News

Sort By: Post Date | Title | Publish Date
March Madness
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Feb 13, 2016 • 5 comments
Metronome’s CD8 S, which adds digital inputs to the French company’s well-regarded CD player, graces our March issue’s cover. As is often the case these days, we loved the sound but hated the measured performance—madness indeed! Melco’s affordable server and Merging’s expensive network-connected NADAC multichannel D/A processor get our nod of approval, as do class-D amplifiers from Theta, NAD, and Spec, while Herb Reichert finds much to enjoy with Simaudio’s Moon Neo 340i integrated amp. And on the music side of things, Robert Baird praises Acoustic Sounds’ new stereo releases of classic Beach Boys albums and John Atkinson reacts to a recent report that classical music recordings will soon disappear. That would be madness!
Continue Reading »
Dealer Events in Chicago and Maryland Saturday
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Feb 05, 2016 • 1 comments
Chicagoland dealer Musical Artisans (8335 N. Keeler Avenuem Skokie,) and Maryland dealer JS Audio (4919 St. Elmo Avenue, Bethesda) are both having open houses this weekend: JS Audio presenting Wilson Audio's Peter McGrath playing his 4-channel recordings on a system featuring new components from Wilson, D'Agostino, dCS, and Nordost starting at 5pm, and Musical Artisans presenting the Midwest debut of DeVore Fidelity's new Gibbon X loudspeaker from 6:30–9:30pm.
Continue Reading »
Devialet Event in San Francisco, Thursday
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Feb 03, 2016 • 9 comments
High-End retailer AudioVisionSF (1628 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94109) is having what it calls a "Big Free Event!!" Thursday February, 7:30–9:30pm, featuring the Devialet Limited Edition Reference LE900 Original d'Atelier 900Wpc Integrated Amp/DAC/Phonostage. Only 100 of the LE900 were produced worldwide, and the amplifier features a new 900W D-amp, class-A evolution circuit with updated transistors, a new filter board, and an enhanced power supply, The event will also feature YG Acoustics loudspeakers, Clearaudio turntables, and Nordost cables.
Continue Reading »
Meridian Updates its Products to MQA
Filed under
News
Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Jan 29, 2016 • 27 comments
Meridian Audio's hotly anticipated firmware update for its MQA-ready electronics has arrived. Starting February 4, owners of Meridian's Explorer2 DAC (above), Prime headphone amplifier, 808v6 Reference CD player, 818v3 Reference Audio Core, Special Edition loudspeakers and 40th Anniversary systems will be able to upgrade their products and hear the full benefits that MQA-encoded files can deliver.
Continue Reading »
An Open Letter from Bill Low of AudioQuest
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Jan 28, 2016 • 286 comments
An open letter from myself and AudioQuest to the community—to everyone who cherishes the truth, regardless of their opinions about audio and digital cables, regardless of their opinions about AudioQuest.
Continue Reading »
VTL/Wilson/Transparent at Innovative Audio: Selling “Happy”
Filed under
News
Jim Austin • Posted: Jan 25, 2016 • 10 comments
Photo: Jim Austin

"'Happy' is our primary product," Elliot Fishkin, the proprietor of Innovative Audio, which is entering its 45th year of business, told visitors early Thursday evening, January 21. "We want you to be able to be connected to the music in profound ways." A small crowd was gathered in the lobby outside Innovative's newly renovated showrooms, in an expansive underground space on the east side of Manhattan, to hear amplifiers by VTL, cables by Transparent, and loudspeakers by Wilson Audio.

Continue Reading »
Stereophile Special Issue: 10 Years of Records to Die For
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Jan 19, 2016 • 20 comments
Available on newsstands and the Stereophile online Shop this week is a special 148-page "Collector's Edition" of Stereophile, in which we have compiled all of the reviews comprising the past 10 years' worth of R2D4—some 500 albums selected by 46 writers, organized by musical genre and listed alphabetically. Along with six short essays on recorded music by the magazine's music editor, Robert Baird, there are: 48 pages of Rock reviews, 20 pages of Jazz reviews, 15 pages of Opera & Vocal reviews, 14 pages of Classical Orchestral & Film Score reviews, 9 pages of Chamber Music & Instrumental reviews, and 10 pages of Folk, Blues & World Music reviews.
Continue Reading »
The February Issue's Here!
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Jan 17, 2016 • 3 comments
"The Record Player Reborn" declare the new issue's cover, referring to reviews of LP players from Oracle, Acoustic Signature, and VPI. But digital isn't forgotten, with John Atkinson raving about about Chord's new $599 portable DAC, Larry Greenhill upgrading his Bryston BDP-2 file player with a new soundboard, and Digital Audio Review's John Darkø kicking off the issue with a guest editorial on the boom in personal listening in Japan. And topping it all off is our annual "Records to Die For" listing: 56 albums every audiophile should have in their collection.
Continue Reading »
MQA's Sound Convinces Hardened Showgoers
Filed under
CES 2016, News
Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Jan 16, 2016 • 49 comments
Digging MQA (from L–R): Peter McGrath, Jason Victor Serinus, and Michael Fremer, with Bob Stuart anxiously looking on and Winai Pawitwatana behind. (Photo: John Atkinson)

