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I get nervous when I hear that an audio company I like is suddenly under new ownership. Are the new owners planning to carry forward the legacy of the company's founders, or will they try to move things in a different direction? Worst of all is when just the brand name is sold off to some marginally connected manufacturer so that they can slap a prestigious name on some cheap garbage, such as the $15 Nakamichi-branded kids' headphones I recently saw for sale at Walmart. Then there are companies that are either gone altogether, like Thiel, or seemingly dormant, like Wadia and Infinity. These…
Silver platters and I began divorce proceedings over a decade ago. The separation began when the husband and I contemplated liberating ourselves from crime-ridden East Oakland and moving to placid Port Townsend (where anarchist deer, rather than Norteño gang members, wreak havoc on our daily lives). There was no way I was going to haul 55 big boxes of CDs 846 miles and have no place to put them.
I refused to part with my vocal CDs. Ditto for my LPs and 78s, though my only turntable was destroyed in transit. All that media plus eight large boxes of CDs and SACDs that inexplicably slipped…
The sound
I've used the word "stunned" so frequently in my reviews that I dare not use it again, lest its meaning be blunted. "Gobsmacked," a descriptor oft invoked by one of my mentors, John Atkinson, is a viable alternative, but it, too, is more than a bit overused by audiophiles. Yet "surprised" is inadequate to convey my reaction when I began auditioning the Varèse Transport. I was amazed to hear what I heard and astonished to feel what I felt.
Which doesn't mean that there weren't false starts. I began with a track Scott often chooses—one which we could play on CD and…
All "serious" music fans know pop music is kid's stuff: too simple, too accessible, the embodiment of that cringeworthy moniker "disposable." But pop music is also what keeps the lights on in the music business, selling gobs of streams, merchandise, and concert tickets.
And hasn't that always been the case? In 1956, during the first wave of rock'n'roll as well as the bebop revolution in jazz, four of the top 10 singles were pop records by Nelson Riddle, Les Baxter, Doris Day, and Kay Starr. Perry Como, the bête noir of rock'n'roll, grabbed the 16th spot that same year with "Hot Diggity (…
A pair of M6 speakers is too dear for my pauper's budget, at least if we're talking about the Magico M6s that have been on my dream list since I first heard them years ago. But the Studio Electric M6s? They're certainly more attainable than the $180,000 Magicos.
Try $5900-$6900/pair, depending on finish. Do the Studio Electric M6s sound as bodacious and majestic as the curved, carbon-clad megabuck Magico speakers? I wish. Do they sound really, really good though? Hell yeah—especially when coupled with clean, meticulously engineered electronics like the Benchmark stack in the…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: dCS Varèse five-piece music system, dCS Rossini CD/SACD Transport; Innuos Nazaré Music Server and PhoenixNET network switch; Small Green Computer Sonore opticalModule Deluxe (2); Broadcom/Avago AFBR-5718PZ 1GB SX-SFP, Gen 5 Fiber Optic modules (2); Nordost QSource linear power supply (2); Sonore Audiophile Linear Power Supply; Synology 5-bay 1019+ NAS with Ferrum Hypsos linear/switching hybrid power supply; ASUS AX6000 and RT-AX88U Pro mesh routers and Netgear Nighthawk modem; Apple 2023 iPad Pro and 2025 MacBook Air.
Power amplifiers:…
PS Audio occupied a large room adjacent to the registration area at AXPONA 2026, giving the company a lot of foot traffic. Founder Paul McGowan's presence probably had something to do with the overall busyness too. Years of personable YouTube videos in which McGowan answers questions about stereo components have turned him into a hi-fi celebrity—Mr. Rogers with a soldering iron.
Fresh off reviewing the truly excellent PS Audio PMG Signature preamplifier for Stereophile’s May 2026 issue (now also available here on our site), I was familiar with that product and its three…
At AXPONA 2026, Volti Audio Owner Greg Roberts talks about all the gear shown in the company's room at the show in an interview with Ken Micallef that's now posted on our YouTube channel.
The Volti Audio sound in five words: fast, fat, rich, transparent, engaging. I own Volti speakers for their quick-witted, horn-loaded transient response, transparent and rich mids, and the kind of atomized, deep-bowelled, thoroughly natural bass response—all of which makes music not just sing but stand at attention and deliver with specific imaging, live dynamics, and room-filling…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Front-loading dual-laser CD/SACD transport with 1.5m ACTUS cable. Designed solely for use with the dCS Varèse Music System. Outputs: 1 ACTUS port. Power consumption: Sleep 0.5W. Standby less than 2W. In use 30W.
Dimensions: 5.12" (130mm) H × 17.48" (444mm) W × 16.73" (425mm) D. Weight: 44.31lb (20.1kg).
Finish: Silver, black.
Serial number of unit reviewed: VTP2077. Manufactured in the UK.
Price: (with ACTUS 1.5m cable) $39,950. Approximate number of US dealers: 32. Warranty: three years parts and labor for the original owner only.…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The SC-I is very sensitive for a relatively small speaker, its calculated B-weighted sensitivity being around 90dB/2.83V/m. However, though it will therefore play loud with low-powered amplifiers, it is a fairly demanding load, as can be seen from its plot of impedance magnitude and phase against frequency (fig.1). Though the electrical phase angle is small above the bass-enclosure resonance, the magnitude is lowish, remaining below 6 ohms over most of the audioband and dropping to a minimum value of 3.25 ohms at 260Hz. The uniformity of the curve, however,…