Vivid Audio Introduces Giya Cu Loudspeakers

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

Sennheiser Drops HDB 630 Wireless Headphones

Sponsored: Radiant Acoustics Clarity 6.2 | Technology Introduction

PSB BP7 Subwoofer Unveiled

Apple AirPods Pro 3: First Impressions

LATEST ADDITIONS

Spin Doctor Tonearm Reviews

Spin Doctor #17: Paging Dr. Löfgren, ViV Laboratory's Rigid Float 9ha tonearm

Michael Trei Sep 26, 2024

It started one evening when I was killing time watching YouTube videos and stumbled across a 2017 talk given by Jonathan Carr, Lyra's brilliant cartridge designer (footnote 1). After discussing his design and Lyra's manufacturing processes for about 18 minutes, Carr opens the floor to questions. Someone asks which of the many cartridge setup parameters he feels is the most important. I was floored when the first thing Carr said was that "horizontal tracking error is not very important at all." What? I couldn't believe I was hearing this from the guy who writes owner's manuals with super-specific specifications, like tracking force measured to a 100th of a gram and loading recommendations with wide but oddly specific ranges like 97.6 to 806 ohms. Did he really believe that the tonearm geometry calculations of Löfgren, Stevenson, et al, weren't such a big deal?

For decades I have painstakingly used the best tools available to perfect these settings with every cartridge I install; now a guy whose opinion I respect deeply is saying it's not very important.

Brilliant Corners Phono Cartridge Reviews

Brilliant Corners #19: Music Among the Fairchildren

Alex Halberstadt Sep 25, 2024

Pull down the shades, find a comfortable seat, and come with me on an imaginary journey to the year 1956. The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket wins reelection, the United Methodist Church begins to ordain women, and a can of Campbell's tomato soup costs 10 cents. Elvis Presley's two-week residency at Las Vegas's New Frontier Hotel and Casino is received so poorly by the middle-aged guests that Newsweek likens it to "a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party." And a Seattle couple gives birth to Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, who will become known professionally as Kenny G.

The hobby that will become "high-end audio" is still called plain old "audio." The top marginal tax rate is 91%, the US boasts more income equality than present-day socialist Sweden, and most of the country's top earners are not panic-room wealthy but merely rich. The prices of hi-fi gear reflect this: Two of the finest power amplifiers you can buythe McIntosh MC-60 and the Marantz Model 2 (both monophonic, of course)retail for $198. That's about $2266 in today's dollars, and while certainly not cheap, these products are accessible to a far larger group of hi-fi enthusiasts than "the best" of today (including from McIntosh itself).

Recommended Components

Recommended Components Fall 2024 Edition

Stereophile Staff Sep 24, 2024

Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable. Occasionally we get letters of complaint from manufacturers who object to being included in, say, Class Bbut inclusion in Class B is a thing to be proud of.

Within each category, products are listed by class; within each class, they're in alphabetical order, followed by their price, a review synopsis, and a note indicating the issues in which the review, and any subsequent follow-up reports, appeared. "Vol.47 No.7" indicates our July 2024 issue, for example. "WWW" means the review is also posted online.

Audacious Audio Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Bowers & Wilkins 805 D4 Signature loudspeaker

John Atkinson Sep 20, 2024

The "Bowers" in the name of British manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) refers to founder John Bowers, whom I got to know fairly well before he passed in 1987. In recent years, I've reviewed two Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers: the 705 Signature two-way standmount in the December 2020 issue and the Diamond Series 804 D4 three-way floorstander in the January 2022 issue. More recently, Tom Fine reviewed the three-way, floor-standing Signature Series 801 D4 in March 2024.

Currently there are two models in the Signature Series, which was launched in 2023 to pay tribute to the company's groundbreaking John Bowers Silver Signature from the early 1990s: the 801 D4 and the subject of this review, the two-way 805 D4 standmount, which B&W describes as its "highest performance standmount ever."

