Loading...

The focus of this review is to contrast the Sonore microRendu and Signature Series linear power supply with affordable power supplies from Channel Islands Audio and iFi Audio, in a Roon-based headless environment. But before we get into that, a brief summation of the recent past: from the point when I first came in contact... Read More »

Everyone jumped in their vehicles at the end of the factory tour and drove—or caught a ride—to the "VPI Man Cave" for some listening sessions. How did the VPI man cave come into being? "After Mom passed," Mat shared, "Dad wasn't living in the house since it was too big and we were paying taxes... Read More »

Stein Music's "The Perfect Interface" Carbon Signature Resonance Control mat in place on our EMT 948 turntable. Every now and then I receive a product whose benefits are so obvious, and whose design is so straightforward that there's no point in holding back or trying to write an extended essay. It isn't a complicated call,... Read More »

Lotus: Complete Edition, Santana (Photo: Sony Music Japan) Sony Music Japan will be celebrating Santana's upcoming concerts in Japan from April 22 to April 27, 2017 in a big way with the release of a new Complete Edition of the band's legendary Lotus album in DSD 11.2 MHz stereo (also known as DSD 256 or Quad DSD),... Read More »

The Oppo Digital HA-2 SE A while back, the good folks at Oppo sent me a review sample of their replacement for the HA-2 USB DAC and Headphone Amp, the HA-2 SE (Special Edition). This is their very compact DAC + headphone amp with battery, made for road/travel warriors who want extra finesse and punch... Read More »

Soundtrack:  The great patron of classical music over the past century, nearly...or since the "talkies" arrived, anyway...has been the voracious maw of the film industry. Better than any capricious emperor, king, duke, or philanthropist, Hollywood et al. has been a grand footer-of-bills for many decades now. Some of the results have been schlock, but some of... Read More »

File this under a story within a story. At the surface, this report details VPI's newest product line offerings and releases. Throw in on top of that a side order of an interesting factory tour where attendees were treated to a tour of VPI turntables' assembly line, quality control testing as well as meeting the... Read More »

So yeah, I like to dabble in tweaks and stuff that might add that much more to our musical enjoyment. Something that gets us that such more from our music. I admit it, I am a junkie for such things. People who have visited here look at the system and comment about its complexity and... Read More »

My Questions and Answers (MQA) An interview of and by Andreas Koch on the subject of digital audio formats In the age of digital audio it appears that a new format is trying to conquer the consumer market every few years, but their success-to-failure ratio is much smaller than 1. It makes us wonder why... Read More »

Bybee filters. These things have been available for audio in various iterations for nearly twenty years, as far as I can tell. The filters are said to employ some of the technology used to reduce the noise floor of military submarines to improve sonar performance. I first read about these in the early 2000s, if... Read More »

Used to be, the only people needing fancy in-ear monitors were wasted rock stars or serious looking dudes protecting the President. The rest of us settled for crappy little earbuds that could only produce one sound accurately: "Good riddance!" High end IEMs were reserved for world class X-Games competitors barreling off the mini-ramp. But times... Read More »

Strap yourself in your seat, because we are going to go on a VIP ride with the VPI Avenger turntable. And yes, you dear readers are the VIPs in this adventure. This is part 1 of a 3 part series. The reason for the three parts is that I am going to review all three... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about audio's bottom line - bass and Hi-Fi. When I was twelve years old, I had never heard bass. Really. Oh, I thought I had, but when you actually think about it, my guess is that not only will you understand and agree with what I just said; you may even discover... Read More »

The KRONOS Pro LE Turntable with Black Beauty Tonearm, photograph courtesy of KRONOS Audio. Take a breath. A shift of gear, now. From reference-grade DSD DACs to reference-grade turntables. This will be the third of three turntable evaluations that I've done over the past year, rounding out what's turned out to be the top three... Read More »

So I've been playing around more with headphones (headphones from Sennheiser, Audeze, AKG, and OPPO are in my usual rotation of references), but after hearing the new ELEARs from Focal… uh, we got to have these. At an event held over in Torrance at The Source A/V a while ago, Carol and I, along with a throng... Read More »

USB Cables… my last Rambling's column centered on the Purist Audio Luminist Revision Neptune cables and how, well either differences in cables are there for you or not. For whatever reason applies here—you hear it, you don't hear it, you can't hear it, or won't hear it… really doesn't matter as everyone finds their happy... Read More »

Our audio compadre John Marks herein rightly brings to our attention Abraham Lincoln's deep affection for opera and the stage. He was assassinated, after all, at Ford's Theater in April of 1865, much to the grief and anger of the narrow-minded pietists and pharisees of his generation. Lincoln considered the theater and opera to be... Read More »

"Man, it was easy! Five acres of solar panels, and I killed it!!"

John Marks' final installment about his recommended Steinway and Sons office system is below. He focuses on the Grace Design m920 DAC as the digital heart of the system. Read on for his summary. And remember that John's blog site, The Tannhauser Gate (http://www.thetannhausergate.com) is a fine place for audio commentary and music/video reviews! Recommended. Dr. David... Read More »