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The two-way, biwirable, rear-ported Dreamcatcher is designed and manufactured in Canada; its drive-units are designed by Totem, but made and assembled in Europe. The 1" titanium-dome tweeter, manufactured by German Acoustik, is mated to a 4" Scan-Speak woofer. Totem founder Vince Bruzzese feels very strongly about sourcing his drivers in the West. In the past, he got his small woofers from Peerless in Denmark, but switched to Scan-Speak when Peerless started manufacturing in China. Bruzzese also pointed out that the tweeter used in the Dreamcatcher costs him €16, more than 15 times as much as most similar Asian-made tweeters.

Should an audio component accurately reproduce the signal it's fed, or should it evoke the sound and feel of live music? Accuracy or musicality? This question has been at the heart of high-end audio since its inception. Back then, the question often took the form of the tubes-vs-transistors debate. Proponents of solid-state pointed to the far superior measured performance of transistor designs, and claim that they thus more accurately reproduced the input signal. Tube lovers steadfastly maintained that their gear sounded better, more natural—more like music. Since then, both camps have eliminated the obvious colorations of their respective technologies, and the levels of performance of today's best tubed and solid-state gear have converged. At the same time, the circuits themselves have blurred into hybrids of various sorts, different mixes of devices and circuits.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

From the “Beats by Dre” website:

“Attention sound engineers, DJs, musicians, and hard core music lovers: Beats Pro is the reference headphone designed by audio professionals for audio professionals.”

Well, one and a half out of four ain’t bad.

You’ll know if you’ve seen my Beat Solo headphone youtube video that I would be perfectly happy to dis these cans. Well, I guess you can’t be happy all the time, because there were quite a few things these headphones did surprisingly well. But I’m not perfectly unhappy, the Beats Pro didn’t fail to disappoint in some ways too.

Life in balance I guess … Dre has his place.

I’d like to give you a tour of my listening room. Please excuse the mess. I’ve been evaluating cables.

Because all the new LPs had started to take over the apartment, I was forced to do some rearranging. Over the last couple of weekends, I’ve managed to shape some order into my listening room. And order is very important to me. When my home is messy, my soul feels messy; and, when my soul feels messy, I become grouchy, lethargic, and I can’t get anything done.

A couple of other things have inspired this post. First, recent visits to friends’ warm and lovely apartments had me feeling like I’d neglected my own home. I want to invite these friends over, but, before I do, I have to feel sure that my home would feel comfortable and inviting, would speak from the walls, would have stories to share. Second, this recent post on Michael Lavorgna’s Twittering Machines was extremely fascinating and fun.

So, let me show you around.

Henry Rollins: Audiophile. In a blog for the LA Weekly, Henry Rollins describes the pleasure of listening to music through his Wilson Audio Sophia 3 loudspeakers. Photo: Maura Lanahan.

It’s tough being an audiophile. Tell someone you like high-quality sound and they might look at you like you’re an alien. We forget that hi-fi used to be the coolest endeavor in town. Look at black-and-white advertisements from decades ago and you’ll see handsome men, surrounded by enormous loudspeakers, massive tube amplifiers, LPs tossed about like useless clothes and knotted bed sheets, gorgeous women wanting and waiting for more. But, somehow, over time and with changes to our priorities and lifestyles, the idea of listening to music on the hi-fi has gone from sexy to sexless&#151a hobby limited to the soft and balding, the smelly and unkempt, the hopelessly lonesome and woefully inept. Plus: For most people, “audiophile” is just way too close to “pedophile.”

What’s a guy to do?

Dear weblog,
On Friday, we managed to successfully release to pre-press the final pieces of our July 2011 issue; and it was only three weeks ago that we finished shipping our June issue. On top of the pressure of such a short production cycle, we also felt the effects of attending, over the course of just two weeks, both the Salon Son et Image in Montreal and Axpona in Atlanta. It’s been a busy and exhausting month. On the positive side, it seems that the economy is taking a turn for the better. We see this in the sudden spring of hi-fi shows, but also in the increasing size of our print issues: 140 pages for May 2011 vs 116 for May 2010; 156 pages for June 2011 vs 132 for June 2010; 140 pages for July 2011 vs 124 for July 2010.

These trends, it seems, will continue.

As B&W's 800 Series has evolved, Stereophile has reported on its progress. Lewis Lipnick reviewed the Matrix 801 Series 2 in 1987, and Wes Phillips wrote about the Nautilus 801 in 1999. I reviewed the B&W 800 Signature in 2002 and the 802D in 2005. This is getting to be a habit.