LATEST ADDITIONS

Florida Audio Expo 2020
AGD The Audion and Vivace Monoblock Amplifiers and Andante DAC/Preamp/Streamer, Ocean Way Audio Eureka Speakers
Julie Mullins  |  Feb 07, 2020  |  15 comments
A weekend in Florida in February, plus high-end audio gear galore? Yes, and yes. After five years (that's half a decade, but who's counting?) with rival publication The Absolute Sound, I'm now a free agent, so when Stereophile asked me to fly south to cover the Florida Audio Expo at the Embassy Suites in Tampa, it didn't take me long to accept.
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News
Post-Fire Future Unclear for Apollo Masters
Stereophile Staff  |  Feb 07, 2020  |  3 comments
On February 6, our sister site AnalogPlanet.com reported the news of a three-alarm fire at the Banning, CA headquarters of Apollo Masters, a renowned manufacturer of ready-to-cut lacquers for use in the LP-mastering industry. The blaze reportedly burned for approximately three hours before being brought under control, during which time an adjacent highway was shut down.
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Florida Audio Expo 2020
The Florida Audio Expo 2020: Sold Out??
Jim Austin  |  Feb 07, 2020  |  6 comments
It's Friday morning as I write this—the first day of the Florida Audio Expo, which is being held at the Embassy Suites Airport Westshore, near Tampa. As often happens, breakfast ran long, as colleagues and others stopped by for conversation. By the time I got up to attack the show—a little after 10am—someone told me the show was sold out, as in no more room for visitors. Say what? I've never heard of a sold-out audio show.
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Gramophone Dreams
Gramophone Dreams #33: Interconnects & Loudspeaker Cables
Herb Reichert  |  Feb 07, 2020  |  69 comments
When I applied for this job, I wrote a pretend review of the Rogue Audio Sphinx integrated amplifier and emailed it to Stephen Mejias, then Stereophile's deputy editor, who printed it and put it on John Atkinson's desk.

Before I sent it to Stephen, I showed a rough draft to my business agent, Sphere, who said, "Herb, you can't turn this in like this."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you speak as if you are not an audiophile and think you're superior to audiophiles."

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News
A GoldenEar Event in Baltimore
Stereophile Staff  |  Feb 06, 2020  |  0 comments
Thursday, February 13, 2020, 6–8pm: You are invited to an Evening at Soundscape, 406 W. Cold Spring Ln., Baltimore, MD, for a chance to talk with special guest Sandy Gross, founder and president of GoldenEar Technology.
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FeaturesHistorical
Krell Power: A Visit to the Laboratory of Doctor Morbius
John Atkinson  |  Feb 06, 2020  |  First Published: Apr 01, 1986  |  9 comments
The only one who knows this ounce of words is just a token
Is he who has a tongue to tell, but must remain unspoken.—Moondog, 1968

The Lockheed 1011 sits dormant on the ground at Chicago's O'Hare airport. "We have a little light bulb problem here" drawls the pilot in the approved Right Stuff manner. "We don't know if it's the bulb or what, we'll let you know."

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Music and Recording Features
Revinylization #2: Frog Pad Records, Electric Recording Company, Blue Note Tone Poet
Art Dudley  |  Feb 05, 2020  |  7 comments
Next to Christmas carols, Sousa marches, and the collected works of Bobby "Boris" Pickett, there's no more seasonal music than bluegrass, which comes to life at the 30 or so major outdoor festivals and scores of smaller events that take place every summer throughout the US. As I write this, on the day after Thanksgiving, 2019's bluegrass season is only a memory, and the 2020 season is more than a half a year away.
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Think Pieces
"Isn't Our Hobby the Greatest?"
Robert Schryer  |  Feb 04, 2020  |  12 comments
As per our ritual, Karim and Dan arrived at my door in late afternoon, bearing our ritual's customary offerings: dark beer, wine, cold pork sandwiches, fruit and chocolate tarts, good music on well-recorded CDs, and audio hardware to try out on the host's hi-fi—on this particular Friday, my hi-fi. It's what we did: break bread while gabbing like regular folk about regular things, then bolt for the listening room for an evening of hi-fi fun.
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Integrated Amp Reviews
Schiit Audio Ragnarok 2 integrated amplifier
Ken Micallef  |  Jan 31, 2020  |  5 comments
In Herb Reichert's review of the original Schiit Audio Ragnarok integrated amplifier, he wrote, "Schiit Audio's Ragnarok [is] the first amplifier of my experience that plays earth and sky, mind and body, brown eyes and blue, speakers and headphones, with equal narcotic intensity." Herb's colorful conclusions so persuaded me of the Ragnarok's worth that, when Schiit Audio's Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffatt announced the impending release of the Ragnarok 2, I pitched a Stereophile follow-up review.
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Miscellaneous
Book Review: Hi-Fi: The History of High-End Audio Design
Jim Austin  |  Jan 30, 2020  |  7 comments
Hi-Fi: The History of High-End Audio Design, by Gideon Schwartz, Phaidon Press, 2019. 272pp. $84.97, hard cover.

The ongoing evolution of hi-fi can be measured in any number of ways. Most obviously, we see that evolution in the technologies associated with our industry: in big breakthroughs—mono to stereo, tubes to transistors, analog to digital—as well as incremental improvements in materials and manufacturing techniques.

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