This was the room of Charney Audio, in conjunction with HiFi Logic and Hapa Audio. The digital source was from two less well-known companies: a Lucas Audio Labs MiniMax server ($12,000) and a Charney Audio 4.1X SE DAC ($24,000)Amplification was also by Charney Audio, the L-3 SE preamplifier ($19,000), followed by the Charney Audio Kit-1 300B amplifier ($10,000). Those speakers? Charney Audio Lumaca IVs, in their US…
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I strolled into this room not knowing what to expect but seriously intrigued by the pair of large, folded-horn speakers that looked like something from a Grimm's fairy tale.
Jeff Coates of Harmonia Distribution presented several systems in its two-room suite in Rockville.
Room one featured a Grimm Audio MU2 media player/streamer/preamplifier ($17,500), a PrimaLuna EVO 400 Tube Preamplifier ($5995), a PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid Power Amplifier ($7195), Fyne Audio Vintage Ten floorstanding loudspeakers ($24,499/pair), Fyne Audio SuperTrax supertweeters ($4499/pair), and a Fyne Audio SC1 Premium Cable Kit for the SuperTrax tweeter ($449/pair). A second pair of speakers, Harbeth M40.5 XD2s ($20,990/pair), was also periodically connected..
In room 2, the…
Harry and Mat Weisfeld were up to their old tricks at CAF, wowing the audience with a reference rig containing a pair of vintage JBL Everest loudspeakers in the Jefferson suite and dropping a lower-cost system in the Adams room.
The Jefferson room featured the VPI Vanquish Turntable ($80,000) and its custom stand stand ($60,000) equipped with two tonearms: a VPI Fatboy ($6000) and a Bird of Prey ($15,950) from Thai Scandinavian Engineering. Several cartridges were in rotation: a VPI Shyla ($2200), Grado Statement 3 ($3500), Audio-Technica AT-ART20 ($3200), and Tzar DST ($10,000). Amps…
My mother Lily Mae was a Lutheran from Norway. She sent me to Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran School so that I'd become a well-mannered, tea-with-her-friends choirboy, with starched white shirts and a secret penchant for wildness that was nurtured by those free-thinking Catholic girls at the elementary school next to ours. I always think of Mom when I install an Ortofon cartridge because their sound character strikes me as so Scandinavian—like my mother: smart, tall, well-tailored, well-mannered, neat, understated.
Everyone knows I think audio components tend to sound like how they look,…
Stereophile December 2025, Vol.58 No.12
Re-Tales #60: Matt Alterman's Crescendo Audio Returns to Boulder
Julie Mullins
A hi-fi dealer's son, Matt Alterman has been in or near the business almost all his life. His dealership, Crescendo Audio, is coming full circle as he opens a new location in Boulder, Colorado, the town where he launched his first store 13 years ago.
Matt's father, Henry Alterman, was the proprietor of Alterman Audio in their hometown of New Orleans. Henry got his start selling gear from his dorm room at Tulane University in the mid-1970s (footnote 1), before "going…
Anthony Chiarella, director of sales and marketing for Gryphon NA, was joined by Command Performance AV CEO Jeff Fox and sales manager Jessie Bentley to present two debuts.
The US debuts of the Aurender N50 music server ($38,500) and the Gryphon Audio Designs Antileon Revelation stereo power amplifier ($49,800) were joined by an equally celebratory system.
A J.Sikora KV Max 12" tonearm ($15,680) was mounted on a J.Sikora Max Supreme turntable ($40,785) and held an Aidas Violet Gold LE cartridge ($7535). That cartridge's tiny output ran into a Doshi Audio EVO phono preamplifier…
Following a video interview for Stereophile's video channel (watch it below and subscribe here), Audio Note UK's Adrian Ford-Crush played tunes from a Level 4/5 system that included the brand's TT Three Reference turntable ($63,000), which debuted at T.H.E. New York International Audio Show. The TT Three was equipped with its obligatory AN-1S Sogon tonearm ($16,730; Sogon refers to a certain high grade of silver litz wire; footnote 1), fitted with an IO I moving coil cartridge ($5586), into an AN-S8 step-up transformer ($18,130).
Digital music was handled with a CDT Four CD…
In addition to their showing in the Democracy room, Command Performance AV brought two US debut products to room 305: the J.Sikora Aspire turntable with the CF9 tonearm ($10,595) and the Innuos Stream3 music streamer with optional PhoenixDAC board ($12,600), which turns it into a fully fledged streaming music player.
Allied with the J.Sikora and Innuos products were an Aidas Malachite Silver MC cartridge ($7295), a Doshi Audio Evo linestage ($23,995), and a Doshi Audio Evo phono preamp ($23,995). The amplifier was also Doshi Audio, the Evo Stereo Amp ($25,995; see my…
I've watched the DeVore Fidelity factory develop from its humble start as an early tenant in the Brooklyn Navy Yard—once a sprawl of crumbling ruins, now a sleek high-tech hub—into a thoroughly professional facility housing a cabinet shop, assembly, and R&D. It is also the legendary Monkeyhaus, where late-night listening sessions and pizza feasts are a tradition.
I've owned several DeVore Fidelity speakers, from the original Gibbon 8 and Super 8 to the Gibbon Nine and the O/93. I currently own the O/96. What unites DeVore speakers—the singular quality that has earned them a devoted…
The Robyatt Audio SUTs
I have known Robin Wyatt since forever. As anyone will tell you, he's always low key, shy, and retiring. Soft spoken. He blends in with the crowd—except for his brightly patterned "yank" shirts by American tailor Robert Graham (footnote 2). Robin is tall, and I am short, so when we meet, I invariably find myself staring at a chest adorned with silks of many colors.
The chief reason I like Robin is that I admire his taste—in shirts, cologne, dogs, and polo ponies, but most especially in audio. In any ABX tournament, I would bet half my bicycles on his…