That large, heavy, expensive three-way tower featured an enclosure built on an aluminum space frame with extruded aluminum walls. I was impressed not only by how it measured but also by its lack of…
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I have lost track of how many loudspeakers I have measured with DRA Labs' MLSSA system since Stereophile started accompanying its reviews with measurements in the late 1980s, but it must be close to 1000. Most of those speakers have long since faded from my memory, but there are some whose excellent measurements stick in my mind. One such is the Magico S5 Mk.II I reviewed in February 2017.
Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable. Occasionally we get complaints from manufacturers who object to being included in, say, Class B. That's their error: Inclusion in Class B is an honor.
Within each category, products are listed by class; within each class, they're in alphabetical order, followed by price, a review synopsis, and a note indicating the issues in which the review and any subsequent follow-up reports appeared. "Vol.48 No.11" indicates our November 2025 issue, for example. "WWW"…
As Jason Victor Serinus reported just ahead of High End Vienna 2026 earlier this month, some of the expectant exhibitors didn't get the rooms they wanted—or any rooms at all. To be fair, that's not unique to the main Vienna show, as there have often been satellite events adjacent to other big trade shows that endeavor to pick up spill-over exhibitors, and some of those satellite shows are also genuinely preferred by the brands that participate in them.
In Vienna, there were no fewer than three such auxiliary shows, the smallest of which—Xclusive High End Show Vienna 2026—is the…
Eric Nathan: Missing Words
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project, American Brass Quintet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Neave Trio, Hub New Music, cellist Parry Karp and pianist Christopher Karp
New Focus Recordings FCR314 (2 CDs, download). 2022. Shauna Barravecchio, Andrew Bove, et al., prods.; Mario Correa, Joel Gordon, et al., engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project, American Brass Quintet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Neave Trio, Hub New Music, cellist Parry Karp and pianist Christopher Karp
New Focus Recordings FCR314 (2 CDs, download). 2022. Shauna Barravecchio, Andrew Bove, et al., prods.; Mario Correa, Joel Gordon, et al., engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Ben Schott's 2013 book Schottenfreude is a glossary of German words invented by its author to describe contemporary life. Such notions as "tiny triumphs of nimble-fingered dexterity" and "the exhausting…
Fifty years ago this month, Vol.1 No.1, Issue No.1 of The Stereophile, published, edited, and mostly written by J. Gordon Holt out of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, hit the newsstands. Gordon had worked for two major audio magazines, High Fidelity and HiFi/Stereo Review (later renamed Stereo Review), and had been disgusted by those magazines' pandering to advertisers. Not only was The Stereophile going to tell it like it was, it was going to judge audio components by listening to them—a heretical idea in those days of meters and measurements. "Dammit," said Gordon, who died in 2009, "if nobody…
MQA has once again floated to the surface of the perfectionist-audio pond—not belly-up as some have hoped but forced there by relentless pursuit by anti-MQA predators posing as impartial jellyfish.
In case you've been living amidst the seaweed at the bottom of the pond, MQA is a thing that's done to digital audio data—sort of a codec that is said to reduce the "blurring" repeated digital conversions cause. For high-resolution audio, MQA compresses data into a much smaller file or stream while retaining, it is said, the sonic benefits of the original high-rez audio (and also of "…
Available elevators at CES are usually scarce, so seasoned show-goers hit the stairs at the end of each floor to move up or down. Since the Simaudio room was right next to the stairs, we decided to head straight up five floors to the 35th where distributor Bluebird Music had their nest in one of the larger Venetian suites. Jake bounced up the stairs no problem carrying his ukulele, the rest of us maybe a tad more winded. But we made it and were greeted by the Bluebird and Chord crew as we entered.
John Atkinson had stuck with us, wanting to hear Jake play as often as possible, and…
Editors' Choice
dCS Rossini Apex
With so many great products passing through my test lab and listening room this year, it was difficult to choose just one. I must give shoutouts to the KEF Blade Two Meta loudspeaker and the Channel D Lino C3.3 phono preamplifier for their audio engineering excellence. But in the end, the honors go to the dCS Rossini Apex. Yes, it also features superb engineering, but the two weeks it spent in my system after the test bench work was done were the most musically involving I have experienced from digital audio.—John Atkinson
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I've always considered the high end to be industrial art. People who favor a certain brand are saying, in a way, "I like that designer's interpretation. I like his or her art."—David Wilson
Last March, I had a rare experience akin to hearing the same recording through two different systems. I heard Andris Nelsons conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the same program—Haydn's Symphony 90, and Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, followed by his Symphony 3—in two very different venues: UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and, 50 miles north, Sonoma State University's Weill Hall.
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With increasing frequency, many audiophiles and industry professionals have accepted that the quest for highest-quality sound quality is a luxury and esoteric pursuit that, by its very nature, can appeal to only a small niche market. According to this view, the masses—the 99%, if you will—are either satisfied with Pioneer, Bose, Samsung, Dr. Dre, and iPhone/Android/tablet sound; can't tell the difference between quality and dreck; or will never have the money or imagination to move beyond lowest-common-denominator sound. To the extent that the vast majority knows anything about high-end…