Apple AirPods Pro 3: First Impressions

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

MQA Tested, Part 1

Jim Austin Dec 12, 2017

I don't think I've ever seen an audio debate as nasty as the one over Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), the audio-encoding/decoding technology from industry veterans Bob Stuart, formerly of Meridian and now CEO of MQA Ltd., and Peter Craven. Stuart is the company's public face, and that face has been the target of many a mud pie thrown since the technology went public two years ago. Some of MQA's critics are courteousa few are even well-informedbut the nastiness on-line is unprecedented, in my experience.

As We See It MQA

MQA: Some Claims Examined

John Atkinson Dec 11, 2017

"The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point."Claude Shannon

Since its announcement at the end of 2014, Master Quality Authenticated, the MQA encoding/decoding system, has spawned outspoken criticism. Some of the more thoughtful negative reactions have come from engineers such as Dan Lavry, Bruno Putzeys, and Daniel Weiss. Others have been expressed by manufacturers of digital products: the late Charley Hansen at Ayre Acoustics, for example, along with Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat at Schiit Audio, John Siau at Benchmark Media Systems, and Jim Collinson at Linn Products. Some have been audio writers: Doug Schneider, at SoundStage!, and Paul Miller and Jim Lesurf, at Hi-Fi News. Most vociferous have been anonymous website posters. As Jim Austin remarks in his examination of MQA's decoding of impulse-response data elsewhere in this issue, "the nastiness online is unprecedented."

News

Headphone Event in Manhattan Tuesday

Stereophile Staff Dec 11, 2017

Tuesday, December 12, 27pm, New York retailer In Living Stereo (2 Great Jones Street, Manhattan, NY 10003) is holding a special headphone event featuring the entire line of Audeze headphones, Woo Audio tube headphone amplifiers and the Hugo TT, Mojo, and new Poly wireless streamer for the Mojo from Chord Electronics.

News

January Already?

Stereophile Staff Dec 10, 2017

Yes, with the beginning of winter and the holiday season almost upon us, the January 2018 issue of Stereophile has started dropping into mailboxes, being displayed on newsstand shelves, and being downloaded to tablets. And it is, even if we say so ourselves, one heck of an issue, with GoldenEar's Triton Reference speaker on its cover and reviewed inside by John Atkinson. JA also kicks off the issue with a look at the controversy raised by MQA. Controversy? Also in the January Stereophile, Jim Austin examines the time-domain performance of MQA-equipped DACs and one Internet troll is already offering a $10 bounty for anyone who debunks one of Jim's findings!

Jason Victor Serinus

Rachel Podger's Grand New Baroque SACD

Jason Victor Serinus Dec 10, 2017

Few violinists would consider saddling a recording with a title as grand and potentially pretentious as Grandissima Gravita. But not only is Rachel Podger's latest Channel Classics hybrid SACD with her ensemble, Brecon Baroque, grandly playedPodger is brilliant as alwaysbut its title also serves as an apt descriptor of the emotional tenor of most of the works on the program.

Robert Baird

Christmas Candy

Robert Baird Dec 09, 2017

It's sweet! It's vocals! It's Christmas!

News

Vivid, Gryphon, Shunyata Event in Florida Saturday

Stereophile Staff Dec 08, 2017

Saturday December 9, from 12pm to 4pm, Suncoast Audio (7353 International Place, Unit 309, Sarasota, FL, 34240) says they are sending 2017 out with a bang! They are hosting a year-ending event with Vivid loudspeakers, Gryphon electronics, and Shunyata cabling.

Headphone Reviews InnerFidelity

JBL Soundgear Personal Speaker

Tyll Hertsens Dec 08, 2017

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

Not long ago I wrote enthusiastically about the Bose SoundWear Companion neck-worn speaker. It was my first experience with such a device and it was, and continues to be, a very pleasant one. Way better than I expected. So, I figured I should look into some of the other options for this new type of device.

JBL was kind enough to send me their Soundgeara $100 less expensive alternative to the Bose. Having experience only one other device of this type, it's probably best just to compare and contrast the JBL directly with the Bose for this review.

Music and Recording Features

Solo Sounds: The Power of One

Robert Baird Dec 07, 2017

While it hasn't always made money or hit records, the music business has never been short on ideas. Most are nonsense, but every once in a whilethe gramophone, onstage monitors, Les Paul's overdubbingthe biz comes up with a winner.

Many of the craziest ideas I've heard in 30 years of writing about music have been expounded on at the South by Southwest Music Festival, held each year in Austin, Texas. At SXSW, hope springs eternal. Secrets are whispered. Buzz bands gain momentum. Rumors ripple through crowds. Everyone has visions of morphing into a mogul. There's an intoxicating energy to it all.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Delaware Acoustics DELAC S10 loudspeaker

John Atkinson Dec 07, 2017

One of the joys of reviewing loudspeakers is that there are always intriguing aspects of any particular design. The problems involved in producing a speaker that has an even tonal balance, well-controlled directivity, good bass extension, and a smooth integration of the outputs from often widely disparate drive-units have what appears to be an infinite number of solutions. The result is often a speaker so different from the norm that it just cries out to be auditioned.

Such was the case with the Delaware Acoustics DELAC S10, which costs $629/pair. Only sold factory-direct, this would therefore have been low on Stereophile's priority list for review if it weren't for two things: first, the fact that the S10 was designed by one Ralph Gonzalez, a name that should be familiar to readers of Speaker Builder magazine for having written a very useful speaker design and analysis program; second, as implied in the first paragraph, the S10 is one of the weirdest speakers I have ever laid ears on.