Osaka, Japan: December 20, 2016- Zanden Audio is excited to announce the launch of our new model 3000mk2 preamplifier at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It replaces the current model 3000 preamplifier in the Classic Series and includes a number of crucial improvements. Input and output transformers have been replaced with amorphous cobalt ones.... Read More »
Bryston leverages their award-winning DAC technology to launch a highly refined CD player Peterborough, Ontario December 21st, 2016 –Bryston (bryston.com) has announced the introduction of the BCD-3 CD player. The BCD-3 joins the highly successful family of digital products in the Bryston lineup, including the award-winning BDA-3 DAC (Digital to Analog Converter). The BCD-3 serves... Read More »
12/2016 Deqx In-Home Audition This month DEQX announces a home audition for its speaker-calibration and room-calibration Preamp/processors - starting from just US$2950. Note: All processors allow seamless integration with one or two subwoofers. Basic measurements demonstrate that loudspeaker's only deliver a fraction of the resolution and accuracy of our media, we never get to hear... Read More »
The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, by David Sax The morning of Black Friday, just two weeks and counting past a very bleak Wednesday, and still a bit drowsy from the previous day's over-indulgence, I opened the front door and stooped to pick up our copy of the NY Times. Instead... Read More »
The Official Debut of MasterBuilt Audio MasterBuilt Audio is pleased to announce the official debut of our high-resolution audio cables with the unveiling of four complete product lines – Performance, Reference, Signature and Ultra – which range from entry-level to the ultimate in signal fidelity. Each of these product lines offers the full range of... Read More »
Herewith is Impressions: Robinson's Brutus Awards for 2016, Part The Fourth. Part The First can be found HERE, Part The Second HERE, and Part The Third HERE. This final installment of my Brutus Awards for hardware in 2016 (there will be a very last installment dealing with labels and music companies) concludes with cables, accessories, and system enhancements. In the... Read More »
YG Acoustics™ (www.ygacoustics.com), the leading ultra-high-end speaker manufacturer, is proud to introduce its first audio rack series: Rack 1.3, 1.4 and 1.6. YG Acoustics™’ Rack series was initially designed as a tool for internal use. The factory’s critical listening room needed a vibration-free, solid platform to allow equipment to play under optimal conditions. In a... Read More »
Anyone who might have read any of my recent babblings here is probably aware that I'm in the process of building a new house that will have a large-ish dedicated listening room with state-of-the-art networking. There will be no computer present in the new room, but there will be available hardwired connections for any peripherals... Read More »
Preoccupations, Preoccupations JAGJAGUWAR, Digital, vinyl, and CD In hindsight, naming a band Viet Cong probably wasn't the best idea, but they did it anyway and controversy ensued. Claims of cultural appropriation and insensitivity sparked outrage from student communities, online communities, and the threat of protest and boycotts forced the hand of concert promoters to cancel shows. That... Read More »
Herewith is Impressions: Robinson's Brutus Awards for 2016, Part The Third. Part The First can be found HERE and Part The Second HERE. There will be a fourth installment to cover this busiest of years...stay tuned! All photographs are courtesy of their respective companies, unless otherwise noted. Aurender W-20 Music Server The Aurender W-20 Reference Music Server, a technological... Read More »
Before I started Love + Gratitude (cuz it's only a week after the first shot at it - sorry bout' that folks ) I made a tactical error in judgement: I remembered that Recondite, one of my favorite electronic artists (writer, engineer, DJ & Superman;) had either just finished an Essential Mix (long-running DJ mix series) or was about to release it.
So here it is the end of 2016 and us with our Brutus Awards. This has been a year with major changes for both Carol and I (we retired from many years as public school educators) and a year where we saw many people being taken from us earlier than anyone expected, needless wars and bloodshed,... Read More »
Although I've been wanting to make it to one of the CAS (Colorado Audio Society) meetings forever, they are usually held in the Denver area. This makes it bit difficult for me, living about an hour and a half away. When I discovered the CAS meeting for November was being held in Colorado Springs, I... Read More »
When this journey/adventure/ordeal started in June, I never imagined in a million years that we'd still be here in the Dungeon in mid-December. To this point, it's been this roller coaster of highs, lows and emotions, fueled by nearly non-stop demands being made by virtually everyone involved in the process of building our new home.... Read More »
OPPO Releases UDP-203 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Player Award-winning universal players reach a new level of clarity OPPO Digital today announced that the new UDP-203 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc player is ready for release. A successor to the award-winning BDP-103 series universal Blu-ray Disc player, the UDP-203 is the latest product released by... Read More »
Gather around, audiosports fans! It's that time of year again…Positive Feedback's Brutus Awards season. Here is 'Part The Second' of Robinson's Brutus Awards 2016. Part The First can be found HERE and Part The Third HERE. Electronics, Part 1 Gryphon Audio Kalliope Quad and Qcto (256fs and 512fs) DSD DAC The Gryphon Audio Kalliope DSD DAC upon arrival…... Read More »
Finally, the third and last of John Marks' Christmas recommendations for us. Delmoni... a String Quartet Christmas...a real treasure to us all. Thanks to friend John! And Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! Dr. David W. Robinson, Ye Olde Editor A String Quartet Christmas Arturo Delmoni & Friends Steinway & Sons Recordings... Read More »
Herein, John Marks Christmas Music 2: "Carols of the Nativity". Thanks to John for these musical gifts during this holiday season! Dr. David W. Robinson, Ye Olde Editor Christmas Night – Carols of the Nativity The Cambridge Singers and the City of London Sinfonia, conducted by John Rutter. Collegium CD 106 or download (Recorded January 1987 by the... Read More »
