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Sound Chaser 4: John McLaughlin, Life in the Emerald Beyond

Photo: Lionel Flusin

If you find yourself in Monaco on a Sunday night, make your way to La Note Bleue, a rant and music bar on the beach by the Avenue Princesse Grace. There, you're likely to find a legendary world/fusion guitarist sitting in with a group of young jazz musicians eager to cut heads with the acknowledged maestro of inner awareness and otherworldly spirits. Forever known to some as "Mahavishnu," you can call him by his birth name, John McLaughlin.

"Yes, I have a little group here at my local jazz restaurant," McLaughlin said during a recent Zoom call from his…

BorderPatrol and Triode Wire Labs feature New Zola DAC and Living Voice speakers

Gary Dews of BorderPatrol Audio Electronics and Pete Grzybowski of Triode Wire Labs are old hands at audio shows, yet they bring the zeal of energetic newbie pups. Then again, there's nothing "newbie" about Dews's new BorderPatrol Zola DAC ($3950).

"The Zola DAC features the vintage Analog Devices AD1865 R-2R chip (often called the analog chip)[footnote 1], operating in non-oversampling, no digital filtering (NOS) mode," states the website. The AD1865 was discontinued in 2009, but it's still widely used, for example, in some Audio Note DACs. "The DAC features a tube output stage that uses…

US debuts for Torqueo Exclusive turntable and Zeiler SP-01 speakers in the High Water Sound suite

As a frequent visitor to the High Water Sound rooms of Jeffrey Catalano, I know to look at the records even before I look at the rig. Catalano always brings records I don't know but must own after hearing them in his room.

Catalano's records at CAF included variants on jazz, electronic, and world beat such as Jazzanova's Mixing, Simon Popp's Trio, Wojtek Mazolewski Quintet's Live Spirit I, the Paul Brändle Trio's Paul, Rick & River, Casimir Liberski's The Legend of Zelda, and H.A.N.K.'s The Big Melt.

Catalano's gear is usually fascinating, too. He brought two US…

Songer Audio refines its field-coil formula with A3 SET amplifier and PS1 SE

"Songer Audio is pleased to return to the 2025 Capital Audiofest this weekend, where we will present two exciting premieres," the press release stated. "The show marks the East Coast debut of our A3 single-ended 300B amplifier, a design that unites the timeless beauty of early high-fidelity engineering with modern technical refinement. The A3, in concert with our S1x field-coil loudspeakers, delivers an effortless and deeply engaging musical presentation—a culmination of our pursuit of uncompromising performance."

The second premiere was a redesign of the field-coil power…

Robyatt Audio Debuts Simco ONE Horn Loudspeakers with Miyajima and VPI

Robin Wyatt is also a purveyor of unusual and exceptional sound systems. His showing at CAF was—um—no exception.

The highlight here was the Simco ONE loudspeakers ($15,950/pair) in their US debut, Rounding out the system was an Eversolo DMP-A6 Master Edition streamer/DAC ($1295), a VPI "In The Can" DD turntable ($15,500) equipped with a second tonearm, a Bokrand DZT SAK ($5895). Cartridges were a Miyajima Destiny stereo ($7750) and an Infinity Mono ($3550). Amplification was all Miyajima, an MC-2 tube head amp ($7950), a Wo-1 preamp ($21,750), and a pair of Model 2020 OTL amplifiers ($…

Bella Sound Kahili, Hana, and Kaula 2 meet YG Acoustics Hailey 3

Bella Sound's Michael Vice holds more than 50 patents as an electrical engineer. Like other large-brained thinkers I know, such as Stereophile Editor Jim Austin and Spin Doctor Michael Trei, when they talk, I just listen.

Some large-brained designers speak of measurements, specs, and stats as some kind of holy grail of hi-fi determination. I don't buy it. That's why I tag my usual vinyl- or gear-centric Instagram posts as #earsfirstaudiophile. We don't carry slide rules into our listening rooms—at least I don't (footnote 1).

As impressed as I was with Michael Vice, I…

SVS and Orchard Audio bring Ultra Evolution loudspeakers and Starkrimson power

SVS Sound's Larry McGough and Orchard Audio's Joyanto (Joe) Goswami and Leonid (Leo) Ayzenshtat were at Capital Audiofest (CAF) to show several SVS-supported systems.

Room 628 featured a Marantz AV7706 A/V processor ($3200) and Orchard Audio amplifiers including the Starkrimson Mono Ultra Premium ($2600) and Starkrimson 25 Mono Premium ($1250).

SVS speakers and subwoofers were in ample supply, including the Ultra Evolution Tower ($1500), Ultra Evolution Center ($800), Ultra Evolution Nano ($450), Ultra Evolution Elevation ($450), and SB-5000 R|Evolution subwoofer ($1800…

Volti Audio's revised Vittora with WiiM Ultra, Cary SLI-80, Mojo Mystique Z, Triode Wire Labs

My fondness for Greg Roberts's Volti Audio loudspeakers has been documented in reviews of the company's Rival and Lucera speakers.

Roberts's CAF room sounded excellent. His system included a WiiM Ultra configured in bit-perfect mode as a dedicated music server with a Teddy Pardo Audio external power supply ($945); a Mojo Audio Mystique Z DAC ($11,000); and a Cary Audio SLI-80 integrated amplifier ($5495) driving a pair of newly revised Volti Audio Vittora loudspeakers ($50,000/pair). Cabling was from Triode Wire Labs.

The Vittora is a three-way, fully…

Brilliant Corners #33: Ampsandsound Mogwai SE, Townshend Seismic Isolation Products

"None of the amps I build are better than the others," Justin Weber of Ampsandsound told me not long after we met. "They are just different." I may have smirked inwardly. According to his company's website, Weber makes no fewer than 23 amplifier models, many capable of driving both headphones and speakers, ranging from the $2700 Kenzie OG to the $38,000 Arch Monos. Are they really all equally good? I wondered. Surely this was just a clever Buddhist ploy to distract us from some of his amps' high prices. Doesn't the extra $35k spent on the Arch Monos buy you something more desirable than the…

Spin Doctor #31: Turntable Drive Systems & the Garrard 301 Advanced

While I was coming to grips with this month's review subject, the idler drive Garrard 301 Advanced, I began to think about the various methods that have been used to spin turntable platters over the years. Since the transition a century ago from wind-up clockwork to electric motors, there have basically been three ways to spin a turntable platter: idler drive, belt drive, and direct drive. True, there have also been a few designs that go their own unique ways, such as the rare, water-driven Oasis made by David Gillespie of Saturn Audio in the late 1970s and the gear-driven H.H. Scott 710 I…