Vivid Audio Introduces Giya Cu Loudspeakers

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

Sennheiser Drops HDB 630 Wireless Headphones

Sponsored: Radiant Acoustics Clarity 6.2 | Technology Introduction

PSB BP7 Subwoofer Unveiled

Apple AirPods Pro 3: First Impressions

LATEST ADDITIONS

Art Dudley Listening Tube Preamp Reviews

Listening #133

Art Dudley Jan 04, 2014

If you travel along Route 20 in upstate New York, you might see the hitchhiker my family and I refer to as the Old Soldierso called because this slightly built man, whose age could be anywhere from 55 to 90, is always dressed in a military uniform from some long-ago campaign. When we first saw him, his topcoat suggested a recent return from Chateau-Thierry; in more recent sightings, the old man has taken to wearing the trim khakis and sharply creased legionnaire cap of the late 1940schronological zigzagging that made me think, at first, that this traveler was aging in reverse.

Stephen Mejias

Old and New: A 2014 Resolution

Stephen Mejias Jan 03, 2014

Thanks to Art Dudley, Norman Blake's Old and New was one of my three major musical discoveries of 2013. What will 2014 bring? It should be an interesting year, to say the least.

Happy New Year! I hope you’re somewhere warm, like Rincon or San Clemente, taking in a ton of golden sunshine and perhaps enjoying a rum punch. In New York, New Jersey, and much of the rest of the country, the New Year came with several of inches of cold, white snow that fell from the icy sky like the confetti we happily tossed about on New Year’s Eve. This is a perfect day to stay inside and listen to that pile of records you’ve so carefully propped up against the wall.

Over the last seven years, I’ve pretty much purchased any damn record that sparked my interest.

News Ariel Bitran

The Ultimate Headphone Guide: Now Available for Purchase via The Internet!

Ariel Bitran Jan 02, 2014

The Ultimate Headphone Guide is now available for purchase in our online store. Over five hundred headphones and headphone amps are listed alongside big, beautiful pictures and essential specifications. Click here for more details!

Budget Component Reviews Integrated Amp Reviews

Arcam FMJ A19 integrated amplifier

Stephen Mejias Jan 02, 2014

"J-10? What's an integrated amplifier?"

It was fall 2000. I'd just begun working at Stereophile, and I clearly remember sheepishly, innocently putting this question to former senior editor Jonathan Scull.

I think the question confused himnot because he didn't know the answer, but because the answer seemed so obvious, the question itself should have been unnecessary. How could anyone not know what an integrated amplifier is? I might as well have asked, "What's a song?"

Integrated Amp Reviews

Jadis I-35 integrated amplifier

Art Dudley Jan 02, 2014

Last summer, in an uncharacteristic fit of wanderlust, I took an American Airlines flight to London. Two days later, I rode the Eurostar train to Paris in the company of my daughter and my wife, a travel agent, who had secured first-class train accommodations on her professional discount. Our ride was brisk, but the upgrade would have been a waste at any price: The Eurostar food was vile.

Solid State Power Amp Reviews Audacious Audio

Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblock power amplifier

John Atkinson Dec 30, 2013

Whereas the Pass Labs preamplifiers are designed by Wayne Colburn, the power amplifiers are the work of company founder and high-end audio veteran Nelson Pass, who even lays out his own circuit boards. The X-model amplifiers, beginning with the X1000 in 1998, were the first implementation of Nelson Pass's patented Supersymmetry topology (see "Nelson Pass on the Patents of Pass"). The XA series, which debuted in 2002, combined Supersymmetry with the single-ended class-A operation of the Aleph series. The XA.5 models offer detail improvements over the XAs.

Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 loudspeaker

Robert J. Reina Dec 30, 2013

I've loved the neutral, detailed, involving sound of Sonus Faber loudspeakers for as long as they've been available in the US. Most of my listening to them, however, has been at audio shows, and during a visit to Audio Research Corporation in 2012. (Since 2008, both ARC and Sonus Faber have been owned by the Italian firm Fine Sounds SpA, and since then ARC has used speakers made by SF, as well as by Wilson Audio and Magnepan, in the design of their electronics. Fine Sounds also owns 100% of Wadia, McIntosh, and Sumiko.)

The Entry Level

The Entry Level #37

Stephen Mejias Dec 27, 2013

As I discuss in this issue's "As We See It," a handful of audio companies have recently turned to the crowdfunding website Kickstarter to launch and promote new products. The most notable of these is Light Harmonic. The Sacramento, Californiabased electronics maker first caused a stir at the 2011 Axpona show with the release of its impressive Da Vinci DAC ($20,000), one of the few home audio converters capable of handling the 384kHz sampling rate.

As We See It

The New Audio Geek

Stephen Mejias Dec 27, 2013

It's no secret that the high-end audio industry has done a poor job of reestablishing the mainstream respect it enjoyed through the latter half of the 20th century, but its lack of reach has never been as painfully obvious as it is today. Teens are inextricably tied to smartphones, moms and dads are infatuated with Bluetooth streaming, and most people would rather pay too much for an MP3 than anything at all for a DSD download. In a world dominated by fancy gadgets and intriguing technologies, the pursuit of true high-fidelity sound remains an obscure pastime for a relatively small group of aging males. Everyone knows Apple, Beats, and Bose, but few have heard of Vivid, Wilson, or YG.

Recording of the Month

Recording of January 2014: The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records 1917–1927, Volume One

Larry Birnbaum Dec 24, 2013

Various Artists: The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records 19171927, Volume One
Third Man/Revenant (6 LPs, USB drive). 191727/2013. Alex van der Tuuk, Jack White, Dean Blackwood, prods.; Christopher C. King, David Glasser, Anna Frick, remastering. AD. TT: 4:12:39 (LPs only)
Performance *****
Sonics Historical

Launched in 1917, Paramount Records initially recorded conventional pop music, such as Arthur Fields's "Good Morning, Mr. Zip, Zip, Zip." But with the hiring of J. Mayo Williams as a talent scout and producer in 1924, Paramount became one of the leading suppliers of "race" records, as discs marketed to African-Americans were then called. For the next decade, Paramount recorded some of the most important blues, jazz, and gospel artists of the era, along with country and pop musicians.