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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,…

To win an EISA award all products undergo a comprehensive multi-step judging process, and many still…

I first spoke with Pomeroy in 2001, for a story about digital audio published in a Village Voice music supplement. His and my opinions about digital sound couldn't be more divergent. Pomeroy's experience dwarfs mine, but I haven't budged from my…

Today, five years after Nasta's untimely…

Outside of Vincent Van Gogh, Brian Wilson had the most infamous—and ultimately the most valuable—left ear in the world. Wilson—the chief architect of countless Beach Boys pop classics, who passed away at age 82 on June 11, 2025—lost the hearing in his right ear at an early age (footnote 1). One could reasonably argue that he only ever heard all the sonic masterpieces he constructed, for that…

I measured one of the X Diamond Mk II loudspeakers, serial number 65793A, 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. It wasn't possible to raise the 190lb loudspeaker off the floor for the measurements, so the first reflection from the ground occurs earlier than is usually the case with my testing. I therefore measured the response and dispersion with the…

I performed a complete set of measurements on one of the Unison Research Reference amplifiers (serial number 350072R) with my Audio Precision SYS2722. The amplifier preserved absolute polarity with both the balanced and unbalanced inputs and one of the two sets (8 ohm and 4 ohm) of output transformer binding posts. As mentioned in the amplifier's user manual, the two sets of binding posts are connected in parallel. A rotary knob on the front panel simply acted as an on-off switch. The gain was identical, at a low 16.2dB, with both types of inputs and, unusually,…