Vinyl playback: Technics SL-1200mkV record player with KAB 3-speed mod, fluid damping and tonearm wiring; Hana SL MK II and LP Gear The Vessel cartridges.
Digital playback: dCS Bartók APEX DAC/streamer.
Preamplifiers: Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2 (phono), Benchmark LA-4 (line).
Power amplifier: Benchmark AHB2.
Loudspeakers: B&W 808.
Accessories: Butcherblock Acoustics equipment rack, SME turntable cable, cables and connectors made by Belden, Canare, Mogami, Switchcraft, ITT-Cannon, Neutrik, etc.—Tom Fine
search
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Two way minimonitor with 4½ " reflex-loaded cone woofer and a ½" dome tweeter. Rated power: 20–75W. Sensitivity: 86dB. Impedance: 8 ohms.
Dimensions: 9½" H × 7¼" W × 8" D. Weight: 7½lb each.
Price: $190/pair (1985); no longer available (2026).
Manufacturer: Wharfedale, West Nyack, NY 10994 (1985). Wharfedale, IAG House, 13/14 Glebe Rd., Huntingdon, PE29 7DL, England, UK. (2026) Tel: +44 (0)1480 452561. Web: wharfedale.co.uk. US distributor: Wharfedale USA. Tel: (312) 738-5025. Web: wharfedaleusa.com
Wadax Director of Sales and Marketing for Brandon Lauer presented the Studio Player Collection at AXPONA 2026. Front and center in this series is the Wadax Studio Player, a high-end, single-box SACD/CD player, DAC, and streamer ($40,800). Released in 2024, the Studio Player is said to have brought technology from the company's high-end Atlantis Reference series (which costs over $250,000) to a more accessible price point.
In addition to the Studio Player itself, the Wadax Studio Player Collection also includes the Studio Clock ($28,500), Studio PSU ($29,800),…
I first heard about Devialet and their inaugural product, the D-Premier integrated amplifier, in show reports from the 2009 Salon Haute Fidélité Paris show. Fascinated by its idiosyncratic design and ignorant of the boundaries of my own comprehension, I looked up the patents. I learned that my grasp of electrical engineering and French was woeful—but Devialet's flag was planted in my consciousness.
There's undeniable allure in tales of a genius novel solution to a problem. Some turn out to be genuine breakthroughs. Others, on closer inspection, just present a new set of compromises.…
Full-range speakers are usually at least three-way rather than two-way, for good reasons. Although a three-way crossover network is harder to do right, and there can be phase-coherence issues if the drivers aren't well-matched and well-integrated, a two-way speaker with a woofer big enough to generate room-filling lows is even more difficult, because a big woofer needs to cross over at a frequency that is low for most tweeters. The dispersion of the tweeter and woofer around the crossover point need to be similar so that there aren't discernible poke-outs or dips in that frequency range,…
I have been haunted for 15 years by these words: "Very often if I was given the choice of listening to a piece of music I really liked or listening to nothing at all, I would choose nothing at all. ... These days I don't listen to a lot of music, and I find a lot of pleasure in no music. There's a kind of silence and just hearing some conversation from outside, or hearing a police car in the distance, just these fragments of daily life are very poetic and very peaceful somehow."
They were spoken by Britisher David Toop (footnote 1), confirmed music-head, someone who has spent his life…
I wrote in the April 2026 issue of Stereophile that when you clean records in an ultrasonic bath, you need to make some decisions. The first is whether it's necessary to use distilled water or whether tap water is good enough. I learned that even very good, pure tap water has enough dissolved solids to produce major contamination once the water is evaporated from the record surface. The next decision is, should I use a surfactant? Surfactants lower water's surface tension, which allows it to penetrate deeper into grooves, but it also has implications for the ultrasonic process. Surfactant…
To examine the behavior of the Devialet Astra's digital inputs, I used optical S/PDIF data, as well as network data played with Roon and USB data sourced from my MacBook Pro via the amplifier's USB-C port. The TosLink input locked to data sampled at 192kHz, and the AudioMIDI utility revealed that the Astra's USB port accepted 16- and 24-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 44.1kHz to 384kHz. Apple's USB Prober utility identified the processor as "Devialet Astra" from "Devialet" and indicated that the USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode.
The digital inputs…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
For logistical reasons I performed a full set of measurements on a different sample of the Devialet Astra than that reviewed by Ola Björling. After I hard-wired the Astra to my network and installed the Devialet app on my iPad mini, the app informed me that the Astra had the serial number U07A00001PH09 and was running firmware version 3.2.9. The Astra is Roon Ready; the Roon app recognized the Astra, and I selected it as a destination for network audio data.
I used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system for the measurements, repeating some of the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Remote-controlled, solid state, internally digital integrated amplifier/streaming DAC with software-assignable inputs, LCD screen, switch-mode power supply, and high-efficiency output stage. Inputs: 1 Ethernet on RJ45; 1 bidirectional USB 2.0; 2 S/PDIF on TosLink; 3 pair RCA jacks assignable to MM/MC phono, line in, line out, or S/PDIF digital in or out. Main outputs: 2 pairs of binding posts. Supported formats: up to 24/384 PCM via USB; up to 24/192 PCM via Ethernet, coaxial; up to 24/96 PCM via optical; DSD128 via USB, DSD64 via coax,…