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Description: Floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive units: 1" TPCD (Thin-Ply Carbon Diaphragm) tweeter, two 6.5" carbon-cone midrange drivers, one 12" paper-cone woofer with rear port. Crossover frequencies: 350Hz, 2.3kHz. Frequency range: 20Hz–24kHz. Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 5.4 ohms minimum at 85Hz. Sensitivity: 87.5dB/W/m. Recommended power: minimum 80W.
Dimensions: 45" (1143mm) H × 12.1" (307.3mm) W × 20" (508mm) D. Weight: 159lb (72.1kg) each.
Finishes: Each speaker pair painted to customer order, with automotive paint.
Serial numbers of…

Vinyl playback: Technics SL-1200MKV turntable with KAB 3-speed mod, fluid damping, and tonearm wiring; LP Gear The Vessel, Ortofon 2M Blue, Audio-Technica AT-VM95C cartridges. Technics SL-50C turntable with Ortofon 2M Red cartridge.
Phono preamplifier: Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2.
Digital playback: dCS Bartók APEX DAC/streamer.
Preamplifier: Benchmark LA-4.
Power amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, Aragon 8002.
Streaming receiver: T+A Symphonia.
Loudspeaker: B&W 808.
Accessories: Butcherblock Acoustics equipment rack, SME turntable cable…

Now Kii is offering a newer, smaller, less…

The Kitsuné HiFi KTE LCR-1 MK5 phono stage
Last month, when I was at Richard Cirulnick's place, I noticed he was running a Valab LCR phono stage with his ELAC EMC-1 moving coil. The Valab LCR was the phono stage that became Kitsuné HiFi's $1498 KTE LCR-1 MK5, which I raved about in Gramophone Dreams #50 (footnote 5). Hearing how transparent and vital the Valab sounded in Richard's system made me run home and re-install the KTE LCR-1 MK5 in my system. I wanted to remind myself what low-impedance RIAA sounds like.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but despite its conspicuously…

Before beginning any measurements, I connected the Kii Control unit to one of the loudspeakers and installed the Kii Home app—v.1.1.27 (build 60)—on my iPhone. When I powered up the speaker, the app found it via Bluetooth, and it allowed me to connect the speaker to my Wi-Fi network. I then connected my MacBook Pro's USB port to the Control unit. Apple's AudioMIDI utility revealed that its USB port accepted 32-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 32kHz to 384kHz. The USB Prober app identified the Kii as "Kii Control" from "Kii Audio GmbH" with the…

Octave Audio of Karlsbad, Germany, a longtime manufacturer of tube electronics, presented the North American debut of its new Octave Jubilee Class A mono amplifier ($85,000/pair; go here for more info) at Definitive Audio in Bellevue, Washington, (across the lake from Seattle) on January 29. The first stop in a three-city US tour by Andreas Hofmann, company president and designer, and John Quick, VP Sales & Marketing for Octave’s US distributor, Dynaudio North America, the multi-day event included two back-to-back sessions followed by open houses. Days…

Opinions vary, but like everything connected to The Beatles, charged arguments over Giles Martin's ongoing remastering of, and sonic tinkering with, the band's hallowed recording catalog are unending. To be fair, potentially changing the band's sonic profile to something more "modern" was always a no-win proposition, with zero chance of pleasing…

In the April 2024 issue of this magazine, a piece by Editor Jim Austin appeared in the "As We See It" space. It was titled "On assessing sonic illusions," and it has haunted me for more than a year. Jim's thesis was that a music recording is a "synthetic, whole-cloth creation ... a complete fabrication." He writes: "Very few recordings correspond to an actual performance. Most are studio concoctions with pieced-together instrumental tracks and artificial ambience that document no sonic event that ever occurred."

When it came to rock and pop and…