This makes me sad. I wasn't just a client of Lyric; I worked there.
Sometime after 1956, Michael Kakadelis, known to almost everyone as Mike Kay, went to work at a second-floor hi-fi shop called Lyric. In 1959, he bought the business and moved it a little bit north to a street-level storefront at 1221 Lexington Avenue. It stood there from then until now.
Lyric began selling hi-…
New York's Lyric Hi-Fi & Video is one of high-end audio's longest-standing and most legendary institutions. In a recent telephone conversation, Leonard Bellezza, Lyric's owner and president, confirmed what many in this industry have long heard rumored: Lyric is closing.
In 1956, Michael Kakadelis, known as Mike Kay, took a job at a hi-fi store. Kay acquired the business three years later and moved it to Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side, where it stayed until it closed. Kay was a degreed engineer. He fixed and built…
I never met Audio Research Corporation founder William Zane Johnson, who died in 2011. But when he founded his now-legendary company in 1970, I and my ragged troupe of Dynaco modifiers were in the trenches, fighting the sand-warrior hordes during the first transistor onslaught. Our battle was almost lost when that shiny new warrior appeared on the north ridge. He, too, brandished a modified Dynaco Stereo…
I was already a Roon user, but Roon and my DAC—a PS Audio DirectStream—weren't yet talking to each other. The experiences offered by the various control apps I tried were unsatisfying. I had a vision of how things ought to work, but the world didn't conform. Not yet.
I built up an Intel NUC and loaded it with ROCK—the Roon-Optimized Core Kit—and Roon. Soon, after some…
"Since I am the truth," respondeth the tube, "I have nothing to say that is not already declared by my sound."
"But I must have the truth, and without bias!" proclaimeth the audiophile.
"What good is a tube without bias?" answereth the tube.
Having uttered these words, the tube began to glow. It gloweth with a light so golden that the audiophile's eyes were forced to close and his ears to open. Images did appear before them…
Description: Class-AB monophonic tubed power amplifier. Tube complement (each amplifier): (1) 12SJ7GT (NOS Hytron); (2) 12SN7GT (NOS GE); 4 KT150 (Tung-Sol). Maximum power: 160Wpc into 4 ohms (19dBW). Frequency response: 10Hz–80kHz, –3dB. Input impedance: 20k ohms balanced, 47k ohms single-ended. Output impedance: 0.5 ohms. S/N ratio: >80dB below 1V. Power consumption: 500VA max.
Dimensions: 17" (432mm) W × 12" (305mm) H × 21" (533mm) D. Weight: 75lb (34kg).
Chassis finishes: Natural or black-anodized aluminum.
Serial numbers of units reviewed:…
Digital sources: dCS Rossini SACD/CD transport, D/A converter, Clock, and Network Bridge; EMM Labs DV2 Integrated DAC; Synology 5-bay NAS 1019+; Roon Nucleus+ server; Uptone Audio etherRegen; Small Green Computer Sonore opticalModule; TP-Link gigabit Ethernet media converters (2) with multimode duplex fiberoptic cables; Linksys routers (2); Arris modem, all powered by HDPlex 200W (1) and 300W (2) four-component linear power supplies; external hard drives, SSD USB sticks, iPad Pro; Apple 2017 MacBook Pro computer.
Preamplifier: Dan D'Agostino Momentum…
When I unpacked one of the Evolution Monoblock amplifiers (serial number EVO2027), I wondered if I had the correct amplifier, as it looked identical to the Doshi Monoblock V3.0 that JVS reviewed in November 2018. It even uses the same quartet of Tung-Sol KT150 output tubes. But as Jason describes in this review, there are significant differences.
As with the older amplifier, before I started examining its performance on the test bench with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"), I left the amplifier powered up for 30…
John Atkinson's measurements of the Falcon loudspeaker are now posted here. JA compares the new speaker'…