LATEST ADDITIONS

Once upon a time, reviews of Musical Fidelity components frequently filled pages in Stereophile. But in all my years covering audio shows, I can't recall blogging about any of the company's products, not even once. So, when my editor offered a review of the new M8xi ($6490), a hefty 101lb dual-mono integrated amplifier that includes a DAC, I seized the opportunity to fill a black hole in my consciousness. (Kindly cast aside thoughts that it would take more than a hunk of audio equipment to fill the black hole in my brain.) As long as I didn't break my back lifting the M8xi, solo, to the top shelf of my rack—for this I humbly beg assistance from spouses, neighbors, and friends—new vistas were in store.

At $1295, the Tercet Mk.III represents a step up from CAL's $750 Icon, which I enthusiastically recommended back in April 1990 (Vol.13 No 4, footnote 1). Externally, with the exception of a wider and slightly thicker front panel, it appears to be a carbon copy of that unit. Like the other products in California Audio Lab's stable, the Tercet Mk.III is designed from the ground up in-house.

Summer!

COVID-19 notwithstanding, summer—warmth, flowers, leaves on trees—has descended on Greenwich Village, my New York City home for the past 30 years. What hasn't descended are tourists, belching motorcycles, behemoth sports cars, beer drinkers, and the usual summer hell-raisers, the sort that would've sent legendary Village bohemians Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs running back to their cold-water flats.

I was shocked and greatly saddened by news of the passing, at age 68, of Brian W. Russell, President and co-founder (along with his brother Chris Russell) of Bryston, Inc.