LATEST ADDITIONS

Linear Tube Audio ZOTL40 Mk.II power amplifier

Herb Reichert Sep 26, 2017

I have always been fascinated by audio power amplifiers. I even tried building about a hundred of them. My best friend in high school, Bill Brier, taught me the basics of soldering, wire management, and reading schematics. He loaned me his Dynaco Stereo 70, and gave me a hot-running, 20W, class-A transistor amp that he'd built on his mother's kitchen table. Bill took me to concerts, and taught me about classical and jazz music. He had perfect pitch, tuned pianos for money, played every instrument in the orchestra, and had memorized the complete keyboard works of J.S. Bach before he turned 16. And this stuff was all on the sidemainly, we built drag race cars together.

CD Player/Transport Reviews

PS Audio DirectStream Memory Player universal transport

Robert Deutsch Sep 26, 2017

The first time I heard a CD player in my own system was in 1983, the first year of the format's introduction in the West. CD players were generally hard to come by, but I had a friend who worked for Sony, and he came over with his new toy: Sony's next-to-top-of-the-line CD player. (I think it was a CDP-501.) We connected it to my systemat the time, Quad ESLs driven by a Luxman tube amplifier, with a Linn turntableand listened to some Sony demo CDs.

Sweepstakes

Murray Head's Nigel Lived 2-Disc 45 RPM Set Sweepstakes

Stereophile Staff Sep 25, 2017

Register to win a copy of Murray Head's Nigel Lived 2-Disc 45 RPM Set from Intervention Records (retail value $38) we are giving away.

According to the company:

"Murray Head's Nigel Lived is a groundbreaking classic and one of the boldest, most daring and inventive albums of all time. Recorded by the great recording engineer Phill Brown, Nigel Lived is from the golden era of all-analog recording, a sonic and musical masterpiece that every music lover and audiophile simply must have."

[This Sweepstakes is now closed.]

Jason Victor Serinus

Sounds & Clouds: Like Everything and Nothing Else

Jason Victor Serinus Sep 24, 2017

How to describe music that is so personal, so deeply reflective and rooted in Buddhist contemplation that only listening to the music itself, without distraction, will suffice? Such is the conundrum that, hopefully, will lead you from this page to Channel Classics' hybrid SACD, Sounds & Clouds: Works by Hosokawa & Vivaldi.

Robert Baird

Life is Fine: Paul Kelly Goes Electric

Robert Baird Sep 23, 2017

An old hand from Down Under returns to rock . . .

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

KEF Reference 5 loudspeaker

John Atkinson Sep 21, 2017

Of all the speakers I have most enjoyed in recent years, two were from British manufacturer KEF: the LS50 Anniversary Model ($1500/pair), which I reviewed in December 2012; and the Blade Two ($25,000/pair), which I reviewed in June 2015. Though these two speakers lie at opposite ends of the price scale, they have in common KEF's unique Uni-Q drive-unit, in which the tweeter is mounted on the front of the midrange unit's pole piece, so that the lower-frequency cone acts as a waveguide for the higher-frequency output.

Budget Component Reviews Integrated Amp Reviews

Rega Research Brio integrated amplifier

Ken Micallef Sep 21, 2017

"Looking back, my life's passions have mostly been sensual: food, females, fast cars, music, wine, sailing and skiing. My motivations, activities and work have stemmed from the need to fuel these passions rather than enjoyment of the process."

Who said this? John Atkinson? Art Dudley? Dr. Dre?

Headphone Reviews Jana Dagdagan

The Audeze LCDi4: Start to Finish

Jana Dagdagan Sep 21, 2017

In June, I visited headphone manufacturer Audeze's factory in Southern California (they've since moved) and capture an abridged version of the making of a pair of Audeze LCDi4 in-ear planar magnetic headphones ($2495). In the first part of this video, which is narrated by first Sankar Thiagasamudram, Audeze's founder and CEO, we begin with the making of the LCDi4, followed by the testing, burn-in, and packaging. This is followed by the unboxing and very first listening session, with John Atkinson, Stereophile's editor in chief.

Fred Kaplan

Bill Evans, Another Time: The Hilversum Concert

Fred Kaplan Sep 20, 2017

Resonance Records is emerging as the most vital jazz reissue house aroundor, rather, not "reissue," for the music they put out has never been issued before: the producer Zev Feldman (or someone who contacts him) has found it in an unexamined vault, back room, or collectors' cove. Resonance is now filling in some blanks from Evans' middle years, the 1960s, for which there's also a paucity of albums, or at least of very good ones. The best of the new stack is the latest, Another Time, recorded before a live audience in the studio of Netherlands Radio Union in Hilversum, outside Amsterdam, on June 22, 1968. Until this release, no one ever knew the tapes of this performance existed.

Turntable Reviews

VPI Prime Scout turntable

Art Dudley Sep 19, 2017

We got our wish. Phonograph ownership is once again depicted as commonplace, even hip, in popular films, TV shows, and ads for other products. Turntables and LP jackets show up in photos in Elle Decor and Vanity Fair. New LPs are sold in stores in nice neighborhoods, and in malls with Cinnabon franchises and J.Crew stores. A shockingly high percentage of new record releases in which normal people are interested, and a few in which they are not, are now available on vinyl. For the first time in decades, I receive occasional gifts of new LPspresumably because they're once again easy for nonenthusiasts to find and to buyand the very few CDs I've received in the past few years have been homemade.