Elvis Is Back Elvis Presley Reissue by Analogue Productions RCA AAPP 2231 2 180g 45rpm LPs Produced by: Steve Sholes and Chet Atins Engineered by: Bill Porter at RCA Studio B, Nashville, TN Mixed by: Bill Porter Mastered by: George Marino at Sterling Sound I grew up hearing Elvis on jukeboxes, tiny transistor radios, and […]

On Saturday, June 5th, about 40 Bay Area Audiophile Society members in total attended the demonstration of The Lotus Group’s Granada loudspeaker, and the unveiling of the SMc Audio VRE-1 preamplifier ($14,950) in two separate sessions, one at 10:30am and one at 1:30pm, at Manny LaCarrubba’s Sausalito Audio in Novato. The event was presented by […]

Introduction I have already reviewed Allnic’s wonderful T1500 300B integrated amp, and now I am reviewing the complete Allnic front-end, starting with the H-3000 LCR Reference phono stage, then adding the L-3000 line stage, and finally I will add the newest version of the Allnic Verito MC. The reason for writing three different reviews instead […]

Maybe I should call this article the Burn In Manifesto. It began as a few suggestions designed to caution against giving one’s self over wholeheartedly to the suggestion that a component under consideration will change significantly with usage. However, it turned into an exercise complete with informal testing. Burn in, a process which is suggested […]

At seventeen I was a Baylor student and was in the process of learning about high-end audio. By the time I was eighteen I had been diagnosed as an audiophile, a term I didn’t even know the meaning of when I was first told I was one. In this process I made some good friends. […]

Back in July of 2008, I reviewed the original Teresonic Clarison Speaker Cables and Interconnects. I called them the best kept secret in audio cables, and I’m very, very sorry to say that is probably still true. The original Clarison speaker cables were handcrafted using an outside PVC insulating cover, a protective cover of elastic […]

There are both objective and subjective traits that make a design a classic. Being a classic doesn’t mean it was the absolute best at what it did, or the most en-vogue, or the flashiest, or the most expensive. Sometimes a classic just happened to be the best, or fastest, or prettiest, but it’s something more […]

The name Helius has been associated with quality tonearms for many years; Helius tonearms have always been built from the ground up by a physicist and engineering graduate who also a music lover. The first time I saw Helius’ new Scorpio tonearm was at the 2009 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. It was set up on […]

Linn is a very well-known high-end audio company, but this is my first experience with any Linn product, so I started by doing some research about Linn. My first venture into its website was a bit like learning a new language. Linn loves to give its products creative names: Lingo, Radical, Akurate, Majik, etc., so […]

I consider this more of an addendum than a proper review. I had the ESL power amp for use with the 10B speaker system. The 10B comes with electronic crossover and built-in bass amp, but you had to supply your own amp for the electrostatic panels. I had some tube amps on hand, but the […]

Let me start by saying that the name of this product doesn’t do justice to the product. For starters this is not merely a DAC. This is a full function preamplifier with 5 line inputs: Coaxial, Optical, 2 line inputs (CD/DVD and Aux), and a USB input. It’s also an OP amp headphone amplifier. The […]

A Tasting Flight is a term used by wine tasters to describe a selection of wines, usually between three and eight glasses, for the purpose of sampling and comparison. My Tasting Flight comes from Great Britain and are made by the famed Lowther Loudspeakers Ltd. The 5-inch drivers were all housed in the Teresonic Magus […]

I now have listened to the Playback Designs MPS-5 in a variety of systems for several months and am still not completely sure that I have taken the full measure of its not inconsiderable capabilities. The unit requires an extended break-in, say a minimum of 500 hours. While it never sounded unsatisfactory during this period, […]

I’ve been an Electrocompaniet user for many years. I own the fabulous Nemo monoblocks, which drive their namesake B&W Nautilus 800Ds (see my October, 2008 review in Dagogo. I’ve also reviewed the Electrocompaniet EMC 1UP CD player (December, 2009), which despite its age (first introduced in 1999) continues to be one of the most musical […]

The first two LPs I’m sharing with you this month are from APO’s 2009 Direct-to-Disc Sessions. They are produced by Chad Kassem OF Chesky and the recording engineer is Katsuhiko Naito. Chad has a great commitment to old times Blues and old Blues singers. Let me tell you, as I sit hear eating Jambalaya and […]

