FiiO M27 Headphone DAC Amplifier Released
Audio Advice Acquires The Sound Room
Sponsored: Pulsar 121
CH Precision and Audiovector with TechDAS at High End Munich 2025
KLH Model 7 Loudspeaker Debuts at High End Munich 2025
Marantz Grand Horizon Wireless Speaker at Audio Advice Live 2025
Sponsored: Symphonia
Where Measurements and Performance Meet featuring Andrew Jones
High End Munich: Audio Reference "Most Exclusive System Ever" with Wilson and D'Agostino
Silbatone's Western Electric System at High End Munich 2025
Sponsored: Symphonia Colors

LATEST ADDITIONS

Plinius Reference A-150 power amplifier

When Jim Austin offered the Plinius Reference A-150 stereo amplifier ($14,995) for review, it felt like a welcome blast from the past. Plinius has, lately, maintained a low profile in the US, likely due to several changes in US distributorship...Under the auspices of Ralph Abramo and California-based Plinius Audio Sales and Repair, Plinius's US profile seems to be rising again.
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Spin Doctor #8: The Wand 14-4 turntable, and a Visit to SME

Photo by Himanshu Ratnaka

In prior screeds, I have discussed the category of turntable designers I like to call deep thinkers, who twist their brains to come up with fresh thinking about how to approach the task of playing a vinyl record. If there is a poster boy for deep thinkers, it's got to be Simon Brown.

Brown is based on the South Island of New Zealand. I'm thinking that being in such a far-flung part of the world must have given his head plenty of space to get creative. First, in 2011 he created The Wand tonearm, a striking unipivot design that features a fat carbon-fiber armtube nearly 1" in diameter (below). Art Dudley wrote about The Wand in 2019, and I highly recommend that you read his thoughts, especially about his struggles to set up The Wand.

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Revinylization #49: Steely Dan's Aja

In the 1970s, Steely Dan produced hit records for a listening public that could care less about the band's cryptic lyrics. Those early Dan fans responded to their songs' epic choruses and glistening hooks, awarding chart-topping success and a global audience.

From 1972's Can't Buy a Thrill to 1980's closing act Gaucho, Bard sages Walter Becker (1950–2017) and Donald Fagen occupied a place in pop music as unique as their songs' references to "wild gamblers," "midnight cruisers," "bodacious cowboys," and a female protagonist who "prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire." Much later, Becker and Fagen returned to the studio, issuing Two Against Nature to an audience still hungry for their singular R&B-and jazz-based music.

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The Truth Will Make You Odd

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the late Art Dudley and how Art worked humbly and relentlessly to get me to appreciate contemporary bluegrass, especially the work of renowned flat-picker Tony Rice. Back then, my contempt for contemporary bluegrass was equal to my contempt for contemporary country. Both seemed faux and shallow.
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Q Acoustics 5040 loudspeaker

When I reviewed the Concept 50 loudspeaker from the UK's Q Acoustics in August 2022, I concluded that the Concept 50 lowers the sweet price spot for affordable tower speakers to $3000/pair. Now I have another pair of Q Acoustics loudspeakers in the house for review. Like the earlier speaker, the 5040 is a slim, elegant-looking tower with a vertical D'Appolito drive-unit array comprising a 0.9" fabric-dome tweeter positioned between the two 5" plastic-cone woofers. But the price is half that of the Concept 50: $1499/pair. Will this be a new sweet spot? We shall see.
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Gramophone Dreams #80: Mobile Fidelity Electronics MasterPhono

During my cub reporter days at Stereophile, I was always on the lookout, casting about for midlevel analog components I might latch on to, ones that could join my long-term daily-driver reference system by complementing the character of my midlevel DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 and Falcon LS3/5a loudspeakers. I was searching for these basic traits: alive and vigorous, clear and well-sorted, relaxed and natural. One of my first-ever Stereophile reviews, in the October 2014 issue, was of Sentec's EQ11 phono preamplifier, which featured six EQ choices, selectable from the front panel, Bakelite knobs, Switchcraft switches, and a gray Hammerite-paint finish.

When I reviewed the Sentec, I owned three turntables and about 300 records. But phono stage–wise, I was a beggar and a borrower, hoping a friend's phono pre or some review product would jump out of the deck and become my reference.

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Re-Tales #38: Supply Chains—Keeping It Local

McIntosh CEO Charlie Randall, pictured outside the company's Binghamton factory in 2006. (Photo: John Atkinson)

To remain profitable, many hi-fi companies have outsourced production to faraway countries with lower labor costs. That, certainly, is a legitimate way of doing business. Yet many other hi-fi makers have chosen to work with suppliers that are local, regional, or at least domestic. There are good reasons for doing so, those manufacturers maintain.

Some of the advantages are obvious. Local labor may cost more, but shipping what they make is much cheaper.

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