But this is no mere nostalgia: Only once every 12 months do we set aside our complaints, our contentions, our niggling criticisms, and simply…
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Timing distortions are the lifeblood of magazine publishing—a field of endeavor where cheers cheered in September can sound wistful by raw November, when readers read them. Then again, by the time you see this, an asteroid strike or an itchy finger on a nuclear trigger may have blown us all back to the age of bronze—oxygen-free, one hopes—in which case this edition of Stereophile's Products of the Year celebration will seem all the more nostalgic.
Joint Loudspeakers of the Year
GoldenEar Triton One ($4999.98/pair; reviewed by Robert Deutsch, February 2015, Vol.38 No.2 Review)
KEF Blade Two ($25,000/pair; reviewed by John Atkinson, June 2015, Vol.38 No.6 Review)
History repeats: As happened in 2014 and 2013, the 2015 Loudspeaker of the Year contest resulted in a tie between two floorstanders. Yet this year marks the first time we've seen so wide a gap—a fivefold disparity—between the winners' prices.
The distinctly styled KEF Blade Two, which we featured on the cover of our June issue, is the rare…
Amplification Component of the Year
Bel Canto Design Black amplification system ($50,000/system; reviewed by Michael Fremer & John Atkinson, July & October 2015, Vol.38 Nos. 7 & 10 Review)
Described by Bel Canto Design as an amplification system, the Black is a three-box integrated amplifier in which one box (the ASC1) serves as a digital preamplifier and system clock, and the other two boxes (the MPS1Ps) are monoblock amplifiers with a digital input and a class-D output stage, each capable of passing 1200W across a 2 ohm load. The ASC1, most of whose inputs are…
Analog Component of the Year
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…
Digital Component of the Year
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…
Joint Accessories of the Year
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…
Budget Component of the Year
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…
Overall Component of 2015
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…
Editors' Choices of 2015
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…
I'll need a few more listens to grasp the measure of Darcy James Argue's new big-band piece, Real Enemies, but my first impression—gleaned from its premiere at BAM's Next Wave Festival, in Brooklyn, Wednesday night—is that it's a remarkable work, maybe an oddball masterpiece: riveting, head-spinning, at once spooky and witty, abstrusely complex and foot-tappingly propulsive.
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…