Sussurro (Italian) Noun: whisper, rustle, murmur When I met Peter Ledermann at T.H.E. Show and spent some time listening to his cartridge named, “The Voice”, I was quite taken with what I thought was one of the most listenable cartridges I had heard. Not in some euphonic way, or anything that I could put my […]

Pain of cable I apologize in advance for making this review as much about my beliefs, as it is about the products from Furutech. I’m not as passionate about cables as most, but I do agree they are important. Because I don’t do (and really don’t want to do) many cable reviews, I feel it […]

Speakers with side-firing woofers polarize the opinion poll. For every opinion that purported its logic of being, intensely passionate disagreements have always ensued. Rockport Technologies of Maine is one of the purveyors of such design concept, and I came to this review project with a long-term exposure to another design that employs side-firing woofers, the […]

Editor’s Note 9/15/2010: Reader’s question and manufacturer’s response added at the end of this Review. The Qsonix Q105 has been one of the most innovative audio components I’ve auditioned. There is so much to say about the Qsonix Q105 that I will have to skip many nifty specifics to keep this article to a reasonable […]

Considering the fact that tube digital-to-analogue converters are virtually non-existent in the high-end audio product offerings from corporate entities with full engineering compliment, such as Accuphase, Esoteric, Sony, Wadia, Meridian, Luxman, et cetera, it will seem to indicate a certain philosophy, or even insistence, among them to avoid promoting tube DACs. Whether it is a […]

Believe it or not, when people visit our home the first thing they notice isn’t that I am an audio reviewer, but all the paintings. I remember when Ted was up installing all the Synergistic Research gear he asked if we were Francophiles. I was kind of caught off guard because I’ve never even thought […]

Why a Step Up Transformer The first step up transformer (SUT henceforth) I ever used was an Ortofon that looked like a battery with wires coming out of it. I switched to a battery-operated (2 D cells) pre-preamp dubbed JC-1 from a little startup company called Mark Levinson. I was really surprised a few years […]

Valves! Who uses this term nowadays? They are vacuum tubes, or just “tubes”. In the old days before the transistor they were known as valves. Why still refer to them as such? You will have one legitimate reason to use it if the company you own is named Valve Amplification Company. The mnemonic of the […]

Description Electrocompaniet is a company that has long made some of the most musical sounding class A amplifiers to be had. I was excited to get the chance to review their little class A phono preamp, the ECP 1. It’s about as good looking as a small metal box can be with the nicely polished […]

MSB Technology/ Harbeth MSB was demonstrating a new line-up of gear through the friendly Harbeth Super HL5 loudspeakers. Someone noted to me that companies selling front-end gear, such as MSB does with digital sources and amplifiers, may often be overshadowed by cool looking loudspeakers. Thus, people will inquire more about the loudspeaker than the amplifiers, […]

Classic Audio Classic Audio had the impressive Project t 1.3 Field Coil high efficiency Traxtrix woodhorn loudspeakers ($59,950) with Atmosphere amplification, Esoteric digital front-end and Kuzma Reference turntable. This, and the Silbatone Aporia among others, went a long way to crush the horns-are-bright-and-fatiguing myth. Then again, there are plenty of horns around that probably don’t […]

This is the first audio show I have attended in the USA in a number of years. In the past, I have attended various CES’s, the smoke-filled Sofitel Hi Fi Show in the UK, the Munich Show, and a few of the past Stereophile Hi Fi Shows. As a debut show, AXPONA, was not at […]

Lamm/ Wilson Lamm was showing their ML3 Signature amps and LL1 Signature line stage on Wilson MAXX 3 loudspeakers with the Redpoint “Solo Voce” turntable. This room was not taking music playback requests and was not playing at particularly challenging levels. The sound had a spacious stage and solid vocal production. I felt there was […]

Acoustic Zen/Triode Corporation Ltd/Orb/DEQX The new Acoustic Zen Crescendo ($14,000 pair) were sounding exceptionally good in this room, with Triode amplifiers of seeming exceptional sound and build, and for affordable prices. Other than the TRV-M88PP monoblocks that are priced at $13,900, all of their other amplifiers on their price list are under $4,200 (most under […]

Teresonic Teresonic was showing two loudspeakers, the Ingenium and the Magus, as well as running their Reference 2a3 integrated amplifier. The Speakers are high-efficient single-drivers and have outstanding midrange sonics producing some of the very best vocals at CES. Transients and decay was top notch, and it is very easy to fall for the perspective […]