Where Measurements and Performance Meet featuring Andrew Jones
High End Munich: Audio Reference "Most Exclusive System Ever" with Wilson and D'Agostino
Sponsored: Pulsar 121
Marantz Grand Horizon Wireless Speaker at Audio Advice Live 2025
CH Precision and Audiovector with TechDAS at High End Munich 2025
Sponsored: Symphonia
KLH Model 7 Loudspeaker Debuts at High End Munich 2025
Silbatone's Western Electric System at High End Munich 2025
Sponsored: Symphonia Colors
JL Audio Subwoofer Demo and Deep Dive at Audio Advice Live 2025

LATEST ADDITIONS

Bowers & Wilkins, Marantz, AudioQuest - Toronto Audiofest 2024

Masimo, Masimo . . . What’s there to say about Masimo—the company that owns Bowers & Wilkins, Marantz, Denon, Classé, among other notable brands—at this juncture that’s new? This: The California-based company is hosting three rooms at the Toronto Audiofest, one I have yet to visit, the second I visited but can’t talk about because its star product is under a press embargo until next Tuesday, so you’ll have to wait. And the third? I visited and was left impressed by its sound.
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Avantgarde Duo SD iTRON G3 active loudspeaker

Active speakers make sense. The amplifiers, crossovers, and drivers are designed as a unit, so the design isn't compromised by the need to interface with components with unknown electrical or acoustical characteristics (except for the room, and that can't be helped). Concurrent design and testing of the various pieces can result in an integrated, through-designed system. Plus, the elegant simplicity that active speakers bring to a system just appeals to me.

Like many audiophiles, I've found myself intrigued by the variety of approaches that are taken to achieve the same goals: point source, line source, panels, horns. Whenever I've heard horns paired with a flea-powered amp, the dynamics have always impressed. I've consistently heard a jump factor that makes music feel remarkably alive. The combination of these two traits, though—horns plus active—is quite rare.

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Ideon Absolute Stream Meta 2024 server/streamer

Is audio reviewing a futile pursuit? As much as we reviewers may strive, through subjective observation and objective measurement, to accurately describe how a component looks, sounds, and performs, we frequently find words and numbers inadequate to communicate the mysteries that abound in the transcendent realm of music. How can we fully share what we feel when a component allows us to experience, sometimes afresh, often in a new way, sounds that elicit joy, sorrow, terror, or more subtle emotions? How do we encapsulate in words and measurements the sonic equivalent of the wide-eyed wonder that shines through a baby's eyes as she discovers something new?

Such emotions—hence such questions—can arise when we move from one music server to another, or even between different software running on the same server. They are particularly intense in the case of this review of the Ideon Absolute Stream meta edition (2024) ($24,000) and its optional add-on, the Ideon Alpha Wave LAN Optimizer ($6900), considering that the review lacks measurements.

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Re-Tales #47: Welcoming New Customers

Since it started in late 2020, this column has emphasized the imperative for bricks-and-mortar hi-fi dealerships to evolve if they want to survive and thrive in the current era. They—indeed, the whole industry—need to attract new customers as they give existing customers reasons to keep coming back.

In its current form, Houston, Texas–based dealership 3mA arose from founder and majority owner Johnny Yip's connection with Luis Miranda, a customer. The two became partners when Miranda bought into the business in 2017.

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Recording of November 2024: Miguel Zenón: Golden City

Miguel Zenón: Golden City
Zenón, alto saxophone; eight others
Miel Music MZ10 (CD). 2024. Zenón, prod.; Ryan Streber, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½

In the current, not-so-new millennium, there have been very few jazz musicians more decorated than Miguel Zenón. Among the many accolades he has received are Grammy awards and nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship (known as the "Genius Grant"). He has lived at or near the top of the major jazz polls for years on his instrument, the alto saxophone.

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Two New FTC Rules

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued two new/newly revised rules relevant—or possibly relevant—to the hi-fi industry.

As John Atkinson reported in the October Stereophile (see Industry Update), the FTC recently announced a revision to the "Amplifier Rule," with changes that took effect in August. It's the culmination of a process that lasted several years and a significant modification of a rule that has been in place for half a century. Amplifier manufacturers take note. Then in mid-August, the FTC announced the final version of a new rule aimed at banning fake reviews and fake product testimonials. It also forbids companies from intimidating people engaging in critical speech.

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