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Editor:
"Any magazine which publishes reviews has a primary responsibility to the truth."—John Atkinson, "As We See It," Stereophile, Vol.14 No.12

Borrowing a few lines from Stereophile seems to be the best way to make a point. All we at Scientific Fidelity want is the same thing from this review: the truth.

"Cuz Oi Di'I' Moiiiiiii Whyyyyyyyyyy!"—Corey Greenberg, Stereophile, this issue

Now, I must admit I have never heard Sid Vicious do "My Way," and I'm not sure I want to. My personal tastes lean more toward the Sinatra version, for…

Editor: It is not Vifa's assignment to comment on tests of loudspeakers [that use Vifa drive-units], as Vifa cannot take on the responsibility of the use and the sound of its speakers in the final product. As is known, we are involved in the design of neither cabinets nor crossovers.

Meanwhile, it is Vifa's assignment to deliver faultless, high-quality products which fulfill the high acoustical demands our customers are making today.

Mike Maloney [of Scientific Fidelity] was never promised a letter from Vifa…

It…

I haven't met Ray Samuels, except by phone, but I have one of his products in my hands right now. Well, actually, I have it in the palm of one hand: the incredibly tiny Emmeline The Hornet portable headphone amp, which I heard about from Wes Phillips via the Stereophile e-newsletter of June 1, 2006.

As soon as I read what Wes said, I knew I had to have a Hornet. Not because I own an iPod—I don't and probably, just to be contrarian, never will—but because I take my Sony D-EJ100 portable CD player to the library,…

Description: Rechargeable, battery-powered, portable headphone amplifier with three gain settings, one 1.8" stereo input jack, one 1/8" stereo output jack. No other specifications listed.
Dimensions: 3" L by 2" W by 1" H.
Price: $350. Approximate number of dealers: 1 (sold direct).
Manufacturer: Ray Samuels Audio, 8005 Keeler, Skokie, IL 60076. Tel: (847) 673-8739. Web: www.raysamuelsaudio.com.

Wes Phillips enthused over Ray Samuels Audio's Emmeline The Hornet portable headphone amplifier ($350) in our early-June eNewsletter, as did Sam Tellig in "Sam's Space" in September, and again in this issue. I thought it worthwhile, therefore, to complement those positive impressions with some measurements. (I remembered to fully charge the Hornet's internal 9V battery before starting the testing.)

The Hornet's maximum voltage gains, with its volume control set to its maximum, were 5.6dB, 12.7dB, and 20.8dB with the rear-panel switch set to its Low, Medium…

There is an apparent contradiction at the heart of the jazz aesthetic. On the one hand, the jazz art form demands constant innovation. The worst putdown a jazz musician can hear is not that he or she can't play, but that she or he sounds like someone else. On the…

That I used the word evaluate and avoided measure sums up the controversy: Are we better served by measuring audio performance by objective physical standards, or by judging audio performance by subjective personal reactions?

At first blush, the objectivists would seem to have the better argument. The proposition that a component that "measures better" therefore "is better" seems hard to argue with.

But what I would like to explore are two…

The Evolution bodywork, first seen in the W-8, is a major aesthetic step up for Simaudio, and it's even more appealing in the P-8, which adds a remarkably legible and useful display, a large volume-control knob, and other effective controls. As with the…

Even more impressive, to me, was the precision of the volume control. While setting up to do some acoustic measurements with the Goldline TEF-25 analyzer, I set up…