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Swedish Analog Technologies tonearm ($28,000; reviewed by Michael Fremer, July 2015, Vol.38 No.7 Review)

This year's analog winner is nothing less than an all-out, engineering-driven assault on the state of the art of the 9" pivoting tonearm. Made from stainless steel, brass, and carbon-fiber laminates, the dynamically balanced Swedish Analog Technologies arm features a removable headshell with integral azimuth adjustment, and point-and-cup bearings with user-adjustable loading. The arm comes with two differently sized counterweights, to suit a…

Pono PonoPlayer ($399; reviewed by John Atkinson & Michael Lavorgna, April, June & September 2015, Vol.38 Nos. 4, 6 & 9 Review)

For an audio reviewer to rail against the MP3 format is one thing; for Neil Young to do so is quite another. And as this well-loved musician proved in 1985, when his support was instrumental in launching the Farm Aid benefits, and again in 1986, when he and his then wife, Pegi Young, founded the Bridge School, a motivated Neil Young is a force to be reckoned with. Young's quest led him to Ayre Acoustics, the…

AudioQuest JitterBug ($49; reviewed by John Atkinson, September 2015, Vol.38 No.9 Review)

Roon music library/file player app ($199/year, $499/lifetime; reviewed by Jon Iverson, October 2015, Vol.38 No.10 Review)

A tie between something you can't see from across the room and something that can't be touched? This gets better and better.

High-end audio accessories comprise the most interesting category, if only because there are such profound differences in price and size and technology among the individual products therein: signal…

Magnepan .7 loudspeaker ($1400/pair; reviewed by Herb Reichert, August 2015, Vol.38 No.8 Review)

Our list of finalists for Budget Product of the Year contains a little of everything—an amp, a cartridge, a computer-audio accessory, a portable music player, two turntables, and some speakers. It was from the last group that Stereophile's reviewers selected the Magnepan .7—the first time a panel speaker has won in this category. Herb Reichert wrote that he could very happily live with the two-way, planar-magnetic .7, whose only concession to thrift had to…

KEF Blade Two loudspeaker

Son of a Blade! This year's Overall Product of the Year is the unabashedly high-tech KEF Blade Two. The rare loudspeaker that employs neither wood nor pulp in its manufacture, the Blade Two's radically shaped enclosure is formed from high-density polyurethane, while the diaphragms of all six of its drive-units are metal. During its time in JA's lab, the Blade Two distinguished itself with "measured performance that is close to the state of the art," and, as KEF's deputy (no jokes!) flagship, this British speaker has impressed…

Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner ($3995; reviewed by Michael Fremer, Fred Kaplan, and Art Dudley in June 2012, September 2013, and March 2015 Review)
Of the products I wrote about in 2015, one enhanced my enjoyment of recorded music every day: the Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner from Germany. This ultrasonic record washer is expensive but not overpriced, and is easily the best-thought-out audio accessory I've ever used. Best of all, the Vinyl Cleaner taught me that a lot of what I took to be record-groove damage is actually record-groove…

It's a nearly two-hour, multimedia spectacle built around the theme of conspiracy theories and their central place in American society and culture, each of 12 chapters or movements devoted to specific phenomena—the…

Happy Thanksgiving!

To test that claim, I asked Brian Tucker to loan me a current-production…