Vinyl playback: Technics SL-1200mkV with KAB 3-speed mod, fluid damping and tonearm wiring; Ortofon 2M Blue, Audio-Technica AT-VM95E, Hana SL MKII cartridges.
Phono preamplifier: Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2.
Preamplifier: Benchmark LA-4.
Power amplifier: Benchmark AHB2.
Loudspeakers: Bowers & Wilkins 808.
Accessories: Butcherblock Acoustics equipment rack, SME turntable cable, various cables and connectors made by Belden, Canare, Mogami, Switchcraft, ITT Cannon, Neutrik, etc.—Tom Fine
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Sidebar 3: Associated Equipment
Shortly after the Berlin wall came down and the Japanese stock market crashed, my day job was to demonstrate expensive audio products at hi-fi shows all over Europe and America. That entailed surviving on espresso and Toblerone while driving a vintage Mercedes at high speeds 12 hours per day. After four hours of sleep, I was doing 12-hour days of DJ work that entailed choosing the next perfect recording to keep the audience facing forward, mesmerized—a borderline impossible task. To avoid shame and rejection, I always kept a few 7" 45s by groups like The Chambers Brothers or Booker T. and the…
MT's Brinkmann LaGrange turntable sits on the Seismion Reactio 2 isolation platform
Renowned British turntable manufacturer Rega once defined a turntable as a vibration-measuring machine; that definition became the title of a coffee table book tracing the company's history and design philosophy (footnote 1). To me that title perfectly captures what a turntable does: measure the microscopic undulations pressed into the record groove by using a phono cartridge to convert them into an electrical signal that feeds the rest of the system. The more accurately the turntable can measure those…
A January 2026 Follow-Up
Rogier van Bakel reviewed the T+A Symphonia ($10,990) in last November's issue, covering its aesthetics, streaming capabilities, and sound qualities through speakers and headphones. Editor Jim Austin asked me to spend some time with it, focusing on the Symphonia's analog capabilities, including its built-in phono preamplifier.
Unpacking the Symphonia invoked flashbacks to the larger, similarly versatile T+A R 2500 R, which I reviewed in 2024. The Symphonia's visual aesthetic is quite different from that of the R 2500 R, yet its front-panel…
The biggest difference between the HoloAudio May and the Denafrips Terminator was that the Terminator felt slightly more vigorous. The sense of a "whole solid piano" was more obvious with the Denafrips. The May DAC, on the other hand, gained an emotional edge with a more distinct rendering of the piano's pitch, temper, and chromatics (especially in OS-DSD—oversampling DSD—mode). The Terminator emphasized a note's shape and body, while the May directed my attention to tone, texture, pedaling, sustain, and the live energy surrounding the instrument. The two DACs were equally forthright and…
John Atkinson (left) and Larry Archibald (right) remininisce about JA joining Stereophile in 1986. (Photo: Larry Greenhill)
It was the summer of 1976. My career as a professional musician was not panning out as I had hoped. I'd played bass guitar on quite a few singles and three albums, and toured with erstwhile teen singing sensation Helen Shapiro—but I was better at playing than I was at getting paid. My then wife, Maree, showed me a classified ad in the British newspaper The Guardian: the magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review was looking for an assistant editor.
It was the summer of 1976. My career as a professional musician was not panning out as I had hoped. I'd played bass guitar on quite a few singles and three albums, and toured with erstwhile teen singing sensation Helen Shapiro—but I was better at playing than I was at getting paid. My then wife, Maree, showed me a classified ad in the British newspaper The Guardian: the magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review was looking for an assistant editor.
"You read Hi-Fi…
Sidebar 5: Phono Stage Measurements
Out of the box, the T+A Symphonia streaming integrated amplifier Rogier van Bakel reviewed in the November 2025 issue has two pairs of single-ended analog line inputs. The second pair can be used as a moving magnet–compatible phono input by selecting an internal phono module with the front-panel Menu buttons.
As RvB is a digital-only guy, he wasn't able to audition the Symphonia's phono stage, but before I shipped the amplifier to Tom Fine for a phono audition, I performed a complete set of measurements on the phono input with my Audio Precision…
"You should come to CAF," Ken Micallef said. He has been saying this for what seems like decades. "It's cool, smaller and more manageable than AXPONA. You'll like it." I explained to Ken that I don't like crowds. Or airports. That trying to listen while people are talking loudly over the music aggravates my Generalized Anxiety Disorder. And that having to sit through anything at all by Dire Straits rubs me even wronger than it did in high school. But this year my curiosity got the best of me, and on a crisp November night I rode the Acela to Washington's Union Station, then took the Red Line…
Stereophile strives to distribute the wealth equally.
Did that get your attention? What the statement refers to, in terminology devoid of dollar signs, is that Stereophile attempts to review products from different companies rather than repeatedly focus on products from a single company. We may consecutively review an amplifier and its companion preamp or preamp/DAC/streamer, but I doubt we've ever reviewed three of a company's top-level products in seven months. Until now.
Only a hermit, living remotely without access to media, need be told that we live in challenging times.…
DC offset, the ground switch, and spikes encore
Next, we listened to sound before and after calibration for DC offset. With DC offset compensated, three of Wolff's favorite test tracks—Kham Meslien's "Ta confiance" from the album Fantômes... Futurs (24/48 FLAC, Heavenly Sweetness/Qobuz), Rachael Yamagata's album version of "Duet" with Ray LaMontagne, from Elephants ... Teeth Sinking Into Heart (16/44.1 FLAC, Warner Records/Qobuz), and Jamie Woon's "Skin" from Making Time (16/44.1 FLAC, Polydor Records/Qobuz)—sounded more intimate, natural, clear, present, sharply defined, detailed,…