AXPONA 2025

Rogue Audio’s Bill Magerman and Nick Fitzsimmons introduced the RP-3 at AXPONA 2025—a new preamp that’s tube-equipped and unmistakably Rogue. The RP-3 ($3495) is a feature-packed machine with two 12AU7 tubes in a mu-follower design, a remote control, home-theater bypass/unity-gain inputs, three sets of RCA inputs, and two pairs of XLR inputs. Also onboard: a mono button, a tube-based high-power headphone amp, linear power supplies, and a three-year warranty. Like all Rogue gear, it’s made in the US.

The system in the Rogue room included an Eversolo DMP-A6 streamer ($859), a Benchmark DAC3 B ($1899), and a Rogue Audio ST-100 Dark amplifier ($4995) that ably drove the Magnepan 1.7x panels ($4995/pair).

Darwin Cable Company supplied two Keystone XLRs, two Natural XLRs, and Natural speaker wires, priced by length and reasonably affordable by high-end standards.

Magerman and Fitzsimmons’s rig breathed like it was alive. The sound was seamless, large in scale, and coherent. Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place,” from Kid A, sounded appropriately doom-filled and sweetly layered, back to front. “Very airy, yet very solid,” my notes said. This was an end-game system that offered musicality, excitement, and a sense of discovery with every stream played.