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Warsaw wraps up royally

Note: As we arrive onsite to prepare for our coverage of High End Vienna and its many satellite shows, we share more of Jason Victor Serinus and Rogier van Bakel's coverage of Europe's second most important audio show, Audio Video Warsaw. Audio Video Warsaw 2026 will take place this fall, October 23-25, 2026. For Jason and Rogier's previous Warsaw show coverage, go here.

The final day of Audio Video Warsaw 2025 ended with claims that it was the second or third largest audio show in the world. Unique visitors reached a record 14,881. (High End may not count unique visitors, but…

Stereophile's Products of 2025 Editors' Choice Awards

Editors' Choice Awards

Magico S5 2024 loudspeaker
Introduced in 2024 to celebrate the California company's 20th anniversary, Magico's S5 2024 may be large and heavy (and expensive), but this three-way, sealed-box floorstanding loudspeaker stepped out of the way of the music with every recording I played. I was particularly impressed by the Magico's uncolored midrange, the control and evenness of its low frequencies, and how the two loudspeakers presented an appropriately large but well-defined soundstage with orchestral recordings. I concluded my review by writing that the S5…

Music in the Round #56

Late in May, Dolby Laboratories held a two-day press event, Fidelity Forum 2.0, to announce a new feature added to the production tools included in their flagship codec, TrueHD. While I could not attend, Jason Victor Serinus reported all the details for Stereophile.

Briefly, while TrueHD has always supported 24-bit/96kHz resolution, the great majority of Blu-ray discs carry audio of no higher resolution than 24-bit/48kHz-barely better than what's found on CDs. That these audio tracks typically sound better than CD, may be due to better attention to production efforts, the use of the 24-…

The Entry Level #10

We were sitting near the pool, in a cozy, private cabana on the outdoor terrace of the Trump Plaza Residences in downtown Jersey City, surrounded by all kinds of beauty: To the north, the old Powerhouse Building stood proud, strong, and silent; to the south, Exchange Place's Colgate Clock was just beginning to glow, extending its tireless arms toward Lower Manhattan; to the east, the Empire State Building soared into the humid evening sky, its white-lit spire making thin veils of the summer clouds; and to the west, the redbrick row houses of Harsimus Cove hummed with the sounds of quiet…

The Entry Level #25 Page 2

Ouch. That one stung a bit. I spun around in circles, wondering how to begin a response. Should I start with the strange idea of "musicality," or with the horrible perversion of my gear as "lo-fi"? Then again, should I begin by enumerating my qualifications? Should I remind everyone that I've spent significant time listening to some of the most expensive hi-fi products in the world, that I've listened to more gear in the last five years than most people hear in their lives? Or should I simply punch the computer screen?

Luckily, "Enophile" came to my defense: "'Musicality'? I don't buy…

Pass Laboratories XP-32 line preamplifier Page 2

I asked Wayne if there had been changes to the power supply: "The new design uses two double-shielded, low-noise toroids in a true dual-mono topology for the gain channels and another transformer and linear power supply dedicated to the control architecture. We changed from the single Plitron [transformer] to the new Avel Lindbergs. ... The use of three fully independent power supplies in the control chassis results in dramatically lower radiated noise and far better THD+noise figures in the gain stages. Power supply regulation in the unit is a bit more complex, with regulators feeding the…

Göbel High End Divin Marquis loudspeaker Page 2

I had emailed Oliver Göbel a diagram of my room, and he was confident the Divin Marquises would work well in it. I ended up with the woofer of the left-hand Marquis 37" from the LPs that line the nearest sidewall, the right-hand loudspeaker's woofer 34" from the bookshelves that line its sidewall. The woofers were 88" from the wall behind them. This was a little farther out than I wanted, but I couldn't place the speakers any closer to the wall due to the two stairs and raised platform behind the right-hand Marquis that led to the vestibule. The speakers were 120" from the position of my head…

ELAC Alchemy Series DPA-2 power amplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

Although the ELAC Alchemy DPA-2 is a stereo amplifier, Jason Victor Serinus auditioned it as a pair of monoblocks. (In mono mode, the signal is fed to either input and the output taken from the left channel's red binding post and the right channel's black binding post.) I therefore performed a complete set of measurements with a DPA-2 in mono mode then repeated some of the tests in stereo mode. As the DPA-2 has an output stage operating in class-D, I inserted an Audio Precision auxiliary AUX-0025 passive low-pass filter between the test load and my Audio Precision…

Records to Die For 2020 Page 6

Kalman Rubinson

Kurt Weill, Et Al: Bye Bye Berlin
Marion Rampal, vocals; Raphaël Imbert, saxophone and bass clarinet; Quatuor Manfred
Harmonia Mundi HMM 902295 (CD). 2018. Alban Moraud, artistic dir. and prod.

A gentle bass clarinet introduction, Rampal's soft and breathy voice, and a plucked bass in a habanera rhythm set us up for the entry of her full voice, with strings, as they launch into the eager, longing tango of Weill's "Youkali." Rampal, the quartet, and—importantly—Imbert's low winds share a moderately dry acoustic whose subtle ambiance is just…

Brilliant Corners #6: Munich from the Back of the Bus

Alex Halberstadt (front) listens to the BAACH-SP Adio system at High End Munich. (Photo: Jason Victor Serinus)

If you're going to Germany to immerse yourself in big-city excitement—churning dance clubs, matterful contemporary art, visitors and food from around the world, and street life that goes on all night—you'll probably find it in Berlin. Though rents have been climbing and there's no shortage of dirty sidewalks and petty crime, the German capital remains one of the most youthful and vibrant cities in Europe, an art and culture center with large expatriate communities and endless…