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To watch as Rega very slowly expands its turntable offerings upmarket requires the patience of a Thomas Pynchon addict waiting for each new tome from the notoriously slow-working and reclusive author. Starting out 51 years ago with just one turntable model, Rega now offers turntables at seven different price levels, plus a few minor variations in between. During the "lost years" of waning turntable and vinyl sales in the 1990s and early 2000s, Rega boss Roy Gandy candidly admits that the company put little effort into advancing its turntable designs, as sales at the time didn't really justify the investment. Rega had shifted its focus to digital source components, amplifiers, and loudspeakers, and even introduced a tube CD player.

That momentum finally started to reverse about 15 years ago, as the vinyl revival started to kick in and turntable sales began to pick up again. By this point, Rega was a much larger company and was able to leverage its growing reputation to engage with cutting-edge high-tech manufacturing subcontractors. Through these new relationships, they created a test bed turntable called the Naiad that would extend their design philosophies as far as was feasibly possible...

The Naiad's high price was the result of some of the design choices that had already been made, when scaling up for production wasn't even under consideration. Rega knew it wouldn't be too difficult to create a more production-ready version, into which they could distill most of what they had learned from building the Naiad. The result is the Naia, where with just a few simple changes, they have managed to undercut the Naiad's price by more than 70%, down to $12,995.

A quick survey of 1977's rock albums shows a vibrant genre, pushing in many directions at once. British punk went major label, with debut albums from The Clash, The Damned, Wire, and The Sex Pistols (their only studio album). The Ramones released Rocket to Russia. David Bowie explored a new direction with both Low and Heroes. Mainstream blockbusters included Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, News of the World by Queen, Slowhand by Eric Clapton, and Pink Floyd's Animals. Not to mention Meat Loaf 's Bat Out of Hell and the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever (footnote 1).

Amid all of this, there was a distinct new sound, quickly labeled New Wave. It wasn't rock like Queen, Pink Floyd, or anything coming out of Laurel Canyon. And it wasn't manufactured in the disco-pop factories. But it wasn't punk. It was NYC-centric, but there was also Brit brat (before brat was a thing), Elvis Costello, introducing himself with My Aim Is True. Back in the Big Apple, two seminal new wave debuts dropped in 1977: Television's Marquee Moon, and Talking Heads: 77.

For musicians' sake, the terms "sure thing" or "a hit" should be permanently stricken from the music business lexicon. Like Beetlejuice, if you say it enough, bad things are sure to occur. But in the long annals of the music business crushing the dreams of artists who were a "sure thing" and singles or albums that were guaranteed to be "a hit," few have risen higher and fallen faster than Lone Justice. Rising stars on the Los Angeles music scene in the early 1980s, they melded punk-rock attitude and ethos with a love for classic country music. The New York Times called them "Impressive, ingenious, and forceful." After seeing them, both Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton genuinely praised their sassy young singer, Maria McKee.

I was fascinated by Herb Reichert's adventures with the KEF KC62 subwoofer, so I borrowed one. Beautifully engineered, contoured, and finished and chock-full of cutting-edge technology, it would be welcome in any room and easily integrated into any system. However, it struck me as not just small but miniaturized, like the meticulously functional samples made for the traveling salesmen of a century past. Since its two force-canceling 6.5" radiators were the same size as or smaller than the midrange drivers in my main speakers at the time, I had low expectations and returned it without comment. That was in 2021.

I asked for a pair of KEF KC92s in early 2024 in the hope that these two relatively small subs would improve my system. Like the KC62, the gloss white cube with radiused edges and white diaphragms is an aesthetic match to our redesigned room, and the KC92 ($1999.99) is chock-full of the same cutting-edge technology.

Like romance or car racing, the act of playing records is tactile by design. Like drifting through curves or making out, spinning vinyl is a learned skill that requires users to touch everything with practiced assurance.

To play a disc with Technics' new SL-1300G record player means pushing its round On button, then touching one or more of its rectangular speed selector buttons, then pushing the big square [Start:Stop] button, then unclamping the tonearm and using its cue lever to raise it up.

Next comes the part where my heart beats a little faster: using the headshell's fingerlift to position the arm over the disc and lower it into a groove.

When the needle contacts the groove, the whole system kicks in and sound comes out.

The return of vinyl, which has stayed popular and profitable since its resurgence, has now developed a surprising nuance. Pierre Markotanyos, the owner of the reissue label Return to Analog and Montreal record store Aux 33 Tours (which refers to the speed at which an LP spins), has noticed a distinct change in the makeup of who's buying vinyl these days. "In the late 2000s," Markotanyos reflects, "it was mostly 55-to-70-year-old guys who were coming in, buying records to play on their high-end stereos that they bought at the audio show in Montreal." [Sound familiar, Stereophile readers?] "They were the purists and the true believers."

What's in a name? Denmark-based Gryphon Audio Designs laid down a marker when company founder Flemming Rasmussen chose that name in 1985. Browsing through the current Stereophile Recommended Components list, I only found one other manufacturer that utilizes an animal moniker. The imagery summoned by the use of the mythical treasure-guarding Gryphon seems appropriate; a hybrid creature combining features of the eagle and the lion, creatures of strength and speed—this choice underlines some of the aesthetics and performance Gryphon Audio has become known for. The handsome hardcover user's manual for the Diablo 333 simply states in gold "The Gryphon," along with a side-on profile of that winged lion-tailed creature, as a logo.

The Gryphon Diablo 333, a solid state, stereo integrated amplifier ($24,900 without optional DAC and phono stage modules), replaces the Gryphon Diablo 300, which was in production since 2016.