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 […]

Dream of An Opera 1 Audiophile recording pressed on 180 gram vinyl in Germany Tracks: Side A: 1. Dream of the Red Mansion 2. Mulan 3. Peony Pavilion 4. Madame Butterfly 5. The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl Side B: 1. The Bramble Hairpin 2. Flowers as the Keepsake 3. The Great Award 4. Buddhist […]

It is 2018 and the very idea of having to exit the train on the Trans-Siberian Railway between Mongolia’s Ulan Bator and China as neither country can find it in their diplomacy to coordinate their respective railway gauges is absurd. So, for just about 3 hours the bogies (wheels) have to come off and every […]

The CD transport would make an interesting business school case study. Its market performance over the years has seemingly had relatively little to do with the product’s own identity and functionality and has instead been at the mercy of the shifting winds of how high-end audio approached digital playback. Briefly: early consumer CD playback was […]

Also read Capital Audio Fest 2018: Room 323 – In Through the Out Door At this point, my Capital Audio Fest Room 323 piece has gained a certain degree of notoriety, making it simultaneously famous and infamous. For the purposes of this interview and the privacy of the interviewees: the 14-year-old daughter, SV, and the […]

Listening to high-end vinyl playback means experiencing music recreated collectively by a turntable system and phono stage. Significant changes in the caliber and character of an analog system can very often occur by changing cartridges, as long as is the cartridges are compatible in mass to the tonearm used. To many, this constitutes the most […]

Digital Audio, streaming and digital downloads, is more convenient than Analog Audio, turntables and records. There’s a reason why I own two Denon DP-300F fully automatic turntables and am proud of it. They are my drunk turntables for when I am too far gone, tired or lazy to fully respect my VPI Prime Scout and […]

I recently retired after spending the past forty years as a Certified Public Accountant. Mr. Constantine Soo suggested that I try something both new and different, such as writing about audiophile gear for his Dagogo webzine. Since I do not own or have access to the super expensive gear that most reviewers have, I decided […]

Mike Sanders, founder/chief engineer of Quicksilver Audio, has been in the audio industry since the 1981. Quicksilver Audio participated in the recent California Audio Show, partnering with the Sierra Nevada Audio Society, Bernhagen-Porter speakers, Syncopation (dealer, Stockton) and Genesis Advanced Technologies. Known for his reclusiveness, Mike’s public appearance was anticipated by many of his loyal […]

Hi-Fi Shows are by their nature about the many and not the few, but this year’s Capital Audio Fest (CAF 2018) managed to do the unthinkable. One of its rooms managed to encapsulate the ethos of Hi-Fi as both a hobby and as an industry, and in the process managed to a shine a light, […]

Introduction I can scarcely believe that it has been seven years since my introduction to the original Merrill-Williams R.E.A.L. 101. Since that time, the 101 has not only been my reference, but has always proved to be the under-stated silent star in the sound of my analog system. It was therefore quite surprising when earlier […]

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; a mere footnote in the jazz chronicles until recently.  He was a skilled musician who played saxophone, trumpet and […]

Read Audio Note M9 RIAA Signature phono stage Review, Part 1 This is the second of a two-part review on the Audio Note M9 RIAA Signature phono stage. The first article described the sound of the M9 and this one will focus on 1) a comparison of the Audio Note M9 RIAA Signature with the […]

From all outward appearances, given what the public knows from images of Tekton Design’s speaker range, one would be hard pressed to immediately identify the Mini-Lore Monitors as part of the family. But, they would be wrong. Absent the inverted tweeter-woofer drivers positioning, these speakers are about as standard in design as one would get […]

Day Two CAS 2018 See Day One, 2018 CAS (CAS8), Pt 1 and Day One, Pt 2   I have to admit, I slept in this morning. Last night I hung out with Peter Soderberg of MartinLogan and a few other exhibitors from the show, talking about vintage audio gear and commiserating on what has […]

I have been using the Hana EH high output moving coil phono cartridge for the past two years, and I had a chance to meet the man responsible for the Hana cartridge distribution, Mr. Masahiro Shibazaki of Sibatech when I was in Japan last year. His company, Sibatech, was originally contracted to do worldwide export […]

Three Taiwanese connoisseurs of sound decided they need to bring some of their perspectives to the world, so they started COS, which stands for “connoisseur of sound”. Evidently they wish anonymity, considering this is the extent of information given about them on the website: “COS Engineering, founded by three close friends serious about audio entertainment, […]

Slawa Roschkow/SW1X: Valves/Tubes in the 21st century. Were it not for my restlessness on one of my many excursions to London, England where I found with myself with free time, idle hands being dangerous, coupled with black diamond level curiosity and that could mean only one thing: GOOGLE. So, there I was searching the Greater […]

It’s been a while since tube/valve gear made any extended appearance in any of my homes. Nothing against the gear, but what with graduation and traveling and not settling down it just wasn’t practical. This is not to say that in my time I did not possess tube/valve gear from Audio Research and Conrad-Johnson, but […]

 Also see the Linn Selekt DSM Press Release of September 18, 2018 On September 18, 2018 Linn Products held a press conference in Chicago at the James Hotel in during which GiladTiefenbrun, the Managing Director of Linn, as well as Jen Cassidy, the Sales and Marketing Director, Mechanical Engineer Adrian Choong, and Software Engineer Peter […]

It’s all about simplicity, and it is something audiophiles tend to forget. It seems the machinery of industry always wants to push a new feature, another aspect of operational complexity. Our cars are becoming technologically laden, far more so than computers of ten years ago. Phones are ubiquitous with the continual addition of functionality. Bluetooth […]

Publisher’s note: Doug Schroeder sits down with Jeff Haagenstad and Jim Kinne, two of the four co-founders of Exogal, at 2018 AXPONA and talks about the company’s new product called the Streamer. Video format: MP4 Duration: 26 minutes

Originally published September 12, 2018. Updated on October 2, 2018 with remembrance by Nelson Pass. Siegfried Linkwitz (November 23, 1935 – September 11, 2018) September 11, 2018 (San Francisco Bay Area): On this day, we have lost an industry giant. Renowned audio industry veteran Siegfried Linkwitz passed away in his Sea Ranch residence on September […]

Singer Barbara Lashley (1935-1992) was a bright light in San Francisco Bay Area jazz during the 1980s.  This article offers an introduction via her best but long out-of-print 1983 record album and three newly recovered live performances.  The live sessions are not polished enough for commercial publication yet recall her love affair with song and […]

I first came into contact with the Studio Electric M4 speakers in 2017 at a show, where I met company founder David MacPherson for the first time. We would and have met regularly since then at shows. There was something about these speakers that I could not shake. It was as if I had heard […]