At the eighth annual (2018) California Audio Show, Benjamin Zwickel, founder of Mojo Audio, enjoyed discussing the technologies he incorporated into his products at his ‘quiet room’ booth in the HeadMasters Auditioning Room. The level of energy he imparted was palpable and infectious. For attendees who crave details and industry insider insights, Ben was the […]

Also read The Real Billie Holiday, Part One – 1930s and Part Three – 1950s This profile of Billie Holiday is presented in three chapters covering the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s respectively.  She’s quoted from interviews and her famed autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues.  Representative recordings, podcast clips and interviews add detail and perspective to […]

2018 was a year where, between my law firm, my ailing parents and my not-for-profit activities, I was working 75-hour weeks and I had little time to write reviews. However, I never stopped checking out new components to try and further improve my system. I’ve recently started a phased retirement, and am finally able to […]

 Also read The Real Billie Holiday, Part Two – 1940s and Part Three – 1950s   This profile of Billie Holiday is presented in three chapters covering the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s respectively.  She’s quoted from interviews and her famed memoir, Lady Sings the Blues.  Representative recordings, podcast clips and readings add detail and perspective […]

An Antenna No More! This past year numerous readers and followers of mine on Twitter and Facebook continually asked me to recommend a budget phono stage, and to this end I had acquired the following phono stages: Parasound ZPhono Cambridge Audio Duo NAD PP2e Musical Fidelity V90-LPS Rega Fono Mini Pro-Ject Audio Phono Box DC […]

Where it all started It always helps to know where it all started. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. His invention was able to record sounds onto tinfoil wrapped around a rotating cylinder. It used a steel needle attached to a resonator mounted at the end of a horn, all of which moved across […]

Tracks: 1. Dreaming of the crash 2. Cornfield chase 3. Dust 4. Day One 5. Stay 6. Message from home 7. The Wormhole 8. Mountains 9. Afraid of time 10. A place among the stars 11. Running out 12. I’m going home 13. Coward 14. Detach 15. S.T.A.Y. 16.Where we’re going   The film critics’ […]

Publisher’s note: ‘Design Notes” is created to feature the informative and well written documentary inside the User Manual of products to the readership, to offer knowledge and viewpoints that we believe will benefit and even entertain us. Every product comes with an Owner’s Manual to familiarize the customer with its operations. These documents are often […]

Publisher’s note: Every product comes with an Owner’s Manual to familiarize the customer with its operations. These documents are often written in a dry style and to the point. But once in a while, we come across vast sections in Manual that reads like a smooth presentation of ideas and juicy description of brilliant technologies, […]

Parasound maintains a relatively long history in Hi-Fi. The brand has been around for decades and while still going strong, reliably and dependably, it manages to do so without a great deal of fanfare. Workmanlike is a word that has been used to describe their products; rugged and sturdy, they soldier on. I joined the […]

Writing this article takes me back to when I spent inordinate hours on opamp rolling DACs. I dabbled in it initially in an effort to see whether swapping them had any appreciable effect. That turned into a veritable extended study, with dozens of hours spent comparing first solid-state opamps and then discrete opamps from three […]

I was at a Hi-Fi show in the Fall where, as I walked down one corridor, I heard the same band, playing the same track and not wholly in sync with each other from four successive rooms. It dawned on me at that moment that there had to be more than the apparent restrictive canon […]

Let’s get my bias against higher gauge speaker cables out in the open from the start. I am not a fan of higher AWG (thinner conductor) speaker cables. Nor am I impressed with higher AWG power cords. Audiophiles have their preferences, and mine is toward lower AWG (heavier conductor) speaker cables and power cables. Bill […]

Also read: Frank “Big Boy” Goudie: Jazz On Three Continents  Part 2 of 3, South America 1939-46 and Europe 1946-56 Frank “Big Boy” Goudie (b. 1899 Louisiana – d. 1964 California) has been almost completely overlooked by jazz history, a mere footnote until recently.  A skilled musician, his career paralleled the history of jazz itself: origins […]

Just say Allo to Digital Audio Motivation is a wondrous thing, as is procrastination, and if you get the timing just right, one saves you from the other. It’s at this crossroads that I find myself having to write about Allo’s USBridge device and respond to a letter forwarded to my publisher. Let’s start with […]

