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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-…

As I often do, I started my serious auditioning with phono, connecting the MoFi Electronics StudioPhono phono stage to the Caruso. The source was the MoFi Electronics UltraDeck turntable.…

Description: Two-channel multisource digital receiver with integrated amplifier, CD player, music server, streamer with DSP-controlled sound. Supported services: Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, Spotify Connect, DLNA, AirPlay2, UPnP, Qualcomm aptX Bluetooth (A2DP 1.2 for audio). Supported formats: MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, ALAC; FM radio, Airable internet radio, DAB+. Inputs: LAN (1 uplink, 1 out), WLAN, USB 2.0, S/PDIF (coaxial), TosLink, analog (one RCA stereo pair). Outputs: preamp output, variable (one RCA stereo pair), subwoofer output (RCA), 3.5mm…

Digital source: MacBook Air (M1, 2020), running as Roon Core.
Analog source: MoFi Electronics UltraDeck turntable with tonearm and UltraTracker MM cartridge and weight.
Preamplification: MoFi Electronics StudioPhono phono stage.
Loudspeakers: Caruso S 10, MBL 120 Radialstrahler.
Subwoofer: Pioneer SW-8 with Morrow Audio MA-6 interconnects. Cables and accessories: AudioQuest Niagara 1000 Low-Z Power Noise-Dissipation System with AudioQuest NRG-Z3 and NRG-10 power cords, AudioQuest Vodka Ethernet/LAN, Ansuz Acoustics D2 loudspeaker cables and…

I tested the T+A Caruso R with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system, repeating some of the measurements with the magazine's APx500. I controlled the Caruso R with the front-panel touchscreen and with the Caruso Navigator app on my iPad mini. Because the Caruso R uses a class-D output stage, I inserted an Audio Precision AUX-0025 passive low-pass filter between the test load and the analyzers. This filter reduces (but does not completely eliminate) RF noise that could drive their input circuitry into slew-rate limiting. I used it for all the loudspeaker output tests…

Justin Weber's Ampsandsound was showing the Agartha ($6300), the Nautilus ($9200), and the new Red October ($12,000) tubed amplifiers.

Weber's lineup includes 20 amplifiers, a SUT, and an XLR-to-RCA converter with input transformers and a stepped volume control. All Weber's products are built by hand in southern California.

The Nautilus is a single-ended, class-A design with zero feedback and a tube complement of two 6L6GC-STRs, KT88s, or KT-120s, a single 12AX7, and two 5AR4 or 5U4 rectifier tubes. The cool blue Nautilus sits in a 12-gauge steel chassis and offers 8Wpc…