Vinyl Bliss: Discover Your Music Universe at Absoulute! #shorts
Klipsch Trumpets 80th Anniversary Klipschorn Loudspeaker at Audio Advice Live 2026
See How the New HumminGuru NOVA RCM Cleans an LP!
Canvas HiFi Unveils Powered 2-Channel Speaker System at Audio Advice Live 2026
KLH Previews the New Model 4 Loudspeaker at Audio Advice Live 2026
GoldenEar Technology Talks Up the T44 Loudspeaker at Audio Advice Live 2026
KEF Showcases the New LS Luxe Loudspeaker at Audio Advice Live 2026
Paradigm Premieres a Trio of Premier Series Speakers at Audio Advice Live 2026
Bowers & Wilkins Stands Tall at Audio Advice Live 2026
Vibrant HiFi at SouthWest Audio Fest 2026
Pure Audio Project at SouthWest Audio Fest 2026
Dreamscapes A/V at SouthWest Audio Fest 2026

LATEST ADDITIONS

Audio Research Reference CD9 CD player/DAC

Now entering its fourth decade, the Compact Disc player seems to have reached a stage of maturity where the best models within a given price range will sound pretty much alike. The technology of the Compact Disc itself is set, its possibilities and limitations are well understood; and the designers of CD players who figure out how to stretch the former and finesse the latter wind up at about the same sonic place (again, for the same price), even if they've taken different routes to get there.
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Aesthetix Saturn Romulus DAC/CD player

Tubes?

In a CD player?

Century-old technology embedded in a modern digital design?

I realize that Aesthetix's Saturn Romulus is not the first disc player or D/A processor with tubes, nor will it be the last—but does combining these technologies even make sense? Are audiophiles working at cross purposes to themselves, looking for modern perfection but preferring a little old-school sweetening here and there?

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The 10th Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Starts Friday

Everyone's favorite audio show is about to get underway. The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest returns to the Denver Marriott Tech Center on October 11–13.

RMAF may not be the biggest consumer audio show in North America—that honor recently passed to T.H.E. Show Newport Beach—but even without a cigar show, car show, wine show, and airport right across the street, RMAF's 440 brands spread over 138 hotel rooms, 25 big rooms (and three more at the Hyatt across the street), a CANJAM headphone ballroom hosting a record 37 exhibitors, 14 software vendors (CDs, LPs, etc.), and 26 lobby exhibits is definitely something to get excited about.

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AXPONA Acquired by JD Events

In what may be a record period for audio show acquisitions. Connecticut-based trade show company JD Events has acquired AXPONA (Audio Expo North America). The announcement follows on the heels of UK-based The Chester Group's announcement that it has bought Montreal's Salon Son et Image, and gotten out of the way of AXPONA Chicago by moving its New York Show to a fall date in Brooklyn.

In its own words, JD Events "is dedicated to the creation of targeted and innovative industry-leading events that deliver results. The company brings together highly qualified buying audiences, education-rich content and high-level networking opportunities—all geared toward increasing business transactions in the markets it serves."

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Jenny Hval at the Mercury Lounge

Last night, AudioStream.com's Michael Lavorgna and I attended Jenny Hval's performance at the Mercury Lounge on Houston Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Because we first made stops to: browse LPs and chat with Daniel at Other Music, enjoy cask-conditioned ales at dba, and devour some incredibly delicious pies at Rizzo's, we were primed for a memorable evening of music.

Jenny Hval did not disappoint.

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Listening #130

Whether the subject is hi-fi equipment, films, restaurants, power tools, or condoms (see the April 2005 "Listening"), reviewing should be off-limits to the perennially unhappy. I'm reminded of that dictum by the flap over the recent film Identity Thief, which was savaged by reviewer Rex Reed—not because the film is weak, but because its star, Melissa McCarthy, is heavy. Reed, whose career as the Paul Lynde of film reviewing was punctuated by a starring role in a flop called Myra Breckenridge, mentioned in his review McCarthy's size not once but numerous times, thus exposing himself as a bullying hack who wields his harshest criticisms not when they are merited but as unconscious expressions of his own personal anguish. Hate speech of any sort is the crayon of the unhappy; that is doubly true of people who write for a living.
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