. "It's certainly high-res. It seemed to retrieve a lot more back-of-orchestra instrumental... Read More »