Can you buy an SACD for a single track? The Best SACD Track ever? With rising prices for everything from used LPs to new SACDs and downloads, can you really justify buying an album just for a single track? I guess all audiophiles have bought many discs to get their favorite track, just to find […]

Earlier this year I wrote a piece contrasting a pair of USB devices that respectively market themselves as specialists in re-clocking, re-generating and recovering. As it happens iFi products have been making a bit of a splash and in writing up one of their portable DACs earlier this year I became more familiar with the […]

Finding a dedicated and reasonably priced CD transport in 2018 is no easy task. Indeed, it is difficult enough to find CD players nowadays dedicated to playing Compact Disc.  Before I continue a question that needs to be addressed, especially for younger readers as the CD is almost becoming the relic of LP, what is […]

I love both of the new amps by Gold Note, the PA-1175 MkII and the PA-1175 MkII. Both are solid state, 200 watts per channel. Both are bridgeable to 520 watts per channel and even have the same styling. These two amps inhabit the same chassis, but they are distinct. One switch makes them both […]

Destination Audio is the realization of company founder Sam Wisniewski’s dream of the sound of the directly heated 45 tube in triode mode. From the creation of the two-chassis 417A tube phono stage to the two-chassis 76 tube-based preamplifier, the 45 tube-based monoblock amplifiers and the Vista horn, the creative objective of all of Sam’s […]

How Well Do You Know Speaker Tech Terms? I was thinking that some of my readers might like to test their knowledge of speaker design and terminology. I decided to put a little test together for your enjoyment. Back in 1972 I was working for a company called California HiFi Warehouse, which was a major […]

Publisher’s note: Audio Note UK has graciously provided the following article detailing the conceptualization and design of the EVGA Nu Audio Card in collaboration with EVGA. The article is authored by Andy Grove of Audio Note UK. (The EVGA Nu Audio Card is scheduled for launch on January 16, 2019. Price is $249. See the […]

Just recently I penned a commentary piece bemoaning the state of affairs concerning speaker cables, binding posts, termination and how the twain shall indeed never meet. Keeping the hyperbole to the limit, let’s just say of all the speaker cables I managed to easily plug in and out of speakers and amplifiers, one manufacturer stood […]

Also read: Frank “Big Boy” Goudie: Jazz On Three Continents  Part 1 of 3, France and Europe 1924-1939 Frank “Big Boy” Goudie (b. 1899 Louisiana – d. 1964 California) has been almost completely overlooked by jazz history, a mere footnote in the jazz chronicles until recently.  A skilled musician, he played saxophone, trumpet and clarinet.  […]

When I was a young boy, my father, who traveled the world extensively, brought back from Japan a Sony short wave radio the size of a paperback novel. That country made some cool audio electronics back then. John Van Leishout, the owner of VanL Speakerworks, must have thought so, too. The year was 1968 when […]

It’s a jungle out there Disorder and confusion everywhere No one seems to care Well I do Hey, who’s in charge here? It’s a jungle out there – Randy Newman Prominent: standing out so as to be seen easily; conspicuous; particularly noticeable Popular: regarded with favor, approval, or affection by people in general Both prominent […]

During the 1980s I had a Sumiko Talisman S sapphire low-output moving coil cartridge, which was a great match for my Sumiko Premier MMT tonearm. It had a beautiful midrange to go along with a rich natural sound. By the time it wore out, that model Talisman  had been discontinued. I did find a less […]

Hours, days, years were spent listening to records only to find tape cassettes more portable and Compact Discs closer to perfection. Hindsight, as it is, makes me regret so many life choices, but we’ll stick to recorded music formats. It is safer that way for everyone concerned, especially for me. Tempted by the shiny disc, […]

Streamer, you know you are a Streamer Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! I said Streamer, you’re nothing but a Streamer Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no! I said,  “far out, what a day, a year, a life it is!” You know, well you know, […]

Introduction – A bridge between two worlds for the music enthusiast Rek-O-Kut enjoys a long and storied history in the evolution of turntables for studio, broadcast, and home use. Esoteric Sound are the owners and curators of the Rek-O-Kut brand since 2004 and have continued the tradition of serving varied industries, archivists, and hobbyists. Eight […]