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
Sponsored: Pulsar 121
Sonus faber Announces Amati Supreme Speaker
Sponsored: Symphonia
CH Precision and Audiovector with TechDAS at High End Munich 2025
Sponsored: Symphonia Colors

LATEST ADDITIONS

Re-Tales

Re-Tales #23: A pressing matter

Julie Mullins
Like many fans of music on vinyl, I've grown accustomed to waiting for preordered records. For several years, record-pressing plants have been oversubscribed; there just aren't enough presses to keep up with demand. When vinyl declined in the 1980s—replaced first by cassette tape and then by CD—old presses were abandoned, falling to rust and disrepair before the vinyl revival, leaving the industry with limited capacity.
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Digital Processor Reviews

Ideon Audio Ayazi mk2 D/A processor & 3R Master Time Black Star USB clock

Alex Halberstadt
My little corner of Brooklyn happens to have a terrific little record shop. I like it for the usual reasons: well-chosen merchandise, fair prices, fun music on the speakers while you browse. But I like it just as much because great record stores tend to resemble one another in more idiosyncratic ways, and this one has the earmarks of the great record stores of my youth.
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Analog Corner Phono Cartridge Reviews Phono Preamp Reviews Powerline Accessory Reviews

Analog Corner #324: Phono Cartridge Standards, SW1X LPU III Balanced phono preamplifier, Sumiko Wellfleet phono cartridge

Michael Fremer
Whenever I do turntable-setup seminars, I complain to the participants about the lack of cartridge-pin diameter and clip-opening standards. Anyone who does their own setup has experienced it: The connection is too tight or too loose. Forcing the clip onto the pin usually results in a broken-off clip that most end users don't have the soldering skills needed to repair; in the worst case, it can even result in damage to the cartridge when you try to remove the clip from the pin.
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Budget Component Reviews Digital Processor Reviews Media Server Reviews

WiiM Mini streaming D/A preamplifier

John Atkinson
Characteristically, the email from Kal Rubinson got straight to the point: "I have a WiiM Mini that I have played with, but I am not the right one to review this as I am not sufficiently interested in or knowledgeable about wireless streaming. It ... can handle uncompressed PCM via its DACs." "I'll review it," I replied, intrigued by a $99 D/A processor that can stream hi-rez audio via Wi-Fi and that also has an analog input so it can act as a preamplifier.
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Recording of the Month

Recording of August 2022: Cruel Country

Mike Mettler
Wilco: Cruel Country
dBpm (24/96 stream, Qobuz; also available as 2CD, 2LP). 2022. Jeff Tweedy, Tom Schick, prods.; Tom Schick, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½

The cover art for Wilco's finely hewn double album Cruel Country resembles a hand-stitched doily or the kind of patch you might have seen sewn onto the back pocket of a pair of vintage faded jeans circa 1978. It's appropriate: Wilco's music has long been a patchwork, piecing together the scope and potential of American music for the band's nearly 30 years.

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Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Genelec G Three active loudspeaker

Herb Reichert
My review samples of Genelec's G Three powered loudspeaker came with a little hand-sized green and tan cardboard card featuring a poem in bold black letters dated 1898:

At the cottage window a little bird sang.
And the light of the window did flicker.
And look. The roof up it sprang and the cottage became a house bigger.
Look. Into a world the cottage grew and the vast and wide too and filled with song was the air and like new was the sun's flare.

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As We See It Munich 2022

Thoughts after Munich

Jim Austin
'm writing this column on the long flight back to New York City following High End Munich, the big hi-fi show that in regular times takes place each May. Because these are not regular times, this was the first Munich show since 2019. This show was smaller than other recent Munich shows: COVID in the Far East limited involvement by people and companies from East Asia, and German government–mandated attendance caps limited the number of people who could enter at any one time. Even so, it was a big show, with some interesting product introductions and prototypes.
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