In room 753, a Gyro SE turntable ($6499) with a Cusis cartridge and Rega RB3000 tonearm ($2445) fed a Grimm PW1 phono preamp ($5800) leading to a Grimm MU2 streamer/preamplifier ($20,600). The MU2's output passed—all connections were made with Viablue cabling—to a Kora TA 480 Class AB stereo amplifier ($19,999), which drove…
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In years past, Fidelity Imports filled room upon room with the hi-fi equipment they distribute. This year, New Jersey dealer The Listening Room shared the load. Fidelity and The Listening Room compiled six systems in six—um—listening rooms full of hi-fi goodness.
San Marcos, California's Audience debuted its new Audience ClairAudient Bellare Loudspeakers at T.H.E. New York International Audio Show in New Jersey last month. Here they were again in Rockville, with essentially the same system.
As Audience's John McDonald noted after the New York show, "The Bellare represents something new and very special when you consider all factors together, including the absence of disparate drivers and a crossover network in the ultra-critical 2.5kHz range where most speakers cross over. The drivers are both resolute like an electrostatic (or more so) as well…
Angie Lisi of American Sound Distribution always brings components that make my pulse race. Tube amps. Horn speakers. Turntables. What more could a music playback nerd ask for?
In the Regency suite, a Perpetuum Ebner PE 6060 turntable ($6500) was paired with an Analog Relax EX500 cartridge ($5500). Analog was RIAA-corrected with an Esoteric E-02 phono stage ($9500). A Wadax Studio Player ($40,800) made digital music.
An Esoteric Grandioso C1X preamplifier ($45,000) and the 25Wpc Synthesis Roma 96DC mono amps ($8400/pair) drove Avantgarde Mezzo G3 horn loudspeakers ($…
"Here, we believe in challenging the status quo," states the landing page on the La Dolce Audio website. "We believe in thinking differently to create new ways of accomplishing the musical experience. We believe everyone should enjoy the best musical experience in their own home."
La Dolce makes tube amplifiers, Open-baffle kit speakers, "LDA Baby Baffle" speakers, current-drive amplifiers—whatever that strikes their unique fancy. Their Capital Audiofest (CAF) room was one of the most distinctive I saw and heard. "Audio Gear for Blue Collar Audiophiles," they call it.
The…
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…
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…
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 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…
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'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…