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Book Review: 99% True: Almost a National Bestseller
John Atkinson  |  Oct 08, 2019  |  18 comments
1019psbbok.promo99% True: Almost a National Bestseller, by Paul McGowan. Lioncrest Publishing, 2019. 364pp. $25.00, hard cover; $15.99, paperback; $9.99, Kindle e-book.

To many audiophiles, high-end audio manufacturers must seem like monolithic entities, enduring for what seems like forever, like cliffs beside a familiar path. But as Paul McGowan explains in this unputdownable autobiography (footnote 1), behind the facade of stability things can be in financial turmoil, with success equally as risky as failure.

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News
PS Audio Goes Direct in the US
Jim Austin  |  Oct 07, 2019  |  33 comments
In a late-August newsletter, PS Audio announced a major change in how it does business. In the United States, its home market, the company stopped selling its products through dealers and opted for a direct, online-only sales model. Outside the US, it will continue to sell through authorized dealers.
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News
Audio Vision SF’s 20th Anniversary Premiere-filled Celebration
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 04, 2019  |  10 comments
Audio Vision SF, one of San Francisco’s two major high-end dealerships, celebrated its 20th anniversary on September 27–29 with a three-day celebration in two locations.
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Phono Preamp Reviews
Sutherland Engineering Little Loco phono preamplifier
Brian Damkroger  |  Oct 04, 2019  |  35 comments
Descriptions of the sounds of products from Sutherland Engineering nearly always include "refined." While that word is certainly justified, it would be more apt to use it as a verb: Ron Sutherland spends more time than any audio designer I've known studying and fine-tuning and refining every detail of his work. I have the impression he knows those products so well that when he decides to design a less expensive version of his newest and best models, he knows exactly what to do.
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Digital Processor Reviews
dCS Bartok D/A processor/headphone amplifier
Jim Austin  |  Oct 03, 2019  |  21 comments
The Vivaldi—the four-box flagship product from digital audio specialists dCS—is, in my opinion, misnamed. Vivaldi the composer was an asthmatic priest who worked in an orphanage for 30 years and died in poverty. The Vivaldi stack dedicates four separate products to converting into music digital code stored on silver discs (although you can play music—very well I am sure—on just one box, the Vivaldi DAC, footnote 1). Together, those boxes weigh about 148lb and cost some $115,000. The most expensive is the CD/SACD transport; leave that off and you can save 51lb and $42,000.
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Art Dudley ListeningPhono Cartridge Reviews
Listening #202: Altec 604 & Audio MusiKraft Denon DL-103
Art Dudley  |  Oct 02, 2019  |  35 comments
Godzilla and I are precisely the same age: We were both born in 1954, Godzilla as an expression of the postwar fears of a nation uniquely aware of the horrors of nuclear armaments, I as an expression of the postwar comfort felt by an American veteran fresh from foreign wars. We both dislike being awakened from our slumber, and we're both unusually handsome.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Accustic Arts Audio Mono II monoblock power amplifier
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 01, 2019  |  27 comments
Accustic Arts of Lauffen, Germany, was founded in 1997 by Fritz Schunk, who sold the company to Hans-Joachim "Jochen" Voss in 2016. Voss's professional background had more to do with sweet spreads than sweet sounds—he spent 20 years doing sales and marketing, including with the Ferrero Group, which produces Nutella—but he happened to own some Accustic Arts components, and as a music-loving consumer with a special fondness for rock, had been in touch with Schunk for many years before the company went up for sale.
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News
Graham Audio Launches the BBC LS5/5 in Montreal
Robert Schryer  |  Sep 28, 2019  |  24 comments
BBC LS5/5? I'd never heard of it until it was announced on my Facebook feed that the LS5/5 was Graham Audio's new flagship speaker—so new, in fact, that there were only two pairs in existence. One of them would be showcased that evening in a Montreal audio shop, Art et Son, for the model's official North American launch.
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Budget Component ReviewsStand Loudspeaker Reviews
PSB Alpha P5 loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Sep 27, 2019  |  14 comments
It is said that while any competent engineer can design a superb loudspeaker if allowed an unlimited bill of materials, the true test is being able to produce a great-sounding, budget-priced speaker out of parts that cost a mere handful of dollars. With PSB's Alpha series of bookshelf speakers, Canadian engineer Paul Barton has illustrated this truism many times over the years.
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Budget Component ReviewsSolid State Power Amp Reviews
Schiit Audio Aegir power amplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Sep 26, 2019  |  54 comments
Class-D audio amplifiers: What's the argument for them? Class-A audio amplifiers: What's the argument against them? Class-AB amplifiers: Why does everybody make them? Each of these amplifier output architectures has strengths and weaknesses. Each will interface more or less successfully with a given loudspeaker in a given room. Each has a distinctive sonic signature. Consequently, as knowledgeable audiophiles with a laundry list of system-building goals, we are required to choose the amplifier type that best suits our speakers, our room, and our individual musical-aesthetic predilections.
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