Budget Component Reviews

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Budget Component ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
Channel Islands Audio Transient Mk.II & VDC•5 Mk.II USB D/A processor & power supply
Jon Iverson  |  Mar 07, 2014  |  0 comments
Most folks don't even know they exist, but the Channel Islands are a chain of eight moderately sized mountains poking through the Pacific Ocean along the coast of southern California, between Santa Barbara and San Diego. The most famous of these is Catalina Island and its city, Avalon, which sit opposite San Clemente. The other Channel Islands are relatively wild and have been preserved mostly uninhabited.
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Budget Component ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
Arcam rBlink Bluetooth D/A processor
Sam Tellig, John Atkinson  |  Feb 14, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 01, 2013  |  6 comments
Am I the only one who values content and convenience over sound quality?

There. I've said it. I am not an audiophile; ie, someone who's in love with recorded sound for its own sake. The search for ideal sound can leave a person burned out and broke.

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Stand Loudspeaker ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
Epos Elan 10 loudspeaker
Robert J. Reina  |  Jan 30, 2014  |  First Published: Feb 01, 2014  |  2 comments
I've long kept an eye on Michael Creek's loudspeakers (Epos) and electronics (Creek). He's always moving forward, with either updates of current designs or a revamp of an entire product line. And though I've found that many of his new-product ideas tend to feature evolutionary rather than revolutionary sonic improvements, I've found that they always represent excellent sound quality for the dollar in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
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Budget Component ReviewsIntegrated Amp Reviews
Arcam FMJ A19 integrated amplifier
Stephen Mejias  |  Jan 02, 2014  |  2 comments
"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 him—not 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?"

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Stand Loudspeaker ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
GoldenEar Technology Aon 2 loudspeaker
Robert J. Reina  |  Oct 31, 2013  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2013  |  6 comments
I was introduced to audiophilia by my friend Gary Gustavsen. Although I'd known Gary since I was 13, I didn't discover his passion for music until that day in high school physics lab when I blurted out an obscure line from the Doors' "The Soft Parade," and Gary bounced back immediately with the next line. It turns out I shared my friend's passions for the Doors and Frank Zappa, but not for Mahler. Before long, Gary was dragging me to every audio store in our area to listen to potential speakers for his first high-end audio system. At the beginning of each trip he'd say, "Right now I'm partial to the Rectilinear 3s." Although I heard him say that many times, I never actually got to hear a pair of Rectilinear 3s.
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Budget Component ReviewsThe Entry Level
The Entry Level #33
Stephen Mejias  |  Sep 13, 2013  |  7 comments
Two of the five loudspeakers reviewed in our July issue were designed by Andrew Jones: the $29,800/pair TAD Evolution One and the $129.99/pair Pioneer SP-BS22-LR (footnote 1). I did the math. You can buy 229 pairs of the Pioneer for the price of a single pair of the TAD. Which is the better deal? Which would result in more happiness? Imagine keeping one pair of the Pioneers, and delivering the other 228 pairs to friends and family. Or donating them to schools. The possibilities are great. How much fun can you have with just a single pair of speakers, anyway?
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Stand Loudspeaker ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
Audience ClairAudient The One loudspeaker
Robert J. Reina  |  Sep 06, 2013  |  4 comments
As the years pass and I turn into a crotchety old man, I'm reminded of those old TV ads for the Honda Accord: "Simplify." Even though I now have more things going on than at any other point in my life, I try to eliminate complications everywhere I can. I now can't believe that, for over 15 years, I used the Infinity RS-1B as my reference loudspeaker. Sure, I loved it—the RS-1B was the first speaker I'd owned that produced a wide, deep soundstage, the full dynamic range of an orchestra, and bass extension down to 25Hz. But it was ridiculously complex: a five-way design with three different driver types and a servomechanism for the woofers. It also required biamplification—I got the best sound with a combination of high-powered tube amp and high-current, solid-state amp.
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Budget Component ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsHeadphone Reviews
Meridian Explorer USB D/A processor/headphone amplifier
Art Dudley  |  Aug 30, 2013  |  First Published: Sep 01, 2013  |  6 comments
Those of us who groan at the appearance of every new five-figure digital source component in a massively oversized chassis—and who groan in greater torment when the offending manufacturer says his customer base insists on products that are styled and built and priced that way—can take heart: The appearance of such sanely sized and affordable products as the Halide Design DAC HD ($495) and the AudioQuest DragonFly ($249) would suggest that the market has a mind of its own.
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Budget Component ReviewsIntegrated Amp Reviews
Creek 4240 Special Edition integrated amplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Aug 26, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1995  |  3 comments
In this, my first equipment review for Stereophile, I'll begin by explaining my philosophy regarding reviewing inexpensive components. In my quest for products by designers who strive to establish new benchmarks for reproducing sonic realism at lower prices, I'll be looking for "value" components (a more appropriate term than "budget") whose designers logically fall into two camp. . .
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Budget Component ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Schiit Audio Bifrost D/A processor
Jon Iverson  |  Aug 01, 2013  |  4 comments
Late last year came an epic audiophile moment: I slapped a final length of tape on the box of the awesome-sounding MSB Diamond DAC (Stereophile, October 2012), in final preparation for its trek to John Atkinson's testing lab, in Brooklyn. Next up was the Bifrost DAC from Schiit Audio. I popped it into my system, where, moments before, the MSB had held court.

