@Featured
Monoprice SonicSolace II Bluetooth Over- Ear Headphones
Just like any sort of hunting, audiophile bargain hunting involves a modicum of danger, but that’s part of the thrill. The risk of finding a stinker is part the process, and the rise of Chi-Fi, or Chinese-made gear has made bargain-hunting… Read More »
More @Featured
SVS SB-1000 Pro Subwoofer Reviewed
The SVS SB-1000 (buy at Amazon) is SVS’s entry level subwoofer. It features a 12-inch driver and 325 watts of class D power to ensure that the sub produces plenty of desired low frequency sound. The SB stands for sealed… Read More »
Four Good Reasons to Be Optimistic About the Audiophile Hobby in 2023
Much lip service has been given to the failing health of the audiophile hobby, and with the demographics looking about as close as you can get to 100 percent male and a median age of well over 55, who could… Read More »
Grace Design m900 DAC Reviewed
A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is a device that converts a digital signal into an analog waveform that your speakers can produces and your ears will ultimately understand. DACs are in everything these days. They are ubiquitous devices that perform to… Read More »
Your Next Stereo Store Visit Might Not Be Anything Like What We Knew From The Past
Call me what you want… publisher, editor, entrepreneur, schmuck or just Hey You and I likely will respond quickly and with a smile. Despite running my own publishing business for nearly all of 25 years, I still pretty much consider… Read More »
PSB Passif 50 Stand Mount Loudspeaker Reviewed
PSB was founded in 1972 by Paul Barton, a designer who believed speakers should sound natural without adding or subtracting anything from the original recording, which the company refers to as the True to Nature design philosophy. Equally important for the… Read More »
Mark Levinson No. 5909 Headphones Reviewed
Ask 1,000 people at The Mall of the America if $999 is a lot of money for wireless, over- ear, Bluetooth headphones and you might get a fully unanimous 1000/1000 people saying yes. For audiophiles, we often view things a little differently.… Read More »
Why You Never Need to Impress Anybody with Your Audio System
Watching the Internet come to life as a commercial entity in the 1990s, when I was in music/business school, was most eye opening. From the time that I got to South Central Los Angeles to celebrate the pending West Coast… Read More »
Paradigm Premier 700F Floorstanding Speakers Reviewed
The Paradigm Premier 700F (buy at Crutchfield) is a mid-level floorstanding speaker from Paradigm priced at $1,800 per pair, which puts it right in the fray with many of the best players in the high-value speaker market. These moderately tall… Read More »
iFi xDSD Gryphon DAC/Headphone Amp Reviewed
The iFi xDSD Gryphon (buy at Crutchfield) is a portable balanced headphone amplifier and digital-to-analog converter from a company renowned for both its DACs and its HPAs. It will handle just about any connection you can throw at it, including USB,… Read More »
Is Break-In a Thing Science-Based Audiophiles Should Take Seriously?
Two weeks ago, I was on the phone with a public relations executive I hadn’t spoken with in a few years. Frank currently represents PS Audio, Audio-Technica and a few other audiophile brands and he was confirming that he had… Read More »
Pro-Ject MaiA DS3 Integrated Amplifier Review
An integrated amplifier doesn’t have to be physically large to be high performance and fully featured. When I read the initial press release for the Pro-Ject MaiA DS3 I thought, “There’s an amplifier that seems to fulfill all the requirements needed to… Read More »
Schiit Saga+ Preamplifier Reviewed
Some folks prefer a tube-based preamplifier in their audio system while others prefer a solid-state preamplifier. By tube-based, I mean an audiophile preamplifier which uses a vacuum tube as its principal gain device. In contrast, a passive preamplifier attenuates the… Read More »
Sonus faber Lumina V Loudspeaker Reviewed
Sonus faber has a longstanding heritage of making audiophile loudspeakers for music lovers. It all started in 1983 when fine Italian craftsmanship met fine music appreciation in Monteviale, Italy. Not much has changed since, except that we’ve had advances in… Read More »
Revising the Conundrum of And/Or When Buying Audiophile Components
Things have changed quite a bit in the audiophile world as compared with just a few years ago when I left the business to try my hand at being an executive at a publicly traded Fortune 500 company. The pink… Read More »
Anthem MCA 225 Gen 2 Power Amplifier Reviewed
The Anthem MCA 225 Gen 2 (buy at Crutchfield) is a two-channel class A/B audiophile power amp from Anthem, which also has three- and five-channel siblings in the 325 and 525. It puts out 225 watts per channel into eight… Read More »
How A Motivated Millennial Music Lover Found a Highly Lucrative Career in the Audiophile Business Straight Out of College
Greensboro is much like any other mid-sized, sleepy college town in the Southeast. Home to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), part of a statewide system that quite surprisingly encompasses 17 colleges, universities, and institutions of higher learning,… Read More »
Cleer Audio Next Headphones Reviewed
You may be surprised to learn that Cleer Audio sells an audiophile-oriented, wired-only headphone set. Cleer’s primary user base consists of younger, on-the-go listeners who are seeking headphones that perform at a higher level but also look really cool. The… Read More »
HIFIMAN Deva Pro Hybrid-Wireless Planar Headphones
Audiophiles love wired headphones. Younger tech fans and music enthusiasts love everything to be wireless. For the past few months, I’ve reviewed nearly every high-performance Bluetooth headphone, from brands such as Sennheiser, Bowers & Wilkins, Mark Levinson, Focal, Technics, Apple,… Read More »
Parasound Halo P 6 Preamplifier Reviewed
Parasound has been offering high-value audiophile gear for three generations now, including many higher-end products designed by legendary consultant John Curl (18 page interview). Today, they offer a broad range of products, including some revered integrated amplifiers, but if you’re looking… Read More »
CES Might Be Dead to Audiophiles Now, But It Was Fear of Illness That Poisoned the Well Long Before COVID-19
When I was 19 years old, I remember literally begging my boss, Christopher Hansen, to go to CES in early 1994. I was off from college, and back then the show was the Super Bowl of all things audio. What… Read More »
Scansonic HD M20 Compact Floorstanding Speaker Reviewed
Scansonic is relatively unknown speaker brand at this point in the United States, but is uniquely related to some more familiar speaker brands such as Raidho Acoustics and ScanSpeak. In fact, it was developed to showcase ScanSpeak driver technology. Scansonic… Read More »
Five Low-Cost/No-Cost Audiophile Hacks That Actually Work
Acoustician Bob Hodas, who has tuned and pretty much every good recording studio—from Sony Music and Electric Lady Studios to Van Halen’s 5150 and so many more—also works with enlightened audiophiles seeking real-world, non-voodoo tuning of their rooms. This can mean… Read More »
Naim Mu-so 2nd Generation Wireless Music System Reviewed
The Naim Audio Mu-so all-in-one speaker/music system (buy from Amazon) is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the merger between electronics firm Naim Audio and French speaker juggernaut Focal. The second generation of the Naim Mu-so is a very slick… Read More »