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Within a 24-hour time span this past weekend, two important audiophile establishments in CA suffered major burglaries. On the morning of February 28, headphone manufacturer Audeze in Costa Mesa lost perhaps $250,000 in headphones, plus an undetermined amount of raw material from its operating and manufacture headquarters. At around 4am on February 27, and approximately 425 miles north, retailer AudioVision San Francisco experienced $100,000 worth of damage to their new headquarters plus the loss of much expensive gear when a truck rammed through their storefront (above).
Nearly 500 audiophiles descended upon Definitive Audio's Seattle location on Thursday, February 26 for the 10th Music Matters event in the Pacific Northwest. The "mother" of all Music Matters, and inspiration for all the other similarly named events that happen around the country, Definitive Audio's definitive four-hour gathering was so large in scope that it qualified as a mini-audio show. With major industry presenters including Stereophile's Michael Fremer (above) and John Atkinson, the evening also offered sufficient food and drink to satiate the most ravenous, and enough interesting…
I'm old enough to remember Fizzies: tablets that were promised to transform mere water into an effervescent soft drink. They showed up on my radar when I was five, at a time when impatience stood between me and the full Fizzies experience: I couldn't wait for the Bromo-Seltzer–like tablet to dissolve completely, so I was rewarded with little flavor and lots of undissolved sugar shards. At my present age, I would be likelier to drop a Fizzie into a glass of water, walk away, and forget I had ever done so.
Fizzies came to mind the first time I used the Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner…
My nice mono copy of Back to Back: Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges Play the Blues (Verve 6055), like other albums purchased from Xavwax, apparently once belonged to a library; there are even Dymo adhesive labels in its run-out grooves. (You can bet I'm always on hand to lift up the tonearm at the end of the last song.) When I bought it, the sleeve looked rough, and the record looked and sounded rough. Now, after one trip through the Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner, Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, and their band—especially drummer Jo Jones—sounded like their old selves. My record went…
Hi-fi is serious business—at least, for the people whose business is hi-fi. For listeners, among whom I count myself at least some of the time, I'd say that the serious-business aspect of hi-fi is less so. Our sole job, after all, is to enjoy music. The deeper our enjoyment, the richer our experience—and the richer the experience, the deeper our enjoyment. Therein lies the quest: to deepen our enjoyment of music.
Enjoying the reproduction of music is easy. Kids do it. When we play music for children, we typically look for one of a few responses: singing, dancing, or sleep. As we get…
Hi-fi is not about sound. Hi-fi is about music. That may seem painfully obvious, but I would suggest that those who argue about what they perceive to be objective values in hi-fi have lost sight of this simple statement. Sure, we can abstract the listening experience, measuring and comparing how different components reproduce recorded sounds. We have no emotional connection to sounds. Many reviewers—I'm as guilty as the next—tend to dissect the listening experience to the point that they mistake the parts (the sounds) for the whole (the music).
Midrange magic. Deep, tuneful bass. Sweet…
"Smash and grab thieves," as Bay Area media are wont to call them, have hit Music Lovers Audio in San Francisco for the second time in a month. This time, at 4am on Wednesday, March 4, three thieves wearing bandanas or ski masks over their faces and either long hoodies or overcoats drove up in a red truck, smashed one of the store's windows, and tried to make off with as much they could.
Whether they're the same robbers who stole $20,000 in merchandise the first time around, let alone the same burglars who have pillaged AudioVision and Harmony Audio Video in San Francisco, and Audio High…
Founded in 1984, Boulder Amplifiers is a conservative audio company that goes quietly about its business, choosing not to call attention to itself with marketing flash or acronym-laden features. Change comes slowly to such companies, which is why the just-retired 2010 preamplifier enjoyed a 17-year run.
On the outside, with the exception of the new, front-panel–spanning display band of mirrored glass, the 2010's replacement, the 2110, looks little different from its predecessor, though changes inside and out are many. And the price has risen, from $48,000 to $54,000.
The 2110's…
I've seen how most manufacturers work. They start out by making products they believe in—products consumers are likely to love. But after a while they begin listening to their dealers and distributors and marketing consultants, most of whom are inclined to say things like: "You need to make a six-figure turntable, to compete with all the other six-figure turntables." "You need to make a $1500 amplifier, to fill that price gap in your product line." "You need to make a small, stand-mounted loudspeaker."
It's my impression that Wilson Audio Specialties doesn't work that way. I think they…
The 993S gain module features high current, high slew rate, high current output, low output impedance, and wide bandwidth. Each channel contains three positive and three negative boards, mounted and potted within a machined assembly, and each produces up to 20dB of gain. Before installation, the boards are tested, retested, and trimmed using an automated, computerized process that evaluates up to 10,000 different combinations of resistor values to match each 933S to a predetermined engineering specification. Whew!
In today's zero-negative-feedback world, Boulder almost defiantly uses…