LATEST ADDITIONS

Synergistic Research has just introduced four levels of its new, hand-fabricated Atmosphere interconnects ($695–$2500 for a 1m/pair, depending upon level) and Atmosphere speaker cables (approx. twice the price). Non-active, which means that they don't need to be connected to an external power supply, albeit actively grounded, the cables come complete with blue and red tuning bullets specifically designed for this new "passive" cable line.

The main joy of returning to audio and writing for Stereophile is the pure fanboy excitement of meeting the folk-heroes of high-end and getting to talk them. In one great-sounding room I got to meet three at once: Wendell Diller of Magnepan (one of the nicest humans in the audio schema) as well as Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson of Conrad-Johnson.

Magnepan demonstrated their new .7 speaker with the Conrad-Johnson MF2275 ($3850).

One of the trends in amplification this year is the large number of stereo integrated amplifiers with digital inputs. Among these, the Parasound Halo Integrated stands out for its impressive feature set.

At Musical Surroundings, the Metis line-stage preamp from Aesthetix, first seen at the 2014 RMAF, was running the big demo system. This new 4-tube preamp replaces the multi-chassis Callisto at about $25,000.

That was the subject heading of an email that I received from GoldenEar's Sandy Gross back in November.

Sandy Gross and his charming daughter, Wendy, who was at CES helping dad out.