KEF Debuts New Finishes for Blade One Meta and Blade Two Meta

Sennheiser Drops HDB 630 Wireless Headphones

LATEST ADDITIONS

Naim CD5 XS CD player

Art Dudley Nov 02, 2017

By no means could I undertake a survey of candidates for Your Last Perfectionist-Quality CD playerso far, my ongoing series of reviews has focused on models from Audio Note, Bryston, EAR, Luxman, and Metronomewithout including Naim Audio. After all, it was Naim that brought to market the first really good-sounding CD player of my experience: the two-box CDS, introduced in 1991 at a then-staggering price of $6999. In doing so, they convinced me that a digital future might not be so bad after all.

Fred Kaplan

Bill Evans, The Riverside Recordings at 45rpm

Fred Kaplan Nov 01, 2017

For all the stir over newly excavated tapes by Bill Evans (and the stir is justified), the heart of his discographythe stuff for which he's most celebrated now and will likely be for eons to comebeats in the albums he recorded on the Riverside label from 195662. All 10 of Evans' albums from this period, plus a Cannonball Adderley album featuring him as sideman, are included in a limited-edition boxed set by Analogue ProductionsChad Kassem's audiophile reissue house in Salina, Kansasmastered at 45rpm (so the 11 albums are spread out on 22 discs).

Robert Baird

Don't Fear The Reaper

Robert Baird Oct 31, 2017

Halloween Music: It Was a Graveyard Smash!

CD Player/Transport Reviews Hi-Rez Disc Player/Transport Reviews Music in the Round

Music in the Round #87: Oppo UDP-205

Kalman Rubinson Oct 31, 2017

For some months now, I've lived mostly without music. To survive the dust and grit of the renovation of our Manhattan apartment, all electronics had to be covered with heavy plastic, the speakers encapsulated in large green lawn bags, and the listening room partitioned off with a temporary wall. We could listen to music with our little 3.1-channel TV system in the den (eh) or through headphones (not!), or we could decamp to our house in Connecticut, which we did as much as possible. I felt deprived. Now that it's all over, I'm grateful to have it backand grateful for the improvements in the main system, some of them direct byproducts of the renovation.

J. Gordon Holt Recording of the Month

Recording of March 1977: Direct from Cleveland

J. Gordon Holt Oct 31, 2017

Direct From Cleveland
Orchestral works by De Falla, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz
The Cleveland Orchestra, Lorin Maazel (cond.)
Telarc 5020 DD1 (LP). Robert Woods, prod.; Jack Renner, sound eng.; Glenn Glancy, Michael Bishop, disc-cutting engs.

Potentially the best news for perfectionists in years is the announcement of the first stereophonic direct-to-disc recording (in the US, at least) of a major symphony orchestra. Advent records of Cleveland, in collaboration with Discwasher, Inc. of Columbia, MO put four complete and usable runsthrough onto two sets of lacquers. The program was a collection of potboilerswhat Sir Thomas Beecham used to call "lollypops"much of it musically rather trivial, but all ideally suited for demonstrating what a no-holds barred recording can do in terms of sonics: works with bass drum, percussion, deep double-bass material, rich string sonorities" and so on.

Capital AudioFest 2017 News

Capital Audiofest Starts Friday

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 30, 2017

From a small regional show, Gary Gill's seven-year old Capital Audiofest has grown into the East Coast Show of 2017. Set for November 35 in the Hilton Hotel Twinbrook in Rockville, MD, CAF will offer 57 exhibit rooms spread over three floors plus the hotel Atrium. That amounts to 93 exhibitors and over 200 brands, including a CanMania with 20 headphone vendors. For a show that, just last year, maxed out at 40 rooms with 65 exhibitors and 85 brands, this represents major growth.

Jason Victor Serinus

Tripping with Terry Riley

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 29, 2017

Did I really listen to and love the hi-rez (24/44.1k) file equivalent of four CDs chock-full of piano music written by and for the great Terry Riley (b. 1935)? Not only is the answer in the affirmative, but I can now honestly attests that pianist/pedagogue Sarah Cahill's Eighty Trips Around the Sun abounds in opportunities to take you on multiple mind-bending excursions through the mind of a true master.

Digital Processor Reviews Headphone Reviews

Benchmark DAC3 HGC D/A preamplifier-headphone amplifier

Jim Austin Oct 26, 2017

Much has been written about the divide in high-end audio between subjectivists, who trust their ears, and objectivists, who believe that anything not scientifically proven is fake news. I respect both sides and am skeptical of both extremes, and I like to think that's how most audiophiles feel. High-end audio is about experiencing musicthat's the whole pointbut scientific and technological rigor lie behind every real advance, past and future. I regret the cynical snake-oil salesmanship, bad thinking, and clumsy engineering that pervade certain parts of our hobby.

Headphone Reviews Tube Preamp Reviews

Rogue Audio RH-5 preamplifier-headphone amplifier

Herb Reichert Oct 26, 2017

Every day in my bunker, I use one of a few high-quality headphone amplifiers to double as a line-level preamplifier-controller and operate as the quality-assurance reference for my ongoing audio experiments. I must choose this component carefully, because it determines the upper limit of my system's ability to reveal any subtle differences among components under review.

Robert Baird

Fats Domino (1928-2017)

Robert Baird Oct 26, 2017

Another Rock 'n' Roll Legend Dies.