LATEST ADDITIONS

Fidelis AV (460 Amherst Street) is holding a Technics Open House, Head-fi meet, and REL subwoofer demo on Saturday December 5 from noon–5pm. Bill Voss from Technics will be presenting and discussing Technics' new C700 Premium Series components (above). This series features a D/A integrated amplifier, a network player and CD player, as well as the new, linear-phase, point-sound-source SB-C700 loudspeaker, which is favorably reviewed in the forthcoming January issue of Stereophile. Dave Shultz will be demonstrating REL Acoustics subwoofers, and Vinnie Rossi will be showing his headphone amplifiers.

The 2015 T.H.E. Show in Southern California clashed with my having to be in the office to ship our August issue to the printer, so I wasn't able to attend. But in devouring the online coverage on www.stereophile.com and its sister sites, on InnerFidelity.com I found a report by Tyll Hertsens about two new hi-rez portable players that made their debuts at T.H.E. Show: Questyle Audio Technology's QP1 ($599) and QP1R ($899).

I don't think Americans dislike the French a tenth as much as the corporate media, in their endless struggle to sell our pettiest ideas back to us in cartoon form, suggests we do. Our nations' histories are intertwined, to our great mutual benefit. Americans envy the French their centuries of cultural accomplishments, the French envy Americans their sense of industry and their wide-open spaces. (That one's a tie.) We turn to them for wine, they turn to us for blue jeans. (A point for France.) We watch their films about law-breaking hipsters, they watch our films about law-breaking gangsters. (A point for the US, in whose films things actually happen.)

With Solo, his 49th album as a leader (or co-leader) and 10th as a soloist, Fred Hersch nails his standing as one of the premier jazz musicians of our time, a pianist of subtle touch and propulsive flow, something like Keith Jarrett but more focused, less rhapsodic—Ravel to KJ's Liszt or Rachmaninoff (not that there's anything wrong with either).

Viva Hifi (Vienna, VA, near Washington, DC), is holding a special Technics Open House Saturday, December 5, from noon–7pm. The featured guest will be Gregg Lee, Training Manager for Technics, who will be presenting and discussing Technics' new C700 Premium Series components (above). This series features a D/A integrated amplifier, a network player and CD player, as well as the new, linear-phase, point-sound-source SB-C700 loudspeaker, which is enthusiastically reviewed in the forthcoming January issue of Stereophile.

In July 2000, I reviewed the Mark Levinson company's first integrated amplifier, the No.383, and found that its sound had "clarity, transparency, liquid mids and highs, with dynamic contrasts." Also evident were the No.383's power-output limitations, the result of building large power supplies and heatsinks into a single case that had to fulfill multiple functions. Still, the No.383's price of $5900 was much less than the total cost of the equivalent in Mark Levinson separates. Later, in April 2007, I reviewed a similarly powered integrated amplifier, Bryston's B100-DA ($3195), which included a built-in DAC.

For me, one of the highlights of 2013 was being able to live with the Sonja 1.3, the flagship loudspeaker model from Colorado-based YG Acoustics. I reviewed this tall, massive, three-enclosure tour de force of a design, which costs $106,800/pair, in July 2013, and was not surprised when, for the December 2013 issue, Stereophile's writers voted it one of the magazine's two Loudspeakers of the Year. So when I was asked last spring if I wanted to review the new version of the smallest and least-expensive model in YGA's lineup, the request fell on receptive ears.