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Masimo Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Masimo Consumer Audio division, which is made up of the former Sound United hi-fi brands, to Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, for $350 million in cash. Pending regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close by the end of 2025. The sale transfers an extensive portfolio—including Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, Classé, and Boston Acoustics—to a buyer with business firmly rooted in audio. (The fate of the HEOS multiroom streaming platform remains…
Photo by Ken Micallef
Ask the average jazz-loving audiophile to list his favorite recording engineers, and such icons as Rudy Van Gelder, Roy DuNann, and Fred Plaut would top their lists. but if you asked a handful of current and recent New York City jazz musicians to cite their favorites, one name would leap to the front of the pack: James Allen Farber.
Farber's engineering and mixing credits span nearly 1000 albums, dating from the mid-1970s to the present day. He has won five Grammy Awards, in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album (three times), and…
Photo by Ken Micallef
Micallef: Regarding Rudy Van Gelder, he did live mixes. Did he generally cut lacquers soon after the recording session?
Farber: That I don't know, but I do know his mastering was very active. I know a mastering engineer who remastered one of Rudy's recordings. Compared to the original record, it was obvious how many moves Rudy made in the mastering process, revealing that mastering was a large part of his final sound. But I'm sure the recordings sounded ridiculous before the mastering, too. Rudy and the Columbia guys had an advantage I don't have: They…
It doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while a new turntable comes to my attention that I have no prior knowledge of. The last new turntable company that was a complete blank slate was J.Sikora, which I first encountered about six years ago courtesy of importer Jeff Fox of Notable Audio.
Now I find myself in that position again, with UK-based Connected-Fidelity and their turntable the TT Hub (footnote 1). Until I read the press release last December, sent to me by Mike Fajen of importer/distributor Sierra Sound, I was completely in the dark about the TT Hub, its manufacturer…
The AFI FLAT.DUO Record Flattener And Vinyl Relaxer
Even if it's not severe enough to make your needle skip, a warped record creates all kinds of havoc for your cartridge and system. As the cartridge rises and falls like a roller coaster, the inertia of the arm causes the tracking force to rise and fall dramatically. This gives the cartridge's suspension a workout, crushing the stylus and cantilever upwards as it goes up the warp, stretching it out as it goes down the other side. In addition, this flexing of the cartridge's suspension creates big changes in the stylus rake angle, and…
The story goes that starting in 1962, Malcolm Jones was KEF's "first employee," where he "did most of the design and development of the legendary KEF drive units—the B139, B200, B110, T15, T27—and the systems in which they were incorporated. Malcolm left KEF in 1974, having just completed the Reference Series 104 system and work on an active professional monitor to work full time at Falcon Acoustics Ltd."
Fast-forward a few years. I bought my first BBC LS3/5a in 1980. It was a Falcon Acoustics kit I saw advertised in the back of Speaker Builder magazine. Fingers crossed, I sent a postal…
Listening: I began my Lyra Delos trials by mounting it on a DS Audio HS-001 headshell attached to my Sorane SA-1.2 tonearm and connected with AudioQuest's 1.2m, 60pF Yosemite tonearm cable to a PrimaLuna EVO 100 phono preamplifier. I set VTF to precisely 1.75gm, as recommended. During break-in, which took no fewer than 40 sides, I experimented with shunt MC preamp loading of 100, 200, and 500 ohms. They all sounded similarly dryish, with extraordinary bass resolution and pristine focus. I settled on a 100 ohm load because that was the quietest and most relaxed. Two hundred ohms was more…
“It’s Luxman’s 100th Anniversary,” Stereophile Editor Jim Austin told me in passing. “You’ve got to hear how good the sound is in the Rhythm Distribution room that Luxman shares with Marten and Jorma.”
In the Prosperity room—a nice aspirational name—I found beautiful timbres and open, spacious sound. A DSD file of the Shelly Manne Trio’s “The Sicks of Us” excelled in smoothness and refinement. On a 24-bit/96kHz recording of pianist Alice Sara Ott performing Chopin, the system conveyed the piano’s radiance and its beguiling delicacy. Air and space were again excellent; dynamics,…
No fewer than five Stereophilers visited Fidelity Imports’ Utopia-D room during AXPONA 2025. I focused on the Audia Flight Strumento No.8 monoblocks ($34,999/each) that had joined forces with Audia Flight’s Strumento No.1 EVO preamplifier ($29,995), an FLS 20 SACD player/streamer ($21,999), and a Flight Phono ($6999).
Ken Micallef no doubt ogled the Wilson Benesch GMT One turntable system ($370,000), which shared the room with Wilson Benesch Omnium floorstanders ($149,999/pair) and the company’s $34,999 IGx Infrasonic Generator, a cylindrical subwoofer that plays frequencies as low…
As fine as I know Audio Research equipment to sound, I never expected to hear, in a drapery-lined exhibit space that's potentially anathema to quality sound, as thrilling and involving a demonstration as I heard in Quintessence Audio's “Connection” room. Especially not from an overly familiar recording.
That listening session almost never came to be. The first time I entered the Connection room, on the busiest day of the show, sound levels so exceeded the limits of what the room could sustain that music was reduced to clatter. In less time than it would have taken for me to sit…