'Tis the season! John Marks leads us into Christmas time with a trio of short essays on three different artists and albums, together with samples from each. This is Christmas Music Part 1: Nat King Cole, "Christmas Favorites". As always, friend John does a delightful job of leading us into the music, instead of just... Read More »
Gather around, audiosports fans! It's that time of year again…Positive Feedback's Brutus Awards season. You can find Part The Second HERE and Part The Third HERE. At the end of each year, my unindicted co-conspirator Dave Clark and I give our Positive Feedback awards. These are our annual "best stuff we heard this year" plaudits. No padding, crap, junk food, or... Read More »
Time with fellow music lovers, intimate demonstrations of cutting-edge technology, all brought together by a gracious host is a humbling reminder of why brick-and-mortar stores are critical for music lovers everywhere. The Venue (December 3, 2016) Fidelis Home Audio in Nashua, New Hampshire is a safe-haven for music lovers and audiophiles alike. Walter Swanbon heads... Read More »
Ustvolskaya, Silvestrov, and Kancheli. Works for Piano and Orchestra. Elisaveta Blumina, piano. Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Sanderling. Grand Piano Records GP 678. To many music lovers, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries belong to the composers of Eastern Europe and Russia. Notable among this group are Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2000), Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937), and... Read More »
The Ghost Town, or Corriganville, Old Tucson and Bodie [Once again, my longtime compadre of creativity, Dan Zimmerman combines text and his superb drawings to reflect upon life, death, memory, and art. Let those who have eyes and those who have ears, see and hear… All drawings by Dan Zimmerman. Dr. David W. Robinson, Ye... Read More »
"It's so easy to fall in love." Buddy Holly and Norman Petty might have just as easily been writing about reel-to-reel tape as finding one's soulmate (although tapes are not for fools!). Everything from the machines' "retro" look to the "coolness" factor to the feel of spooling up the tape to the look of the... Read More »
GHOSTWIRE: The Return of Silverheart In 2014 Chris Sommovigo had a little side project called A.H.A or “After Hours Audio” where he made a few cables designs in extremely limited quantities and sold them to a small ‘membership’ for quite low prices. Power cords, loudspeaker cables, interconnects were among the bounty. Of these limited-edition products... 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 »
Nessun Dorma: The Puccini Album It's happened again. I'd read several years' worth of pro-and-con about Ian Bostridge before hearing the fellow, on a recital disc that I reviewed for this site a few years back. Now, after hearing numerous encomia for tenor Jonas Kaufmann, I've finally heard him sing. Given the novel repertoire for... Read More »
New GoldenEar Technology Dual-Plane Inertially-Balanced SuperSub™ X Subwoofer is Now Shipping GoldenEar’s new SuperSub™ line up is a very special group of ultra-high-performance compact subwoofers that incorporate many recently developed unique and advanced technologies and components. The goal was to create beautifully styled, finely finished, reasonably sized subwoofers, that could generate very low frequency... Read More »
Cary Audio would like to introduce the first product of the new Lifestyle Series, the AiOS (All-in-One-System). AiOS is a new kind of music system for a new generation. What does that mean? Simply put, music lovers and audiophiles alike have many more choices today when it comes to how they listen to music. As... Read More »
Who can gainsay Bach? Like Mozart or Beethoven, he is a towering figure. I don't know exactly how many recordings that I have of The Art of the Fugue over the decades now, but I do know that I have a lot of them, but not this one by The Emerson Quartet! And so, one more?... Read More »
Brooklyn-Based Pianist Erik Deutsch Digitally Releases Debut Solo ALBUM & VIDEO Available DSD Pure/Hi-Res PCM Creatures (Immersive Records, Release Date: November 18, 2016) "Erik Deutsch, a pianist with a taste for tuneful provocation, is an especially valuable resource as a solo commentator and accompanist…" -New York Times "A talented member of the new generation... Read More »
So I have already touched on the AC cords from Triode Wire Labs in my review of the PS Audio BHK preamplifier and DirectStream DAC (as did Steve Kozle way back in Issue 61 HERE in his review of the TWL cords), and yeah, these are the real deal. What they do is pretty much take... Read More »
Beginning at the end of 2003, PF established its first annual awards for fine audio. The Brutus Award was established for the best that David Robinson and Dave Clark had heard in their own listening rooms during that year. You can think of it as our equivalent of an "Editors' Choice" award. The Gizmo Award,... Read More »
Spotify Now Available on OPPO Sonica Wi-Fi Speakers Spotify Premium subscribers can listen to any song in the Spotify catalog on Sonica OPPO Digital today announced that Spotify Premium subscribers can now listen to their music on Sonica Wi-Fi speakers. Sonica is an elegant and powerful Wi-Fi speaker designed with state of the art technology... Read More »
After the madness (and I mean, literally BTW) ensued following my separation, I found myself driving back to Los Angeles. I didn't have a plan, no place to sleep arranged yet, nothin'. So, naturally, this was a bit of a nightmare for my OCD brain,
Miles Davis - Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro How time flies! Twenty five years almost to the day after Miles Davis passed away and close on the heels of Mobile Fidelity's 40th anniversary, the confluence of one of the most influential and iconic jazz figures with the world's preeminent record reissue label obviously brings... Read More »
exaSound Audio Design, manufacturer of innovative, exceptional fidelity audio products, announces the new flagship e32 and the new 8-channel e38 digital–to–analog converters. The exaSound e32 stereo Quad DSD DAC exaSound’s new e32 stereo flagship DAC and the e38 multichannel DAC are built on the success of its predecessors, the award winning e22 and e28. Only... Read More »
