Today I'll be describing an "acorn" DAC, the least-expensive yet. LAiV Audio's new µDAC is small, costs just $994 ($1049 as of January 1 2026), and is dancing at the same party as the high-intensity, high-priced DACs. It offers listeners a unique perspective on what quality digital can sound like.

While I was coming to grips with this month's review subject, the idler drive Garrard 301 Advanced, I began to think about the various methods that have been used to spin turntable platters over the years. Since the transition a century ago from wind-up clockwork to electric motors, there have basically been three ways to spin a turntable platter...

Her life became a whirlwind. Taking the train in from Brooklyn to Manhattan to pitch songs and experience the East Village scene, she landed a song-publishing deal at age 14. In 1968, at 18, after a chance meeting in an elevator, a legendary songwriter/record producer was interested in assisting her in making her debut album.

Definitive Audio of Bellevue, Washington (near Seattle), one of the premier dealerships in the Pacific Northwest, continued its 50th anniversary celebration with a September event it called "Icons and Innovators." Highlighted by showings of the new JBL Everest series and Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus and 801 Abbey Road edition loudspeakers, the event drew a full house to the first of two sessions on the afternoon of September 18.

What's better than attending one audio event? Attending three. Well, not exactly three—more like two spread across three locations, tied together by one company: importer-distributor American Sound of Canada, which is based in Greater Toronto.

"None of the amps I build are better than the others," Justin Weber of Ampsandsound told me not long after we met. "They are just different." I may have smirked inwardly. According to his company's website, Weber makes no fewer than 23 amplifier models, ranging from the $2700 Kenzie OG to the $38,000 Arch Monos. Are they really all equally good?, I wondered.