From $43,325 to $449. Yowseh!!—the MSB costs almost 100 times as much as the Schiit! Was this even fair?

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Budget Component ReviewsIntegrated Amp Reviews
Creek Evolution 50A integrated amplifier
Robert J. Reina  |  Aug 01, 2013  |  3 comments
It seems I'm always reviewing an integrated amplifier from Creek Audio. It started in the late 1980s, when I fell in love with the capabilities of inexpensive, well-designed audio equipment, sparked by the spectacular sound of a pair of Celestion 5 bookshelf speakers at a Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. I was reading an issue of Hi Fi Heretic (now defunct), for which my friend Art Dudley wrote, and it included a survey of various inexpensive British integrated amplifiers, some of them made by Creek. I was already familiar with the company, but hadn't listened to affordable British electronics since I'd lived in London, in the early '80s. I got a Creek 4140s2 integrated and was amazed at its neutrality, its lack of etched sound, its natural reproduction of instrumental timbres. I ended up buying it, and used it to review bookshelf loudspeakers.
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Budget Component ReviewsMedia Server Reviews
Astell&Kern AK100 portable media player
John Atkinson  |  Jul 25, 2013  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2013  |  18 comments
Apple's iPod came of age in the fall of 2003, when, with the release of iTunes 4.5, the player was no longer restricted to lossy compressed MP3 or AAC files. Instead, it could play uncompressed or losslessly compressed files with true "CD quality"; users no longer had to compromise sound quality to benefit from the iPod's convenience.

Enter Astell&Kern. At the beginning of 2013, this brand from iRiver, a Korean portable media company, introduced its AK100, a portable player costing a dollar short of $700 and capable of handling 24-bit files with sample rates of up to 192kHz.

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Stand Loudspeaker ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
Pioneer SP-BS22-LR loudspeaker
Robert J. Reina  |  Jul 02, 2013  |  28 comments
I often receive letters from Stereophile readers. I've even gotten a few letters from female readers, one an attractive young lover of tube gear who sent me a picture of herself and [sigh] her boyfriend. But most are from people who are either thanking me for a specific review that resulted in a purchase and a satisfied buyer, or are suggesting products they'd like me to review. I frequently take the advice of writers of this second category; in fact, two of the inexpensive speakers I'll review in the next year were recommended by readers.
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Stand Loudspeaker ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
Music Hall Marimba loudspeaker
Stephen Mejias  |  Jul 02, 2013  |  1 comments
Late last year, when I first heard of the Music Hall Marimba, I was happily surprised: One of my favorite hi-fi manufacturers had finally introduced its first and (so far) only loudspeaker—and it was seriously affordable at $349/pair. I wanted to review the Marimbas right away, but grumpy old Sam Tellig beat me to them.
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Budget Component ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
HRT Music Streamer HD USB D/A processor
Art Dudley  |  Jun 13, 2013  |  1 comments
No history of the computer-audio marketplace could be complete without some mention of High Resolution Technologies, the California company whose Music Streamer was, in 2009, the first perfectionist-quality USB digital-to-analog converter to sell for as little as $99. One could argue that HRT's entire business model has contributed to shaping our attitudes toward the hobby: Because digital-audio technology continues to evolve at such a rapid pace, HRT has introduced a succession of newer and ever more effective Music Streamers, occasionally to the obsolescence of their predecessors; yet because those products have all been so affordable—remarkably and laudably so, given their thoroughly American provenance—we tend not to mind.
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