Audio Skies Michael Vamos - YG Acoustics, JMF Audio, Ideon at Capital Audiofest 2025
The Listening Room and Fidelity Imports - Diptyque DP-160 Mk.2 at Capital Audiofest 2025
Fidelity Imports Audia Flight and Perlisten System
Fidelity Imports Wilson Benesch and Audia Flight System at Capital Audiofest 2025
J Sikora Aspire, Innuos Stream 3, Aurender N50, Gryphon Antileon Revelation, Command Performance AV
Bella Sound Kalalau Preamplifier: Interview with Mike Vice
BorderPatrol Zola DAC – Gary Dews at Capital Audiofest 2025
Audio Note UK TT3 Reference Turntable Debut at Capital Audiofest 2025
Kevin Hayes of VAC at Capital Audiofest 2025
2WA Group debuts Aequo Ensium at Capital Audiofest 2025
Capital Audiofest 2025 lobby marketplace walk through day one
Lucca Chesky Introduces the LC2 Loudspeaker at Capital Audiofest 2025
Capital Audiofest 2025 Gary Gill interview
Sponsored: Pulsar 121
Acora and VAC together at Capital Audiofest 2025
Scott Walker Audio & Synergistic Research at Capital Audiofest 2025: Atmosphere LogiQ debut
Sponsored: Symphonia
Sponsored: Symphonia Colors

LATEST ADDITIONS

Recording of November 2008: Guitars

<B>McCOY TYNER: <I>Guitars</I></b><BR>
McCoy Tyner, piano; Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, John Scofield, Derek Trucks, guitars; B&#233;la Fleck, banjo; Ron Carter, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums<BR>
Half Note/McCoy Tyner Music 4537 (CD, DVD). 2008. John Snyder, prod.; Randy Funke, eng. DDD. TT: 74:16<BR>
Performance ****&#189;<BR>
Sonics ****&#189;

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A Week in the Life of Listening, Part 1

We played Scrabble and listened to Brian Eno's Another Green World. The synthesizers were raw, saw-toothed, and gripping, and Eno's volume swells had never been truly appreciated till that night.

Even though he's heard me play the record about a million times, Kyle kept asking, "Who is this playing?"

I think it caught him by surprise this time around.

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IRAKERE!

It was a certain sunless Sunday afternoon and we were listening to some records at the Brooklyn Navy Yard's <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/112206custom/">DeVore Fidelity factory</a>. Something had just come to an end, and I decided to take a look through a box of LPs to find something new. I found an album that was still sealed in its plastic wrapper. It was the seventh installment of Sonic Youth's SYR series, the album that <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/040808immediately/">started it all for me</a>. I was shocked. <i>Shocked</i>. I was all exclamation points and italics.

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Ayre KX-R line preamplifier

I can't think of a product that was as eagerly anticipated as was Ayre's KX-R preamplifier ($18,500). Following in the footsteps of Ayre's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/407ayre">MX-R monoblock amplifier</A>, a <I>Stereophile</I> <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1207poty/index9.html">2007 Product of the Year</A>, and milled, like the MX-R, from a 75-lb billet of aluminum, the KX-R also shares with its monoblock stablemate the Ayre ethos of zero feedback and fully balanced operation. But what really caused the buzz was the declaration by Ayre founder and chief designer <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/610">Charles Hansen</A> that the KX-R, with its use of a technology he calls Variable Gain Transconductance (VGT) to control the volume, would set new standards for signal/noise ratio.

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Elements of Our Enthusiasm

At the end of August, we watched as the number of registered users in our online forums quickly ticked past the 10,000 mark. Ten thousand registered users! While it might prove interesting to learn just how that number breaks down into men and women, old and young, subjectivists and objectivists, or any of several other demographic and philosophical divides, that would only obscure the point: In our online forums, there are over 10,000 members who are eager to share their enthusiasm for music and hi-fi. What a beautiful thing!
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Ben Allison, the election, and, well...me

One of my favorite jazz bands, Ben Allison’s Medicine Wheel, is playing at the Jazz Standard Nov. 4. Allison is an enticing bassist and composer, agile and inventive, flitting from Herbie Nichols to film noir to raga, ska, funky blues, and straight-ahead jazz without showing a seam, loosening his wit, or abandoning the melody or the swing. The band is first-rate (regular readers will recognize most of them): Frank Kimbrough, piano; Jenny Scheinman, violin; Ted Nash and Michael Blake, reeds; and Michael Sarin, drums.

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KR Enterprise VT8000 MK monoblock power amplifier

Based in the Czech Republic, KR Enterprise is headed by an occasionally gruff Dr. Riccardo Kron and his American-born wife, Eunice, who operate the company out of a partially abandoned factory that was once part of the state-owned Tesla High Vacuum Technology facility in Prague. The Swiss-funded company is unique in that it manufactures both amplifiers <I>and</I> the tubes that power them. KR's tubes have found favor with other amplifier makers as well&#151;especially the 300BXS, electrically identical to a <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/229">standard 300B</A> but rated at 25W in class-A.

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