CES 2016 marked the first time that three writers for Stereophile—Editor-in-Chief, John Atkinson; AnalogPlanet analog guru, Michael Fremer; and this Contributing Editor—could sit down in the same room with Bob Stuart of MQA/Meridian and spend a concentrated amount of time comparing before- and after-MQA encoded (Master Quality Authenticated) tracks.

Continue Reading »
MQA Takes Off Big-Time in 2016
Filed under
CES 2016, News
Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Jan 04, 2016 • 22 comments
Today, January 4, at "CES Unveiled" in Las Vegas, MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) launched major partnerships with Morten Lindberg's multiple Grammy Award-nominated, audiophile record label/download store 2L and playback partners Auralic, Aurender, and Bluesound. The entire 2L download catalog, starting with one of Lindberg's first recordings, made in 1993, and extending through his latest DXD (352.8kHz) recordings, has been scrubbed clean and born anew with MQA.
Continue Reading »
Thiel to Launch Live Streaming Studio
Filed under
News
Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Jan 02, 2016 • 3 comments
Slated to open in March 2016 in Nashville, TN, Thiel Audio's Aurora "Ultra-HD Streaming Studio" is positioned to merge the legacy of Thiel loudspeakers with the vibrancy and "wow factor" of Music City. Thiel's plan is to create a state-of-the-art venue where fans, specifically younger-generation fans, can unite with name musicians and emerging artists via live, interactive performances that are streamed in Ultra-HD video and lossless audio.
Continue Reading »
GoldenEar Event in Manhattan Saturday
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Dec 16, 2015 • 1 comments
Saturday, December 19, from noon –7pm, Sandy Gross, president of GoldenEar Technology, will be at Manhattan high-end audio retailer Stereo Exchange (627 Broadway, New York) demonstrating GoldenEar loudspeakers, including the Triton One, Stereophile's Joint Loudspeaker of 2015, as well as the new SuperSub XXL. Sandy will also be there to answer all your questions, and to talk about the speakers, the design process and his 40+ years in the audio industry.
Continue Reading »
Toronto Dealer's Nordost Event Thursday
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Dec 15, 2015 • 1 comments
Thursday, December 17, from 4–8pm, Audio Excellence (661 Chirslea Road, Unit 1, Vaughan, Ontario) will be hosting a special Nordost Event, "Cables, Power, and Accessories: How to get the most from your system." Throughout the evening, Nordost’s VP of North American Sales, Michael Taylor, will be presenting product demonstrations, making cable comparisons, and answering questions. Attendees will be able to take advantage of special pricing on Nordost products for the duration of the event!
Continue Reading »
The First Issue of 2016 Has Arrived
Filed under
News
Stereophile Staff • Posted: Dec 14, 2015 • 12 comments
Technics’ little gem of a speaker, the two-way SB-C700, signifies both the Japanese brand’s return to the high-performance audio scene and the start of Stereophile’s 54th year of continuous publication. Paradigm’s Prestige 95F tower speaker also gets the full review treatment, along with an idiosyncratic two-box CD player from the UK’s Audio Note, BAT’s cost-no-object Rex II tube preamplifier, and Apogee’s affordable but great-sounding Groove D/A headphone amplifier.
Continue Reading »
Music Lovers' Vivid Launch
Filed under
News
Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Dec 13, 2015 • 15 comments
In a four-room, every-seat-filled extravaganza that rivaled some of the Music Matters events in the number of high-quality components simultaneously on active display, the Berkeley, CA wing of Music Lovers Audio devoted the afternoon of December 5 to showcasing components from Vivid, dCS, Wilson, Luxman, Spectral, and other companies. With Philip O'Hanlon of On A Higher Note (distributor of Vivid, Luxman, and other brands), John R. Quick (dCS), Peter McGrath (Wilson Audio), and yours truly (above) on hand to give introductions and offer guidelines on how to listen and evaluate, a large store filled with audiophiles auditioned four fine-sounding systems at four different price points.
Continue Reading »

Pages