Revinylization

Revinylization #58: The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle on MoFi

Robert Baird Sep 19, 2024

While it's a distant memory now that he's making mediocre albums and using his US website to sell $50 T-shirts for gigs in Helsinki, there was a time when Bruce Springsteen had a hungry heart: Hungry to be perceived as a consequential artist. Focused on telling stories and making vivid albums. Alive with conflict and memorable characters. Back in those days, the early 1970s, he broke any number of rules and barriers. In the case of The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, that meant defeating the dreaded sophomore slump.

Re-Tales

Re-Tales #46: Audio Advice Opens New Brick'n'Mortar Stores

Julie Mullins Sep 18, 2024

North Carolina hi-fi dealer Audio Advice has been busy lately. As I reported in last month's Industry Update, the company recently acquired The Audio Lab, a longtime dealership based in Wilmington. As this issue went to press, Audio Advice was getting ready for Audio Advice Live, the show they put on annually at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel. Just before showtime, Stereophile spoke with Audio Advice CEO Scott Newnam and COO Gregg Chopper via Zoom. We asked about the expansion and their approach.

Recording of the Month

Recording of October 2024: Jerome Sabbagh: Heart

Jim Austin Sep 17, 2024

Jerome Sabbagh: Heart
Sabbagh, tenor saxophone; Joe Martin, bass; Al Foster, drums
Analog Tone Factory ATF 001 (LP). 2024. Jerome Sabbagh, Pete Rende, prods.; James Farber, Pete Rende, Aki Nishimura, Ben Miller, Bernie Grundman, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics *****

It's rare for an artist to win Recording of the Month honors for consecutive albums released within a few months of each other, and frankly, I don't feel great about it. But I cannot pass over Heart, the latest album from Jerome Sabbagh, which he recorded in a distinguished trio with Joe Martin on bass and the legendary Al Foster on drums.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle loudspeaker

Sasha Matson Sep 13, 2024

How many times have you been told by parents and teachers that everything successful must be built on a strong foundation? It's true in music, where the low frequencies are the foundation the music rests on, like the basement framing a building. If you get that part wrong, where are you? Sitting in the mud, that's where. With no chance to address beauty in the midrange, texture and air above, or other tasty things.

Youngstown, Ohiobased loudspeaker manufacturer SVS made foundations its specialty, starting at the company's very beginning in 1998, when it started by designing subwoofers and only subwoofers. The company didn't start offering regular loudspeakers, with midranges and high frequencies, until 2012. Over time, SVS's high-value speakers got more ambitious until earlier this year, at AXPONA, it introduced its most ambitious loudspeaker yet, the full-range, three-way Ultra Evolution Pinnacle ($4999.98/pair).

Sweepstakes

AudioQuest Silver Anti-Static Record Brush Sweepstakes

Stereophile Sep 13, 2024

Register to win an AudioQuest Silver Anti-Static Record Brush (retail value $19.95 US).

From the company:
Keep vinyl LPs free from annoying static, microscopic dust, and harmful debris with AudioQuest’s Silver Anti-Static Record Brush. Simple, attractive, and remarkably effective, AudioQuest’s Silver Anti-Static Record Brush features 1,086,000 conductive carbon fibers and an uncoated metal finger grip to create a reliable electrical path between fibers and handle.

As We See It

What We Lose With Streaming

Jim Austin Sep 12, 2024

Photo by Alex Carvalho

In the August issue's As We See It, Tom Fine and I encouraged readers to hold on to their physical mediathose black and silver discseven if they're stashed away in a closet or attic, replaced by hi-rez streaming. An important reason we gave is that with physical media (in contrast to streaming), you know exactly what you're listening toor at least you can know, with a little work.

Also if you want to, you can do a lot of work, since there is much to know and to learn, especially about vinyl records (and shellacs), and learning about themabout the labels and those arcane codes in the runout groove areais a big part of the music-collecting hobby. Serious record collectors are likely to have several pressings of favorite albums and to know the provenance of each one. With streaming, you're limited to whichever version they end up with, and usually they don't bother to tell you which version it is. An example is Rock for Light by Bad Brains, which is considered by Robert Baird in this month's Aural Robert.