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

Audio Streams

Audio Streams #5

Michael Lavorgna Mar 04, 2015

Hi-fi is serious businessat least, for the people whose business is hi-fi. For listeners, among whom I count myself at least some of the time, I'd say that the serious-business aspect of hi-fi is less so. Our sole job, after all, is to enjoy music. The deeper our enjoyment, the richer our experienceand the richer the experience, the deeper our enjoyment. Therein lies the quest: to deepen our enjoyment of music.

Art Dudley Listening

Listening #147

Art Dudley Mar 04, 2015

I'm old enough to remember Fizzies: tablets that were promised to transform mere water into an effervescent soft drink. They showed up on my radar when I was five, at a time when impatience stood between me and the full Fizzies experience: I couldn't wait for the Bromo-Seltzerlike tablet to dissolve completely, so I was rewarded with little flavor and lots of undissolved sugar shards. At my present age, I would be likelier to drop a Fizzie into a glass of water, walk away, and forget I had ever done so.

News

Music [Absolutely] Matters at Definitive Audio

Jason Victor Serinus Mar 04, 2015

Nearly 500 audiophiles descended upon Definitive Audio's Seattle location on Thursday, February 26 for the 10th Music Matters event in the Pacific Northwest. The "mother" of all Music Matters, and inspiration for all the other similarly named events that happen around the country, Definitive Audio's definitive four-hour gathering was so large in scope that it qualified as a mini-audio show. With major industry presenters including Stereophile's Michael Fremer (above) and John Atkinson, the evening also offered sufficient food and drink to satiate the most ravenous, and enough interesting music to ensure that even an inveterate show attender named Serinus never once experienced that "if I hear this cut one more time" feeling.

News

Devastating Audio Rip-Offs in California

Jason Victor Serinus Mar 01, 2015

Within a 24-hour time span this past weekend, two important audiophile establishments in CA suffered major burglaries. On the morning of February 28, headphone manufacturer Audeze in Costa Mesa lost perhaps $250,000 in headphones, plus an undetermined amount of raw material from its operating and manufacture headquarters. At around 4am on February 27, and approximately 425 miles north, retailer AudioVision San Francisco experienced $100,000 worth of damage to their new headquarters plus the loss of much expensive gear when a truck rammed through their storefront (above).

Headphone Reviews InnerFidelity

The Incisive Audio Technica ATH-MSR7

Tyll Hertsens Feb 28, 2015

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

Saw these at CES with their official "Hi-Res Audio" sticker. My mind's first thought? "Yeah right, like "Digital Ready" meant anything either."

Turns out the label is pretty darned accurate.

Robert Baird

Better Off Alone?

Robert Baird Feb 27, 2015

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

DALI Rubicon 8 loudspeaker

John Atkinson Feb 27, 2015

Looking back at our September 2014 issue, I think my review of the Triangle Signature Delta loudspeaker marked something of a watershed in the evolution of my taste in loudspeaker sound quality. For decades I have been a devotee of what might be called "British" sound: low coloration and, overall, a rather polite presentation, coupled with low sensitivity. The Triangle speaker opened my ears to what could be achieved with a very different approach: still-low coloration but high sensitivity, impressive clarity, and a hefty dose of what the late J. Gordon Holt called "jump factor," in which the leading edges of transients are neither smeared nor tamed. So when, last September, on a visit to Dallas and The Sound Organisation, the US distributor of Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries (DALI), I encountered DALI's Rubicon 8 speaker (footnote 1), which had benefited from a low-loss design philosophy similar to the Triangle's, I asked for a pair for review.

Audacious Audio Solid State Power Amp Reviews

Theta Digital Prometheus monoblock power amplifier

Larry Greenhill Feb 26, 2015

Several seconds after I began listening to it, I knew that Theta Digital's Prometheus monoblock amplifier ($12,000/pair) was different from other amplifiers. The violins and brass were more dynamic, and had more pace. The orchestra sounded more three-dimensional, depicted in relief by a degree of hall ambience I hadn't heard when I played the same recording through my reference solid-state stereo amplifier, a Mark Levinson No.334.

CD Player/Transport Reviews J. Gordon Holt

Sony CDP-520ES CD player

J. Gordon Holt, Steven W. Watkinson Feb 26, 2015

Publisher's Note: For the first time since I've published Stereophile, we are running two completely differentand opposed reports on the same product. Normally, we try to reach some conclusion as to why reviewers come up with opposite views on a product, and resolve the problem prior to publication. In this case, the problem lies in the differing sound systems used for review. Since some readers will have systems like SWW's, and others will have systems more like JGH's, I felt it was valuable to run both reviews.

For the record, SWW's reference system consists of Dayton Wright XG-lO speakers, BEL 1001 amplifiers, a Klyne preamp, a SOTA Star Sapphire turntable, the Well-Tempered Arm (or Sumiko Arm), and a Talisman S cartridge. The sound on analog disc is far preferable to that from CD, being much more alive and present, and with a tendency to exaggerate sibilants. The low end of the system is awesome, the high end extended, and transients are rendered with a great feeling of immediacy and quickness.

Sweepstakes

The Synergistic Research’s Acoustic Enhancement Atmosphere Sweepstakes

Stereophile Staff Feb 25, 2015

Register to win a Synergistic Research Acoustic Enhancement Atmosphere (MSRP $2,250.00) we are giving away.

According to the company:

"The Synergistic Research Atmosphere is a room acoustic enhancement device that allows one to modify and improve the perceived soundstage as well as the quality of the sound from top to bottom of one’s system; all of this totally controlled by an iPad/iPhone app."

[This Sweepstakes is now closed.]