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On August 14, 2025, Audio Advice announced it has acquired The Sound Room, a St. Louis–based audio, video, and home‑automation firm founded in 1983 by David Young. The move adds a St. Louis location to the company's footprint.

The announcement follows Audio Advice Live 2025, held August 1–3 at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Audio Advice, founded in 1978 and headquartered in Raleigh, NC, announced recent showroom openings in Nashville, TN, and Wilmington, NC. It said customers of The Sound Room will gain access to Audio Advice’s online resources,…

Description: Two-channel D/A processor. Digital inputs: two electrical (S/PDIF on RCA and BNC), one USB. Analog outputs: stereo pair balanced (XLR), stereo pair single-ended (RCA). Supported formats: PCM up to 384kHz, Native DSD up to 8×.
Dimensions: 18.1" (460mm) W × 2.9" (110mm) H × 11.5" (295mm) D. Weight: 22lb (10kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: EDA220689. Designed and manufactured in Greece.
Price: $9999. Number of US dealers: 19. Warranty: 2 years standard; 7 years and lifetime optional.
Manufacturer: Ideon Audio, Parren 6, Neo Psychiko…

Young Americans lies mid-table in the Bowie album league, overshadowed by his artier-rock music. Fortunately, it has lost the tag of merely being a well-executed pastiche, but Bowie's joke that it was his "plastic soul" album has never done it any favors. To celebrate its 50th anniversary comes the release of a limited…

At the end of the review period, I encountered another issue, though this one was more easily addressed. A couple of times, at levels that were almost unreasonably loud, the Diptyques' diaphragms flexed so much that at certain frequencies in the bottom octave, they hit the magnet arrays, causing distortion and sonic distress. This so-called panel slap is a known problem with planar speakers, including Magnepans. Diptyque smartly includes magnetic bass regulators with its speakers. A bit larger than a business card, a regulator looks like a perforated refrigerator magnet. One or two of…

I measured one of the Diptyque Reference loudspeakers in RvB's listening room, driving it with his Krell FPB 200c amplifier. I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system with a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to examine the speaker's behavior in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. I managed to maneuver the heavy loudspeaker onto a small dolly for the measurements and positioned it so that it fired along the listening room's diagonal to push back in time the reflections of the Diptyque's output from the sidewalls. Nevertheless, the first…

I measured the Belleson Brilliance phono preamplifier with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system, checking some of my findings with the magazine's APx500 analyzer. I adjusted the preamp's settings with the app on the supplied Android tablet, which was connected via the preamp's own Wi-Fi network. To minimize noise, I connected a wire from the grounding terminal on the preamplifier chassis's rear panel to the analyzer's ground. I performed the testing primarily with one of the single-ended inputs, as I had understood from TF that that was mostly how he had auditioned…

Thanks to Tom and John for a detailed and thorough review of Brilliance. Tom's comment, "Because it imposes so little of its own character on music, it allowed the character of each cartridge to shine through," tells us we met our design goal of playback transparency, as in the proverbial "wire with gain."

John's measurements confirm ours. To add some insight, making a clean, accurate phono stage with selectable gain ranging from 30dB to 70dB (factoring in RIAA, that's 90dB in the bass!) is not easy. To do it, we designed a unique, custom op-amp and input…

Digital sources: 15" MacBook Air M2 Max running Roon 2.0. Roon ROCK (Lenovo ThinkCentre), iPhone 16 Pro Max, Eversolo DMP-10, Grimm Audio MU1, Aurender A20.
Preamplifiers: Benchmark HPA4 line stage. Unison Research Reference Pre.
Power amplifiers: Krell FPB 200c (recapped), Unison Research Reference.
Integrated amplifiers: Audia Flight FLS10, Pathos InPoL Legacy.
Loudspeakers: Focal Utopia Scala EVO, Estelon X Diamond MkII.
Cables: Speaker: AudioQuest Thunderbird Zero. Interconnects: AudioQuest Thunderbird, Black Beauty, and Red River (…

Description: 3.5-way planar magnetic/isodynamic loudspeaker with a proprietary ribbon tweeter. Frequency range: 22Hz–24kHz. Crossover frequencies: 600Hz and 7kHz. Sensitivity: 89dB/W/1m. Impedance: 4 ohms. Power handling: up to 300W (recommended power <60W). Single binding posts (no biamping).
Dimensions: 71" H (1803.4mm) × 25.6" (650.2mm) W × 13.3" (337.8mm) D, 189lb (85.7kg) each for the MkI Evo; 73.2" (1859.3mm) H × 28" (711.2mm) W × 15" (381mm) D. Weight: 194lb (88kg).
Finish: Black or white; custom colors available for an extra $1200.
Serial…

Analog sources: Technics SL-1200MK5 'table with KAB 3-speed mod, fluid damping, and tonearm wiring; Hana SL MK II, Shure V15 Type III, LP Gear The Vessel A3SM, Ortofon 2M Blue, Denon DL-110 cartridges. Philips AF-887 turntable with Shure M97xe.
Preamplifier: Benchmark LA4.
Power amplifier: Benchmark AHB2.
Integrated amplifier: McIntosh MA6500.
Loudspeakers: Bowers & Wilkins 808, Amphion One18.
Accessories: Butcherblock Acoustics equipment rack, SME turntable cable, various cables and connectors made by Belden, Canare, Mogami,…