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Thank you, Stereophile, for this excellent review of my loudspeakers. If there is one thing consistent with all the folks who have tested them, it's that the MF-201s need different placement from a "usual" setup. What is interesting is that different folks achieved good results in completely different ways. Some liked them high. Some liked them low. Some liked them dead-on ear level. Some like a lot of toe-in, some not. Experimentation in the final listening room is required.

Regarding the reviewer's comments on the slightly soft presentation in the upper…

Ornette's classic LPs are the six he made for Atlantic Records from 1959–61, especially The Shape of Jazz to Come, which…

Presented by Head-Fi, CanJam promotes headphone and portable audio at shows in New York City, London, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore, Southern California, and Chicago.

I was already planning to visit New York, and NYC COVID levels have now reached a recent new low, with positivity rates in the 1% range following an Omicron-era peak of 23% on 1 January. New York City lifted its general mask mandate in mid-February. CanJam is requiring proof of vaccination for entry, but masks are optional.

This is the first CanJam New York to take place in two years. Attendance appeared…

The buzz was palpable as I stepped off the escalator onto the conference floor at the Marriot Marquis hotel, where CANJAM New York City 2022 was revving up within shouting (or at least screaming) distance of Times Square.

Many of the major headphone (and a few non-headphone) brands—Abyss, Audeze, Cardas, Dan Clark Audio, HiFiMan, Meze—were present, as were some upstarts and less well-known companies: Ambient Acoustics, Auribus Acoustics, BGVP, Denoki Audio, Eletech Cables, Grell, In Ear, Jerry Harvey Audio, Linsoul, MusicTech, See Audio, Soundcore, Strauss & Wagner, and…

Bergenfeld New Jersey’s Dekoni Audio was showing headphone accessories at CanJam, including replacement earpads for major headphone brands, eartips, sprays, wipes, cleaners, and the like. They were also auditioning their new headphones, a reworking of the Fostex T50RP MK3

Dekoni’s comfy, cushy, thick earpads come in multiple finishes and styles including Choice, Elite, and Platinum lines of leather, suede, hybrid, and "fenestrated sheepskin." Their Midnight, Velour, and Jerzee lines offer additional choices. The earpads are constructed of memory foam wrapped in various leathers…

For the last couple of nights, I've been listening to Promises, a recent collaboration between Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Almost the entire 46-minute, nine-movement album is built on two chords, played simultaneously on an acoustic piano and a celeste. The instrumentation swells and wanes—Sanders's intense sax lines piercing into prominence, the large string section turning cacophonous, a…

Grell is a former Sennheiser design engineer and audiophile product manager who was the mind behind many of that German company’s well-known HD series headphones, including the HD 650. As I reported in Industry Update in the August 2021 print issue, Sennheiser’s consumer electronics division was acquired by Sonova in May 2021. Grell started his company the following September, Grell’s…

Why do the names of some headphone brands sound like they originated with marketing flacks or PR hacks? Some brands have natural, fuzzy sounding names, others a sci-fi bent.

So What do you get from Dan Clark Audio? Obviously, Dan Clark!

In preparation for this show report, I quietly asked for recommendations from my headphone-oriented buddies, from Audiophiliac Steve Guttenberg to physicist-audiophile Miguel Barrio. And of course, Herb Reichert. To a man, they whispered "Dan Clark Audio." So into the Dan Clark Audio room I walked to hear their new closed-back, planar-…