LATEST ADDITIONS

Over the last 50 years, I must have installed well over 1000 phono cartridges, but I still remember the very first one: a Goldring G850 I put into the family Garrard Autoslim turntable when I was 11 years old. In 1973, the G850 was the least expensive moving magnet cartridge Goldring made. The change from the flipover-stylus ceramic cartridge that came with the Garrard wasn't an attempt to satisfy a youthful audiophile itch but, rather, a result of my first encounter with a system compatibility problem.

A few months earlier, I had convinced my nonaudiophile dad to upgrade the family stereo. We went from our ancient Monacor SMX-50 tube receiver to a pretty weird but less ancient Sony all-in-one cassette system called the TC-133CS. I failed to understand that the new Sony's magnetic phono input was incompatible with our old ceramic cartridge. Once I figured that out, I tried to convince my dad that what we really needed was a Shure M75ED. After all, that cartridge came from the same company that made the legendary V-15 Type III, widely regarded as the best cartridge in the world at the time. My dad, however, had different plans. Guided by his home-product purchasing bible, Consumer Reports, he decided we should go instead with the less-costly Goldring.

Ken Songer of Songer Audio must be on to something because his demo led me to experience a heart rate of 141 while listening to "Sharkey's Day" from Laurie Anderson's Mister Heartbreak.

The Van Zyl Audio Alpine mid-horn speaker ($12,000/pair) is designed to cover a frequency range of 125Hz up to 20kHz. It uses a horn-loaded 8" Tang Band full-range driver that connects to the amplifier directly, free of crossover componentry. The design adds a physically time-aligned AMT tweeter—implemented as a super tweeter—to extend the highs with a simple first-order crossover applied.

With the consumer version of the Planet Venus Spectral Coherence Control Essential plugin ($189), adventurous audiophiles can experiment with removing distortion inherent to a recording, independent of the playback system.

Some fresh, high quality products making their U.S. show debuts—not to mention the excellent sound quality that was achieved—made this system a fun one to audition.

Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable. Within each category, products are listed by class; within each class, they're in alphabetical order, followed by their price, a review synopsis, and a note indicating the issues in which the review, and any subsequent follow-up reports, appeared.

One thing that interested me about the StormAudio ISP Evo is that, despite its obvious hi-fi function, it's more like a computer than a typical "prepro." While it does offer a few "legacy" analog inputs, it is for the most part all-digital, input to output, including network connections on both ends. Consequently, it is less likely to leave sonic fingerprints on the music than devices that convert digital to/from analog or modulate their signals with active amplification or attenuation. It is notable that, despite its audio function, the Storm completely lacks traditional audio specifications—distortion, dynamic range, and so on.

Yes, that aspect of the product was appealing, but the real trigger for me was that when I began this review, the StormAudio ISP Evo was the only consumer device to fully incorporate the latest version of Dirac Live Active Room Treatment (ART).