LATEST ADDITIONS

Jason Victor Serinus, Stephen Francis Vasta  |  Mar 14, 2025
Franck: Symphony In D Minor, Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande, Berlin Philharmonic/Daniel Barenboim; L'Arpeggiata: Terra Mater, L'Arpeggiata, Christina Pluhar, cond.; Malena Ernman, mezzo-soprano; Robert Simpson: Chamber Music, Volume One, The Tippett Quartet; Emma Johnson, clarinet; Raphael Wallfisch, cello; others.
Phil Brett, Ray Chelstowski  |  Mar 14, 2025
The Cure: Songs of a Lost World; Michael Kiwanuka: Small Changes; Father John Misty: Mahashmashana.
Thomas Conrad, Andrey Henkin  |  Mar 14, 2025
Out Of/Into: Motion I; Ambrose Akinmusire: Honey From a Winter Stone; Lars Danielsson/Verneri Pohjola/John Parricelli: Trio; Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: Secret Message; Arild Andersen: Landloper.
Rogier van Bakel  |  Mar 12, 2025
Summers photos By Rogier Van Bakel

"That's pretty odious," Andy Summers says to me. "An odious comparison." His blueish eyes darken. roughly an hour into our 90-minute face-to-face interview, I'd asked if it bothers him that in terms of reach and staying power, his solo oeuvre will never match his work with The Police.

To me, the observation seemed factual and uncontroversial, like saying that the sun rises in the east. The Police sold more than 75 million records and played some of the largest venues in the world. The night before our interview, I'd watched Summers perform a show in a 400-seat theater in rural Waldoboro, Maine.

Ken Micallef  |  Mar 12, 2025
Volti Audio’s Greg Roberts debuted his new Vittora Loudspeaker System ($50,000). It is the latest version of the horn-loaded system Art Dudley reviewed in September, 2013. The new Vittora system included the two main, birch-ply speakers (104dB at nominal 8 ohms, 50Hz-20k), two Extended Low Frequency ELF12 cabinets (with 12" sub drivers), one ELFpre preamp, and two ELFamp amplifiers (500W each). Alternately, customers can order two ELF18 cabinets (which include an 18" driver).
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Mar 11, 2025
In my enthusiastic 2022 review of the Stromtank S-1000 ($16,900), I described the Stromtank as a computer-controlled lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery array that, coupled with its AC inverters and all the trimmings, supplies clean, constant, stable off-grid AC power to hi-fi components. By softly depressing a single button on the front panel, Stromtank owners can easily switch from wall-connected mode (when the Stromtank's dimmable front-panel meter is blue) to a disconnected, battery-only state (when the meter is green). At the end of a listening session, users can return to blue mode to recharge the battery array.
Andrey Henkin  |  Mar 10, 2025
Photo by Tom Copi.

In less than 11 years, guitarist Emily Remler went from rising star to shooting star, from her first major exposure—an invitation from Herb Ellis to perform as part of "Guitar Explosion" at the Concord Jazz Festival on July 21, 1978—to her final concert on May 3, 1990, at the Hotel Richmond in Adelaide, Australia, where she was found dead from a heart attack the next day. She was 32 years old.

The recent Resonance Records triple-LP/double-CD set Cookin' at the Queens: Live in Las Vegas (1984 & 1988) is a welcome reminder of her prowess and a sad marker of what she might have accomplished if she hadn't died so young.

Tom Fine  |  Mar 07, 2025
What if there was a character in Stanley Kubrick's classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey who was an audiophile? Aboard the Discovery One interplanetary space ship, what would his system look like? He'd probably have a pair of ultramodern speakers that could pluck sound out of the ether. He'd control the system with something like a present-day smartphone or tablet, commanding the HAL 9000 computer to play his favorite songs. The speakers would stand unobtrusively in a white room with 1970s modern-minimalist furniture, no rack of components to drive them, no wires connecting them, no shelves of physical media to play. And they would fill the room with music.

I am sitting earthbound in my living room almost a quarter-century beyond the year 2001, living a similar scenario with the Focal Diva Utopia streaming amplified wireless speaker system. My living room is not at all reminiscent of the Discovery One with its rotating central interior (footnote 1). But with the Diva Utopia system, I feel more in a sci-fi future young me might have imagined than with any hi-fi component I've reviewed so far. About the only thing the Diva Utopia has in common with the stereo systems I grew up with—and with my current reference system—is two floorstanding cabinets and diaphragms that move air to make sound.

Ken Micallef  |  Mar 06, 2025
Audiophiles are often misunderstood as mere hobbyists; in fact they hold a profound reverence for sound. Japanese jazz kissas, where vintage vinyl, turntables, tube amplifiers, and horn speakers have drawn audiences since the 1950s, exemplify this passion. Western audiophiles share a similar fervor, though our pursuit of sonic perfection often manifests in a more discreet, almost monastic, lifestyle.

Shinobu Karaki, a 65-year-old electronics designer, is the founder and chief designer of Japan's Aurorasound. A music lover first, an audiophile second, and an aspiring jazz and classical guitarist, Karaki crafts phono stages, step-up transformers, preamplifiers, power amplifiers, and integrated amplifiers for his Yokohama-based audio company.

Ken Micallef  |  Mar 06, 2025
Keith Haas and Rob Standley of Playback Distribution, PMC loudspeakers, and a gaggle of men in suits from Esoteric brought a big, banging, no-holds-barred system to Tampa.

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