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At the risk of writing hyperbole, I will state that Audio Video 2023, held October 27–29, 2023, was unlike any other audio show I've attended. At no other audio show have I encountered so many young people, so many women, and so many brands unknown in the United States. Not even in Munich have I encountered crowds as dense as those that mobbed the show's biggest site, the National Stadium of Poland, PGE Narodowy, on Saturday. A press badge counts for nothing when you're 11" short of 6'3", attempting to…

Simaudio's Moon 861 can be operated as a conventional two-channel amplifier or, by bridging the two output stages, as a monoblock. I performed a complete set of measurements in both modes on a different sample from those auditioned by Jason Victor Serinus. Mine had the serial number 311A22426220. I mainly used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system for the testing, repeating some of the measurements with the magazine's higher-performance APx555 system. I preconditioned the Moon 861 by following the FTC's recommendation of running it in stereo mode at one-eighth the…

With their laudable spirit undiminished by the passage of time, Michael Alazard (left) and Anton Dotson (Buddha) traveled all the way from Las Vegas to continue holding forth in mind-bending splendor. Was this the true funhouse within the…

Ever since 2013, when Alon Wolf's California-based Magico loudspeaker company consolidated its original 5000 sq. ft. Berkeley headquarters and 5000 sq. ft. San Jose warehouse into a single 20,000 ft. facility in Hayward, people have been telling me that I had to experience the company's "incredible" listening room. Ironically, it was only after I had relocated from the Bay Area to Port Townsend, WA, that the opportunity arose to take Alon Wolf up on his long-standing invitation to visit.

"It…

In Stereophile's February 2018 issue, I reviewed the MBL Noble Line N31, a baroque-styled CD player and D/A processor from German manufacturer MBL. The N31 is expensive, at $15,400, but, as I said in my review's conclusion, digital audio engineering doesn't get any better and neither does digital sound quality. However, I also wrote that the N31's absence of a volume control might be a problem for those who've sold their preamplifiers, as will be the lack of a network port for those who've banished their noisy NAS drives from the…

USB is by far the most versatile connection; it's capable of PCM up to 32/384 (I corroborated up to 24/354.2, the highest-resolution PCM files I…

For fans of these two highly idiosyncratic artists, the only surprise this album may hold is the music. Others may reel as much at the spontaneous improvisatory nature of the playing as the wildness of the repertoire and the uniqueness of its sequencing.

If there's anything that Leclair's short Tambourin in C major and C.P.E. Bach's Presto, Helm 66 VI have in common with two movements from Jörg…

Saturday–Sunday, April 14–15, 10am–5pm: Lyric HiFi (1221 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY) invites audiophiles to listen to an assortment of systems, interact with representatives from brands such as McIntosh, Focal, and Audio Research, and qualify to purchase demo units at 20% off, all part of The Show at Lyric HiFi.

Lyric co-owners Lenny Bellezza’s and Dan Mondoro’s fine-tuned listening rooms will host at least seven different systems. In renovations which cost nearly $500,000 (and that’s in 1982 dollars), architects and acoustical engineers sought to stifle the rumbles of the…

Because the CH Precision M1.1 is so heavy (165lb), I drove the 45 miles to Michael Fremer's home with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"), cables, noninductive power resistors, and analog and digital oscilloscopes, and I set up everything on a table in his garage. Because I knew from experience that the AC outlets in the garage are on a circuit with a 15A breaker, I ran two long extension cables—one for the test gear, one for the amplifier, which has two AC cords—to an outlet in the house that has a 20A circuit.

I…

I measured the Aqua Formula xHD DAC with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 As We See It"), using both the Audio Precision's coaxial and AES/EBU digital outputs, and USB data sourced from my MacBook Pro running on battery power with Pure Music 3.0 playing WAV and AIFF test-tone files. Apple's USB Prober utility identified the Formula xHD as "aqua XHD" from "aqua," its serial number as "0 (none)," and confirmed that its USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Apple's AudioMIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the Formula…