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Digital Processor ReviewsMedia Server Reviews
Aurender A10 network music player/server
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Dec 21, 2017  |  55 comments
A huge fuss was made over Aurender's first music server, the S10, when it premiered in 2011 at the California Audio Show. While I didn't feel that the room acoustics and setup were good enough at CAS to permit an honest appraisal, the looks and features of the S10 (now discontinued) thrust Aurender into the spotlight. So when John Atkinson, who had very favorably reviewed Aurender's N10 server in April 2016, asked if I would evaluate Aurender's new A10, the opportunity to serve so many audiophiles with a single review elicited from me an unequivocal "Yes!"
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Recording of the Month
Recording of January 2018: Carry Fire
Robert Baird  |  Dec 21, 2017  |  12 comments
In 2010, down in the East Village, on Delancey Street, at the NYC debut party for Robert Plant's Band of Joy, the assembled rock press, assorted hangers-on, and wannabe VIPs patiently sipped drinks as we waited for the guest of honor. Suddenly, with no fanfare or even announcement, he stepped out of a closet or secret passage of sorts into a roomful of astonished smiles. He'd been there all along.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
GoldenEar Technology Triton Reference loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Dec 19, 2017  |  14 comments
Back in January 2010, in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, I was prowling the corridors of the Venetian Hotel when I bumped into loudspeaker auteur Sandy Gross, cofounder first of Polk Audio and then of Definitive Technology. Knowing that Gross was no longer associated with Definitive, I asked him what he was getting up to in his retirement.

Retirement? He showed me a photo of a plain, cloth-covered, black tower speaker and promised to keep in touch. When next I heard from him, it was to announce that, along with his wife, Anne Conaway, and his former partner at DefTech, Don Givogue, he had started a new loudspeaker company, GoldenEar Technology, Inc., and that the plain black loudspeaker was the first in a line of models to be named Triton.

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Audacious AudioFloor Loudspeaker Reviews
Vivid Audio Giya G1 Spirit loudspeaker
Jon Iverson  |  Dec 19, 2017  |  3 comments
It's been more than seven years since the late Wes Phillips reviewed Vivid Audio's top-of-the-line loudspeaker, the Giya G1, for Stereophile, and since then the speaker has been seriously revised. At first glance you still notice the sui generis form; closer inspection reveals fundamental changes that make it, in most respects, an entirely new speaker.
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Katz's CornerInnerFidelity
Katz's Corner Episode 21: How Insensitive! Part 3
Bob Katz  |  Dec 19, 2017  |  0 comments
This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

May I have a drumroll, please! Here is the expanded amplifier measurement chart, presenting the essential measurements in a way that consumers can actually use, without forcing them to become engineers. At first it appears to be a daunting looking chart, but consumers will be presented with only a few of these measurements.

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Robert Baird
Happy Christmas: The Beatles Fan Club Singles
Robert Baird  |  Dec 18, 2017  |  4 comments
Connecting with your most loyal and engaged fans is not a marketing strategy that was born with the advent of Facebook and Twitter.
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Sweepstakes
ELO Vinyl Set Sweepstakes
Stereophile Staff  |  Dec 17, 2017  |  96 comments
Register to win a copy of ELO's 2LP collector's picture disc edition of Out of the Blue we are giving away.

According to the company:

"One of the indisputable masterpieces--and most commercially successful titles--in the ELO canon, Out of the Blue, the group's seventh studio album, was originally released in October 1977."

[This Sweepstakes is now closed.]

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Jason Victor Serinus
Seattle and Dausgaard Welcome Us to Nielsen's World
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Dec 17, 2017  |  11 comments
For those unfamiliar with the symphonies of Danish composer Carl Nielsen (1865–1931)—that includes me—the startling opening of his Third Symphony, "Sinfonia espansiva," will undoubtedly come as a shock. Its relentless pounding chords, played at an accelerating pace by the entire orchestra on the same pitch, may owe more than a little to Beethoven's Third Symphony, "Eroica," but their language is far more modern, and reflective of an era profoundly unsettled. Heard in high-resolution stereo (24/96 WAV) in the new live recording of Nielsen's Symphonies No. 3 and 4 from the Seattle Symphony, conducted by their Music Director Designate, Thomas Dausgaard, the symphony's opening volley seems calculated to catch us off guard, and convince us to listen with care to whatever may follow.
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Fred Kaplan
My Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2017
Fred Kaplan  |  Dec 16, 2017  |  2 comments
It's that time of the year when I shift away from the world's calamities to some of its finest achievements (for a minute anyway), which is to say, here is my list of the best jazz albums of 2017. Elaborations, with sound clips (often links to entire tracks) can be found in the version that I've written of this for my main gig at Slate, though followers of this blog will note—and will be reminded in some of the links below—that I've covered some of these albums in this space over the year.
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Headphone ReviewsInnerFidelity
Sennheiser HD 660 S Over-Ear Open Headphones
Tyll Hertsens  |  Dec 16, 2017  |  0 comments
This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

For now it's sufficient to state that the Sennheiser HD 600 and HD 650 are probably the most highly regarded enthusiast headphone in the world, and I highly recommend both. The HD 650 is a bit too warm sounding for me (just a bit), and the HD 600 is my favorite of the two. Let's see if the HD 660 S can continue the legend!

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