Given the steady decline, in recent years, in CES attendance by high-end audio distributors and dealers, many observers were not surprised by the decreased…
search
Last January, in Las Vegas, a record 170,000 people attended the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show. Most of them neither saw nor heard a trace of high-end audio gear. Not only was all mention of what CES calls "high performance audio" absent from the show's official Attendee Guide, but the hallways of the Venetian Tower, which in past CESes were filled with high-end manufacturers, dealers, and distributors, were anything but crowded.
What do Prince, David Bowie, Merle Haggard, Gato Barbieri, Phife Dawg, Frank Sinatra Jr., Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake & Palmer), Dan Hicks (Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks), Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire), Paul Kantner and Signe Toly Anderson (Jefferson Airplane), Glenn Frey (Eagles), Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople), pianist Paul Bley, bassist Rob Wasserman, sopranos Susan Chilcott, Phyllis Curtin, and Denise Duval, countertenor Brian Asawa, composers Steven Edward Stucky and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and conductors Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gilbert Kaplan, Gregg Smith,…
To put it mildly, Jack Vad (second row in photo, orange shirt) was dismayed. The Grammy Award–winning media producer and chief engineer for the San Francisco Symphony had just returned from the 2014 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and was trying to make sense of his experiences there. When he'd carried his latest recordings, which I think are superbly recorded, into rooms at the show and asked if he could play them, exhibitors were anything but enthusiastic.
Vad, who at RMAF 2014 also appeared in an "Experts Ask the Experts" panel discussion, and presented formal demos of the same recordings…
For the longest time, I've found the label "hobby" inadequate to describe the audiophile goal of better sound reproduction. Yes, for some, the mechanics of the High End have become an end in themselves—a way to tinker and tweak, build and rebuild in classic hobby fashion. But for many others, specifically earbud listeners, folks with whole-house systems, and those who'd rather push a button on a remote and sit back or dance rather than roll tubes or tinker, the descriptor hobby falls woefully short.
Recent conversations with high-resolution advocate Marc Finer, of the Digital…
To accompany my review of the Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems Progression monoblock amplifier elsewhere in this issue, I talked to Dan D'Agostino about the amplifier's design. I started by asking him what were some of the major differences between the Momentum and the Progression monoblocks?
Dan D'Agostino: I took the best parts of the Momentum's more sophisticated and complex circuitry and put them in the Progression, without using the same high parts count. Each stage of the Momentum's gain amplifier is separate, with input stage and driver stages on separate rails. All of the…
Multichannel MQA again, from April 2018 (Vol.41 No.4):
"Not MQA again!" I'm sure some of you will say, regardless of where you stand on it. The loud debate is often less about how MQA actually sounds and works than about opinions and, to an alarming degree, charges of dishonesty and bias. While Stereophile's John Atkinson and Jim Austin continue to strive to rise above all that, all I want to know is what value MQA might have for my own enjoyment of music.
This is not my first stab at this: In the May 2017 Stereophile I both recounted my long-ago first exposure to MQA, which…
The 2018 audio show season is about to start and it's not just Stereophile's coverage of high-end audio shows—which has taken a leap forward with the inclusion of Jana Dagdagan's binaural videos—that's changing. The shows themselves are on the move.
Take the free Montréal Audio Fest (March 23–25, Hotel Bonaventure Montréal, Quebec). Exhibitors are invited to present systems for under $5000 in addition to their preferred systems, and, in an attempt to attract visitors aged 18–35, are encouraged to play music from video-game soundtracks. In addition, musicians will perform live some of the…
Editors' Choices of 2017
Audiodesksysteme Gläss Pro Vinyl Cleaner ($4199)
Without playing a note, the Audiodesksysteme Gläss Pro Vinyl Cleaner rocked my listening world. This wonderfully designed car wash for LPs accomplishes far more than I expected: reduction in noises of all kinds, and a magical lifting of yet another veil from the music. Brilliant!—Sasha Matson
Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 90 loudspeaker & Kii Audio Three loudspeaker (Joint Award) ($84,990/pair & $13,255/pair)
These remarkable products prove that the traditional loudspeaker paradigm has…
Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable.
Within each category, products are listed by class; within each class, they're in alphabetical order, followed by their price, a review synopsis, and a note indicating the issues in which the review, and any subsequent follow-up reports, appeared. "Vol.44 No.9" indicates our September 2021 issue, for example. "WWW" means the review is also posted online.
Stereophile's Recommended Components list is concerned mainly with products available in the US…
I'm writing this one week after returning from Schaumburg, Illinois, where I attended my first real audio show since the Florida Audio Expo in early 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to gain momentum. Everyone I talked to was hopeful, but no one could predict what attendance would be like or what people's attitudes would be.
There were a few glitches, mainly logistical: Shipments didn't arrive or arrived damaged. One exhibitor had to carry an integrated amp to the show on his lap, first on a bus and then on a plane. (I didn't think to ask: Did the amplifier fit in the overhead bin…