Do you remember your first record player? I certainly do. Depending on how I count, my first record player was either my parents’ “TV/Record Changer” or a Magnavox portable that sort of looked like a small suit case a few years later. It had speakers on each end and in the middle you could pull […]

One of the earliest recollections of my childhood has to do with a red and white portable record player and a bag of steel needles. I used to play my 45’s on that record player. There was nothing cooler than sitting on the front porch on a hot summer’s day and playing the Beatle’s “I […]

Introduction A few months ago, Brian Ackerman of Aaudio Imports mentioned a new power conditioner he had obtained. He said that his preliminary evaluation was that it was an outstanding performer at a more real-world price. I have reviewed several other products that Brian markets, and they have all been excellent; not necessarily at lower […]

This is the third Clearaudio turntable I have reviewed. Clearaudio is a German company that has been dedicated to advancing the art of analog playback for the last 32 years. Their cartridges were well received from the start and many considered them to be the absolute state of the art. One of their early turntables, […]

Dynaudio, a Danish company that has been building high-end audiophile loudspeaker systems for over thirty years, also manufactures speakers for both the professional and automotive markets. Per Michael Manousselis, Director of Sales & Marketing of Dynaudio USA, the company began supplying its Dynaudio drivers to the OEM and DIY markets after the commercial success of […]

Allnic: “All Nickel”, refers to the in-house built 78% Nickel content output transformers. These have a 12-to-1 cost difference to build and are a big part of the performance, wider bandwidth, faster energy transfer. – David Beetle of Hammertone Audio, North American Importer. Not Your Grandfather’s Korea For a provincial Texan like me, the stereotype […]

Why review a phono cartridge that has been around for nearly twenty years? Well, for two reasons. First, my two reference cartridges are the Miyabi Standard and the Benz Ebony TR, and I wanted to hear how the Miyabi/47 and Standard compared. Second, even though people mention it all the time, sometimes we forget just […]

A Smart Little Phono Stage! The offer to review cartridges and phono stages is usually accepted with “my pleasure” as the answer. Though I have found a couple of phono stages that really rock my world, I know that there may be better units out there from unknown companies. My opinions on cartridges and phono […]

He was considered a virtual idiot; after all, he wasn’t able to speak coherently until about age 12. He majored in classroom mayhem and proved to be an adept kleptomaniac. Who would have thought he would be enlightened to derive the theory of general relativity? My mind ponders such things when I hear Einstein Audio’s […]

Clearaudio is a German company known for superbly engineered products. In regard to tonearms, they have been better known for their refinement of the linear tracking tonearm. Yes, they have made several radial tracking tonearms including the Carbon Fiber Satisfy tonearms that I have used for the last three years, but they never made a […]

I have spent the majority of my life as an audiophile and have tried subwoofer/monitor speaker systems a few times. At college, I had some Realistic/Radio Shack speakers with an NEC subwoofer. Everyone on the dorm floor knew of the system, so when it came time for a dance at the school my name came […]

Although I can’t say that I am very familiar with many digital cables, I’ve owned six different brands, which is a drop in the bucket of what’s available. I went on a search for digital cables when I acquired my Esoteric transport and DAC four years ago, looking at 1.5 meter cables in the $1,000 […]

A turntable is simply a mechanism for converting the mechanical energy supplied by the turning of the platter by the motor into electrical energy. The conversion occurs when movement of the stylus generates an electrical signal. All movements of the stylus are converted to electrical energy, not just those related to musical information impressed into […]

The PM 150 Tube hybrid mono amps from Shengya interested me right off for two reasons. First, they are hybrid designs which make them somewhat different than the usual monoblocks on the market; and second, they are imported through Grant Fidelity. I reviewed the Grant Fidelity Rita integrated amplifier that retails for $4,200 and was […]

You could say I was on a roll. After reviewing the $8,200 Esoteric D-05 32-bit stereo D/A converter/pre-amp in early February, 2010, I published another review on digital front-ends, this time on the $26,000 Accuphase DP-700 Precision MDSD SA-CD player in the March Issue. There are reviews of yet more exotic players in progress; but […]

Extremes I find myself attracted to extremes in music and audio. Stockhausen; Penderecki; a Bach six-part fugue; Tupac, German lied; unaccompanied soloists; brass bands; Coltrane, Ben Webster; Cat Anderson; huge amps and massive panels; tiny DHT amps and single-driver horns; linear trackers; 12” arms; vacuum hold-down; extremely complex; extremely simple. There are truths revealed in […]

by: Pierre Lurne Editor’s Note: This month, we are excited to present a new article by Pierre Lurné, the founder of Audiomeca. Views expressed in this article are those of the author, and they do not represent the position of Dagogo. A little article on the Analogue clamp! Is there so much to say about such […]

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, […]