Our first sample of this preamplifier was returned to the manufacturer before we had completed our tests on it, and was replaced with the latest version (ours is serial number 500108). Enough time elapsed between the time we shipped back the first sample and the time we got around to auditioning the second that we are unable to report on any sonic differences between the two.
Are well-heeled audiophiles ready for a knob-free future? Gryphon Audio Designs thinks so. In contrast to Gryphon's volume knobdominated Pandora preamplifier, the Danish company's new Commander offers nothing on its bold front panel to grab or turn.
Instead, there's a large, extra-thick, triangular glass protuberance that extends dramatically below the chassis's vertical dimension. That's where you'll find an "on/off" button, the main unit's only physical switch.
When David Hafler sold his Hafler and Acoustat companies to in-car audio manufacturer Rockford-Fosgate a year or so back, things went quiet for a while as the new owners made arrangements to transfer production of both brands to their Arizona facility and took stock of where their new acquisitions stood in the marketplace. Then, at the 1989 CES in Las Vegas, the company made a reasonably sized splash with the first in a new range of Hafler products intended to lift the brand out of the hobbyist-oriented identity it had, perhaps inadvertently, adopted in the last few years.
My last visit to Planet Halcro transformed my audio life. All but the newest readers will recall that the Australian dm58 power amplifier was Stereophile's Amplification Component of the Year and overall Component of the Year for 2002. To this day, I have yet to hear any amplifier that equals the dm58's combination of complete neutrality, harmonic generosity, lightning reflexes, and a sense of boundless power that is difficult to describe. Though some others have come close, the dm58 shines as a singular beacon of excellence among power amplifiers.
This is not a new component, but like most others that aspire to very high standards of performance, it has undergone some changes (for the better) since it first went into production.
With whom are you most intimate? Your wife? Husband? Your modern-times Significant Other? Your pet? Or, like a lot of audiophiles, is it your audio system? Do you nitpick and tweak it as if it were your pet?
"Uhh! What is it?" I was being prodded on the arm. Admittedly it was gentle, almost polite prodding, but prodding it still was, a rude disturbance of the cocoon I had woven around myself in seat 31J of the American Airlines MD-11 winging its way across the North Atlantic. I pushed Pause on the Discman, insensitively not waiting for an opportune cadence in the Brahms Piano Quintet that had been my erstwhile virtual reality.
When, on his long-running TV variety show, Jackie Gleason used to order up some "traveling music" from music director Ray Bloch, he got a live orchestra's worth. But when Gleason, a composer and conductor in his own right (he wrote his show's unforgettable theme song, "Melancholy Serenade"), actually traveled, his listening options were severely limited compared to ours. By the time the comedian died in 1987, Sony had introduced the Walkman cassette player, but Apple's iPod was still more than a decade in the future.
In the summer of 2021, MoFi Distribution's Jonathan Derda emailed me about the South Korean HiFi Rose brand. "This brand strikes me as being the spiritual successor to the original SlimDevices Transporter and Squeezebox Touch," he wrote. "We're all really excited about it."
Like most serious pursuers of the audio hobby, I've known about J E Sugden & Co. Ltd. for years. For many of those years, though, it was easy to forget about them, and I mostly diduntil, quite recently, Sugden gear began popping up at audio shows, including the 2016 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. In his report on that show, Herb Reichert described the midrange of Sugden's A21SE Signature, a pure class-A integrated amplifier, driving DeVore Fidelity speakers, as "shroom-like" and contrasted the sound with what he called class-D's "fake cocaine." That got my attention.
The Jeff Rowland Design Group has long been renowned for the exquisite quality of its chassis. The company was one of the first to promote fully balanced topologies in preamplifiers and amplifiers in the high-end market, one of the first to offer a sonically acceptable remote control, and one of the few to offer a battery power option for their amplifier line.
As I write these words in January 1991, we're right in the midst of an annual media feeding frenzy: the "Best of the Year" follies. This usually takes the form of lists compiled in groups of ten for reasons that must hearken back to some obscure Druidic practice. You know the routine: "Ten Best Books of the Year," "Ten Best Films of the Year," "Ten Top Personalities of the Year," "Ten Best Sports Plays of the Year." Every corner of the media seems eager to get into the act. Special-interest magazines are hardly immune. Car enthusiasts can get their fill of "Cars of the Year." Computer literates find their favorite rags full of the "Ten Best Computers/Computer Accessories/Computer Programs." And music magazines regale us with the "Ten Best Recordings of the Year." Everyone with access to a transmitter or printing press has got, it seems, a little list.
Stardate: 3087.6. Location: somewhere in the 4th quadrant. In response to Captain Kirk's orders, Mr. Sulu throws a few well-chosen levers and sliders—not much different in design and function from those used by Flash Gordon and Captain Video—to redirect the Good Ship Enterprise where no man has boldly gone before. New adventures begin immediately after the bridge crew pick themselves up off the deck and nonchalantly resume their stations.
One of the differences between mass-market and high-end audio is in product model longevity. By this I don't mean that high-end products necessarily last longer—although I think they generally do—but that models remain in a manufacturer's product line longer, perhaps being refined in an evolutionary manner. This helps products retain their value, and, when new models are introduced, these involve more than a cosmetic upgrade and some additional bells'n'whistles.