KEF Debuts New Finishes for Blade One Meta and Blade Two Meta

Sennheiser Drops HDB 630 Wireless Headphones

LATEST ADDITIONS

Shure V15-III phono cartridge

J. Gordon Holt May 09, 2017

The Shure V15-III is the latest of Shure's top-of-the-line "Super-track" pickups, earlier versions of which we scorned because of their dished-down response in the 6kHz range and their consequent "dead" sound. (We were unimpressed with Shure's suggestion that the pickup cable capacitance be increased to a total of around 300pF, since few audiophiles are equipped to measure either cable capacitance or frequency response).

J. Gordon Holt Tonearm Reviews

Ortofon RS-212 tonearm

J. Gordon Holt, John Wright May 09, 2017

The RS-212 is one of the most impressive-looking tonearms we've seen in many a moon. Our first reaction to it, in fact, was much the same as our reaction to the first big, professional Ampex tape recorder we ever saw: it reminded us of one of those precision-engineered and cleanly styled electronic devices you see in hospitals and industrial laboratoriesdevices which make no attempt to cater to the current fashion in interior decorating or depth-researched consumer preferences, but which are designed simply to do a job neatly and efficiently. This arm, in short, is practically guaranteed to impress your Magnavox-oriented friends with the quality of your phono system, no matter how oblivious they may be to its actual sound.

Robert Baird

Ella on Record at 100

Robert Baird May 09, 2017

Fitzgerald's influence on jazz vocals, celebrated in a flurry of reissues from Universal Music, is almost unimaginably vast.

News

Sandy Gross to Present the GoldenEar Triton Reference in Maryland Wednesday

Stereophile Staff May 08, 2017

Maryland store Gramophone (West Aylesbury Road, Timonium MD 21093) is hosting Sandy Gross, president of GoldenEar, on May 10, from 69pm. Sandy will be presenting GoldenEar's new flagship, the Triton Reference loudspeaker, which made its debut at CES 2017.

Headphone Reviews InnerFidelity

Massdrop Nobel X Earphones

Tyll Hertsens May 08, 2017

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

Dag nab it! I got so busy last week with the Focal Utopia measurements that I neglected to get the new Massdrop Noble X measured and listened to for a quick report before the drop. Sorry about that.

Features Jason Victor Serinus

Building a Sound Room: A Personal Journey

Jason Victor Serinus May 07, 2017

By the time we had finished the house tour and admired the quiet beauty of the fir-canopied neighborhood, we sensed that we would follow our hearts from unsafe and increasingly unaffordable East Oakland, CA to the serene hamlet of Port Townsend, WA. We also knew that the only suitable place for my reference/review system would be in the 22' x 22' detached garage

AXPONA 2017 Jana Dagdagan MQA

MQA: Yes or No? An AXPONA 2017 Poll

Jana Dagdagan May 05, 2017

With any large gathering of people who share a common passion, one is bound to encounter polarizing issues and the fiercely opinionated standing on either side. In the world, it's politics and religion. In our world, it's tubes vs solid-state, whether cables really matter or not, and, most recently . . . Master Quality Authenticated.

Fred Kaplan

David Murray Is Back in Town

Fred Kaplan May 04, 2017

When David Murray decamped to Paris 20 years ago, the New York jazz scene lost its most distinctive voice: a tenor saxophonist who fused the hefty romance of Ben Webster, the improvisational zest of Sonny Rollins, and the avant skybursts of Albert Ayler. Now he's back, living in Harlem, playing at Manhattan's Village Vanguard (this week, through Sunday) with new and old bandmates, and sounding as lush, adventurous, and shiversome as ever.

Art Dudley Listening

Listening #173

Art Dudley May 04, 2017

The first time I saw Thomas's Sandwich Size English muffins on the shelves of my local supermarket, I thought, This is it: the English muffin has now been perfected, and I need never buy another kind. I bought a four-packtheir awesomeness is so potent that to supply them in greater quantities would apparently be dangerousand prepared one the minute I got home.

It was awful. In particular, it was impossible to toast just right: it was too thick, too doughy, just plain too big. I had learned a valuable lesson: Talking myself into wanting something isn't a good enough reason to actually buy it.

CD Player/Transport Reviews

Sonographe SD-22 CD player

Corey Greenberg May 04, 2017

While many of the "modded Philips" firms simply replace the plastic "Philips" or "Magnavox" logo with their own after completing all their internal circuit mojo, for the Sonographe SD-22 ($895), Conrad-Johnson goes quite a bit further by wrapping the stock plastic flimsy-luxe box with their own heavy metal skin, making for a much stronger and nonresonant chassis. Unlike many of the modkateers, C-J doesn't replace the fairly flimsy stock RCA jack assembly of the Philips machine; in my experience, this is one of the first things to go bad on such a unit, as the contact integrity is usually poor and gets worse. Replacing the RCA assembly with high-quality gold RCAs would've raised the price of the SD-22 another $50100, but I think the long-term reliability might be worth it. The SD-22 has no digital-out jacks, only analog outputs.