Hegel H150 Integrated Amplifier Officially Announced

Sonus faber Announces Amati Supreme Speaker

FiiO M27 Headphone DAC Amplifier Released

Audio Advice Acquires The Sound Room

LATEST ADDITIONS

dCS Bartok D/A processor/headphone amplifier

Jim Austin Oct 03, 2019

The Vivaldithe four-box flagship product from digital audio specialists dCSis, in my opinion, misnamed. Vivaldi the composer was an asthmatic priest who worked in an orphanage for 30 years and died in poverty. The Vivaldi stack dedicates four separate products to converting into music digital code stored on silver discs (although you can play musicvery well I am sureon just one box, the Vivaldi DAC, footnote 1). Together, those boxes weigh about 148lb and cost some $115,000. The most expensive is the CD/SACD transport; leave that off and you can save 51lb and $42,000.

Art Dudley Listening Phono Cartridge Reviews

Listening #202: Altec 604 & Audio MusiKraft Denon DL-103

Art Dudley Oct 02, 2019

Godzilla and I are precisely the same age: We were both born in 1954, Godzilla as an expression of the postwar fears of a nation uniquely aware of the horrors of nuclear armaments, I as an expression of the postwar comfort felt by an American veteran fresh from foreign wars. We both dislike being awakened from our slumber, and we're both unusually handsome.

Solid State Power Amp Reviews

Accustic Arts Audio Mono II monoblock power amplifier

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 01, 2019

Accustic Arts of Lauffen, Germany, was founded in 1997 by Fritz Schunk, who sold the company to Hans-Joachim "Jochen" Voss in 2016. Voss's professional background had more to do with sweet spreads than sweet soundshe spent 20 years doing sales and marketing, including with the Ferrero Group, which produces Nutellabut he happened to own some Accustic Arts components, and as a music-loving consumer with a special fondness for rock, had been in touch with Schunk for many years before the company went up for sale.

News

Graham Audio Launches the BBC LS5/5 in Montreal

Robert Schryer Sep 28, 2019

BBC LS5/5? I'd never heard of it until it was announced on my Facebook feed that the LS5/5 was Graham Audio's new flagship speaker—so new, in fact, that there were only two pairs in existence. One of them would be showcased that evening in a Montreal audio shop, Art et Son, for the model's official North American launch.

Budget Component Reviews Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

PSB Alpha P5 loudspeaker

John Atkinson Sep 27, 2019

It is said that while any competent engineer can design a superb loudspeaker if allowed an unlimited bill of materials, the true test is being able to produce a great-sounding, budget-priced speaker out of parts that cost a mere handful of dollars. With PSB's Alpha series of bookshelf speakers, Canadian engineer Paul Barton has illustrated this truism many times over the years.

Budget Component Reviews Solid State Power Amp Reviews

Schiit Audio Aegir power amplifier

Herb Reichert Sep 26, 2019

Class-D audio amplifiers: What's the argument for them? Class-A audio amplifiers: What's the argument against them? Class-AB amplifiers: Why does everybody make them? Each of these amplifier output architectures has strengths and weaknesses. Each will interface more or less successfully with a given loudspeaker in a given room. Each has a distinctive sonic signature. Consequently, as knowledgeable audiophiles with a laundry list of system-building goals, we are required to choose the amplifier type that best suits our speakers, our room, and our individual musical-aesthetic predilections.

Recording of the Month

Recording of October 2019: Woodstock: Back To The Garden - 50th Anniversary Experience

Jon Iverson Sep 25, 2019

Various Artists: Woodstock: Back To The Garden - 50th Anniversary Experience
Rhino Records A 587817 (10 CD). 2019. Andy Zax, Brian Kehew, reissue prods; Dave Schultz, reissue mastering; Eddie Kramer, Lee Osborne, engs. TT: 12:42:23
Performance *****
Sonics ***

Fifty years, man! By the time you read this, the dates will have passed during which promoters had hoped to stage a 50th anniversary Woodstock Festivalsadly, they failed in their effortand Woodstock mania will have peaked and diedeven pieces of the Woodstock stage are available to buy (I have two!). And yet the artifact that will always remain at the center of the era-defining event is this extensive and amazing audio document that the organizers had the foresight to record.

News

40-Plus High-End Retailers to Celebrate New Abbey Road Mix

Stereophile Staff Sep 24, 2019

On Friday, September 27, Apple Corps, Ltd./Capitol/UMe will release, in various analog and digital formats, a remixed and remastered version of the Beatles' Abbey Road, commissioned in honor of that album's 50th anniversary. And on Saturday, September 28, between 3:00pm and 6:00pmlocal timesover 40 perfectionist-audio retailers across the US and Canada, coast to coast, will mark the event by playing all 17 of the album's tracks, presumably on the finest imaginable playback systems. (It is a not-unreasonable expectation that at least some of these many playback sessions will take place at the same time, thus stimulating a great harmonic convergence. Or something.)

Integrated Amp Reviews

Cary Audio SLI-80HS integrated amplifier

Ken Micallef Sep 24, 2019

New York City is forever being born. Lately, transnational capitalists are turning Manhattan into both an investment vehicle and playground for their platinum-level appetites. As real estate developments blot the city's skyline with competing glass-and-metal towers, mom-and-pop businesses collapse under rising rents and a lack of protection from predatory landlordsall the while such New York institutions as the White Horse Tavern, Cafe Edison, Bleecker Bob's, the Plaza Hotel, the Paris Theatre, and the Chelsea Hotel undergo massive change or disappear altogether. (Thank God for Katz's Delicatessen!)

Recommended Components

Recommended Components: 2019 Fall Edition

Stereophile Staff Sep 19, 2019

Products listed here have been formally reviewed in Stereophile, and we have determined them to be among the finest available in each of four or five quality classes. Whether a component is listed in Class A or Class D (or E), we consider it to be a genuinely recommendable product.

Each listing, in alphabetical order within classes, is followed by a brief description of its performance characteristics and a note indicating the issue of Stereophile in which its review, and in some cases its Follow-Up reports, have appearedie, "Vol.41 No.6" indicates our June 2018 issue. And so forth.