I reviewed the Audio Note TT-2 turntable for Analog Planet, and room 485 held the Audio Note TT-3 with PSU 3 and Arm Three ($18,997) mounted with a IO1 MC cartridge ($5028). I reviewed the majestic Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister Phono integrated amplifier for Stereophile; Gould played its upscale sibling, the Meishu…
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Solid audiophile citizen Audio Note UK teamed with Miami dealer Soundlux Audio to produce ultra sweet sounds. Soundlux Audio’s Eric Gould and coworker/compadre Frederico Unda calmy dealt with my early morning stress-brain syndrome, playing music through a system I know well!
"But it is the wildest, most incredible music story of all time and I'm at least mildly flattered that I played a miniscule part in it.
I'm even more pleased that it's all behind me."
—Dave Dexter Jr. From his autobiography, PlaybackIt's almost too easy to make Dave Dexter Jr. the villain in the story of the Beatles' fumbled introduction to America. A devoted denigrator of rock'n'roll who thought it was a passing fad meant for the kiddies, and who also thought John Lennon played "lousy harmonica," he was just one of the many older music fans who were sure that Elvis Presley's hips…
Housed at Abbey Road Studios, the UK Beatles session tapes have been guarded and preserved in a way that makes the security deployed around British Crown Jewels seem suspect. The US Dexter tapes are currently stored in the Iron Mountain facility in Pittsburgh. Despite their surprisingly good condition, there were several small physical issues with the US tapes.
"There weren't a lot of problematic things other than what was inherent in the recordings that I could not change," Reeves recalls. "There were only two spots that were problematic that were audible. Both of them were able…
Michael Ochs of Upstream Audio in Deerfield Beach, Florida, brought a sweet rig to FLAX that included the new Clearaudio Unity tonearm, allied with the Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable that I reviewed for Stereophile back in June 2022.
The Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable ($45,000), with the gorgeous flagship Unity tonearm ($20,000), was mounted with a Hana Umami Red MC cartridge ($3,950). This analog goodness fed an Aesthetix Audio Corp. Rhea Signature Phono Preamplifier with Dynamicap capacitors, “hand-tuned RIAA,” and HRS feet ($10,000).
Of course, digital…
One of my favorite things about this pastime is the modesty of its aims. Despite the sometimes-astronomical sums spent on gear, and the small handful of drama queens who populate various corners of this hobby, all we're doing is trying to enjoy recorded music at home. No one here is reversing planetary warming or solving the Riemann hypothesis. The sole purpose of the pursuit we write about in these pages is to please, enlighten, and entertain. I like that about it.
This means that aesthetics matter. During a recent trip to Japan, I found myself marveling at the many vintage audio…
It's been years since I lived with the purple Murasakino, but my quibble with this otherwise stellar SUT was its merely decent portrayal of tone colors. Happily, the Monster Can elicited richer, more saturated colors from my records. A good color test is the title track from Gabor Szabo's Spellbinder (Impulse! AS-9123), an improvisation with the slightly crazed, careening feel of surf rock. The Hungarian guitarist's second release from 1966, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio, highlights the distinctive and very full sound Szabo created with his amplified Gibson guitar…
Located directly across from my berth 444, I fell out of my room and into 445, knowing not what was in there. I spied the handsome profile of Nexus Audio Technologies’ Walter Schofield, seated alone on a single padded chair, closely appraising a system of his own making. I grabbed a couple of donuts, poured myself a cup of Joe, and asked Walter to fill me in. He came out of his trance. “Ken!”
Here we had the Wolf Audio Systems Red Wolf SX Music Server ($9400) allied to a T+A SD 3100 HV Reference Streaming DAC ($36,390), feeding a T+A HV 3100 Preamplifier ($23,750) and a stunning tubed T…
At the Florida International Audio Expo, Julie Mullins interviewed the Scott Walker Audio team as they showcased Aldo Filippelli’s installation from Luxury Audio Group. Every component was selected to suit a 35×55' room with 10' ceilings, ensuring the system delivers precise, adaptable sound in a challenging space.
At its core are the Estelon Extreme MkII speakers—a pair costing $296,000—that are engineered to handle vast air volumes yet are fine-tunable with high precision. Their motorized front module, integrating a diamond‑coated tweeter, mid‑range, and mid‑bass, adjusts…
Among the many reasons to be grateful for audio shows (footnote 1), one stands out: They allow me to set reasonable expectations of what components and whole audio systems can or cannot achieve. They have helped me set standards.
Name your component: I've heard enough of them in every price range to know what's cutting edge, what's good, and what's barely (if at all) living up to its marketing promises (footnote 2). Although these days I mainly cover the higher priced spread, when I encounter a component that costs considerably less yet delivers most or all that I've come to expect from…
Doing it my way
Thanks to the internet, everything you might ever want to know about front and back panels of the EMM Labs DA2i is a mere click away (footnote 5). Five small buttons on the front panel, or the handy metal infrared remote control, allow you to mute the output, change polarity, adjust front-panel brightness settings, choose the screen saver option, or reset the unit or its network settings to factory defaults. If you choose sufficient illumination for the front panel display, it's easy to view most of your setting choices (including input and file format) from as much…