Apple AirPods Pro 3: First Impressions

Hegel H150 Integrated Amplifier Officially Announced

Sonus faber Announces Amati Supreme Speaker

FiiO M27 Headphone DAC Amplifier Released

Audio Advice Acquires The Sound Room

LATEST ADDITIONS

Integrated Amp Reviews

Heed Audio Elixir integrated amplifier

Ken Micallef Oct 27, 2016

I recently watched Terra, an exceptional film by French directors Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Michael Pitiot. It's not a nature documentary per se, rather a history of life on Earth from lichens to lions, amoebas to humans. Terra boasts stunning cinematography of the natural world, revealing a beauty that nearly softens the film's cautionary message.

"How have our relations with other living beings changed so much?" asks Arthus-Bertrand on his website. "What do we still see, or notice, of the living world around us? . . . We no longer see the wild, we dream of it. It's an age-old fascination, visible in the paintings of the Chauvet Cave. But this dream is today disappearing, vanishing in factory smoke and industrial smog. . . .

Jana Dagdagan

A Visit to the Audiologist

Jana Dagdagan Oct 24, 2016

We all live with earwax. Some more than others, but none of us are immune.

A buildup of excess wax can potentially cause blockage, tinnitus, an infection, or worse: sudden or partial loss of hearing! (Whatever you do, do not Google image search "earwax buildup.") To the average human, a temporary reduction in hearing is an inconvenience. But to the average audiophile, a temporary reduction in hearing could very well mean fatality. (Said in Mortal Kombat fashion.)

News TAVES 2016

An Expanded TAVES Opens Friday in Toronto

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 24, 2016

TAVES, which bills itself as "Canada's Ultimate Consumer Electronics Show," returns to Toronto's contiguous Sheraton Parkway Toronto North & Best Western Hotels October 2830. With over 120 exhibitors in toto, three quarters of which are either home system audio (approx. 6065) or personal/headphone audio, and close to 300 brands, the show has become one of the largest consumer audio shows in North America.

Jason Victor Serinus

C.F. Kip Winger: From Rock to Ballet in Hi-Rez

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 23, 2016

This release from VBI Classic Recordings, C.F. Kip Winger, is not only for all the rock'n'rollers amongst us, but also for lovers of classical music and ballet. That's because it showcases three ballet-inspired scores by the very same of C.F. Kip Winger who founded and lead the rock group, Winger. He's also the same Kip Winger who played bass with Alice Cooper from 19851987, and performed and recorded with Alan Parsons, Roger Daltrey, and Bob Dylan.

News

AudioQuest Warns of Counterfeit DragonFly^®s

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 22, 2016

Friday, October 21, Irvine, CA-based high-end audio manufacturer AudioQuest issued a warning about what appears to be low-priced, inferior-sounding counterfeits of its discontinued AudioQuest DragonFly v1.2. The matter was brought to AudioQuest's attention by a consumer who saw a thread on Reddit about a product that resembled the discontinued DragonFly 1.2's proprietary technical features. The real DragonFly is pictured above right with the subject of the Reddit thread on the left.

Robert Baird

A Go Go

Robert Baird Oct 21, 2016

If there ever was a sure-enough soul man, it was the Big O.

Recording of the Month

Recording of November 2016: Martha Argerich Early Recordings

Robert Levine Oct 20, 2016

Martha Argerich: Early Recordings
Beethoven: Piano Sonata 7 in D, Op.10 No.3. Mozart: Piano Sonata 18 in D, K.576. Prokofiev: Toccata, Op.11; Piano Sonatas 3 in a, Op.29 & 7 in B-flat, Op.83. Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit, Sonatine.
Martha Argerich, piano
Deutsche Grammophon 479 5978 (2 mono CDs). 2016. No prod. or eng. credits given. ADD. TT: 2:10:50
Performance *****
Sonics ***½

There is no dearth of recordings by the great Argentine pianist Martha Argerichover 150 are listed in her discographyand here, in honor of her 75th birthday, are two more discs, comprising previously unreleased material. Argerich has been playing publicly since she was eight years old; in 1957, she won the Busoni and Geneva competitions and continued to concertize, but it was not until she won the Chopin Competition, in Warsaw, in 1965 that she began to become a household name (in pianist-loving households). There is a rumor that she has never given a bad concert or made a poor or uninteresting recording; this new set does nothing to contradict it.

CD Player/Transport Reviews

Sony CDP-X77ES CD player

Thomas J. Norton Oct 20, 2016

With Sony's latest flagship single-box player ($1700), we find yet another variant on 1-bit D/A technologyHigh Density Linear Converter, or HDLC. At the heart of this Pulse Length Modulation (footnote 1) D/A technique is Sony's CXD-2552 Pulse D/A converter (two per channel in complementary mode in the CDP-X77ES). This complex LSI chip incorporates a third-order noise shaper, the PLM converter, and a digital sync circuit receiving its input from the system clock.

News

Dealer Events Friday and Saturday

Stereophile Staff Oct 20, 2016

California dealers The Audio Salon in Santa Monica and Sunny Components in Covina, Delaware's Overture Audio Video in Wilmington, and Canada's Advance Electronics in Winnipeg and Atlas Audio Video Unlimited in Victoria are all presenting special events this weekend.

As We See It

Steve Guttenberg's 116th Dream

Steve Guttenberg Oct 19, 2016

I'm at Dan D'Agostino's house listening to his triamped Apogee full-range ribbon speakers. It's 1985. His listening room is immense, easily 30' by 45', and we're rocking out to Led Zeppelin and Bonzo Dog Band records. The sound is light-years better than anything I've hearddynamic as hell, beyond vivid, and the soundstage has infinite depthand Dan's obviously loving that I'm blown away by his system. We get to talking. He has three pairs of Krell KMA-160 monoblocks and Reference KRS preamps for me. Thanks, I say, but how can I get them home? No problemDan has a van.