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News

Gross to Present Triton One Speakers at Maryland Dealer, September 4.

Stereophile Staff Aug 30, 2014

A highlight for Stereophile editor John Atkinson at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show last January was auditioning GoldenEar’s new Triton One tower loudspeaker, which costs $4999.98/pair. On September 4, from 69pm, GoldenEar founder Sandy Gross will be presenting the Triton Ones at Gramophone, 8880 McGaw Road, Columbia MD 21045.

Robert Baird

Hearts Afire

Robert Baird Aug 29, 2014

There are records where one look at the cover art and without listening to a note, you know exactly what’s inside.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

KEF R700 loudspeaker

Thomas J. Norton Aug 28, 2014

In the late 1980s, KEF, then as now a leader in bringing new technology to loudspeaker design, developed a unique coincident driver that positioned the tweeter in the throat of the midrange/woofer cone. In a flash of inspiration, they dubbed it the Uni-Q, and the driver immediately not only found its way into the company's more upscale speaker designs, but also became a key element in a major European research project on room acoustics. That study's results appear to have been inconclusive, but the Uni-Q lives on as the defining element of KEF loudspeakers.

Digital Processor Reviews

Antelope Audio Zodiac Platinum D/A processor–headphone amplifier & Voltikus power supply

Jon Iverson Aug 27, 2014

Professional digital audio is like gravity to consumer audio's antigravity: pro gear draws music into digital files, and consumer audio releases those same notes back out again.

It's not surprising, then, that many audiophile digital-to-analog converters come to us from the pro-audio industry, which has a hierarchy similar to the consumer side: value-oriented products all the way up to ultimate-performance brands. Examples of pro-audio companies that also offer audiophile DACs for consumers abound: Benchmark, CEntrance, Grace Design, Korg, Mytek, and Nagra, to name a few.

News

AudioVision SF's Brand New Store

Jason Victor Serinus Aug 27, 2014

What a difference a change of location can make! What was originally a major challengeAudioVision SF, one of the country's major dealerships, literally had the rug pulled out from under them by their landlord last spring, and needed to raise money and scurry to a new locationhas turned into a major opportunity: a spanking new venue, whose main listening room sounds muchthat's much, as in muchbetter than before.

Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Revel Performa3 M106 loudspeaker

Robert J. Reina Aug 27, 2014

"Kevin Voecks is a genius, no ifs, ands, or buts." I wrote those words nearly 30 years ago, in a review of the Mirage 750, where I had also recommended Mirage's 350 bookshelf model. The 350, which costs $300/pair, was the first affordable bookshelf loudspeaker whose sound actually excited me. When I think now of how that speaker sounded back then, I chuckle. By today's standards, the Mirage 350 had some shortcomings.

Art Dudley Listening FM Tuner Reviews

Listening #141

Art Dudley Aug 26, 2014

Johnny Town-Mouse was born in a cupboard, and Timmie Willie was born in a gardenthis according to Beatrix Potter, who modeled both of her hantavirus-carrying protagonists after people of her acquaintance. Transposed to the city, Timmie Willie was chased by a maid and a housecat, while Johnny Town-Mouse's visit to the countryside was spoiled by cows, lawn mowers, and boredom. Both characters enjoyed good mental and physical health only in the settings to which they were accustomed, although Potter made it clear that her far greater sympathies lay with Timmie Willie.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Triangle Signature Delta loudspeaker

John Atkinson Aug 22, 2014

The French do things differently. I first heard Triangle loudspeakers at the 1981 Festival du Son, in Paris. That was, of course, after I had obtained admission to the show, in a nonintuitive process in which members of the press obtained their credentials at a booth inside the show. But my experience of the Triangle speaker, a small, three-way floorstander, was positive: It sounded clean and uncolored, and nothing like the BBC-inspired speakers I preferred at that time. The Triangle wasn't as neutral as the English norm, but there was something appealing about its soundsomething that, I later learned, Stereophile's founder, J. Gordon Holt, referred to as jump factor.

Digital Processor Reviews

PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A processor

Art Dudley Aug 22, 2014

It's like hearing the name of an old friend and then seeing him, in your mind's eye, as he was when you were both much younger: Whenever talk turns to Boulder, Coloradobased PS Audio, I can't help picturing that company's Model IV preamplifier, of the early 1980smost likely because that was the preamp I longed to own at the time. (Tragically, I couldn't afford to buy it, so I struggled on with my NAD 1020.)

As We See It

Living Sound Meets Living Art

Jason Victor Serinus Aug 21, 2014

I've always considered the high end to be industrial art. People who favor a certain brand are saying, in a way, "I like that designer's interpretation. I like his or her art."David Wilson

Last March, I had a rare experience akin to hearing the same recording through two different systems. I heard Andris Nelsons conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the same programHaydn's Symphony 90, and Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, followed by his Symphony 3in two very different venues: UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and, 50 miles north, Sonoma State University's Weill Hall.