It may have been Monday November 24, 2008, but I felt like a time traveler to 1939 as we landed in Long Beach, California. I disembarked down a ramp and out the back of the plane straight out onto the tarmac, and leisurely walked into the terminal. I went upstairs to the “Airport Restaurant and […]

Editor’s Note: Audiophile Q&A is a new column on system related topics. Readers are invited to suggest topics to the Dagogo Staff, and we will do our best in addressing them. Opinion expressed by Dagogo reviewers is their own, and does not represent Dagogo’s position. Our inaugural article is on turntable, authored by Phillip Holmes. […]

A little over four years ago on a Friday I took BART over to the city (San Francisco), walked a few blocks, went up to a beautiful loft, heard some great equipment, beautiful music, and made a new friend. His name was Matthew Rotunda and his business was Pitch Perfect Fine Audio Systems. Now four […]

Bill Evans / Portrait In Jazz Analogue Productions 180g LP Recorded in New York, December 28, 1959. Musicians: Bill Evans, piano Scott LaFaro, bass Paul Motian, drums Selections: 1. Come Rain Or Come Shine 2. Autumn Leaves 3. Witchcraft 4. When I Fall In Love 5. Peri’s Scope 6. What Is This Thing Called Love? […]

I must confess that when Constantine Soo first approached me about a possible review of a PMC speaker system, I found myself at a loss. I personally had not heard of PMC nor had I had any recollection of ever seeing them. After he sent me the URL, I went ahead and accessed their website […]

In the April 2009 issue I reviewed the LessLoss Firewall power distributor. If you read that review you know I really liked the Firewall. In fact, I purchased one after the review. In that review I noted that the Firewall not only worked great on my front-end, but also seemed to have an even greater […]

Editor’s note: please note that this review has not received fact-check approval from AYDN. We sent the draft to the company on December 28, 2009, followed by 2 subsequent email inquiries for the status, one on 1/1/2010, the last one on 2/3. While Sean Ta of AYDN acknowledged the receipt of the draft at CES, […]

A few months back I was invited to check out a few items from K.T. Audio Imports’ Tom Vu. I was going to have an opportunity to audition the GamuT Phi 7 speaker, GamuT 200i solid-state stereo amplifier and Musical Conductor MK II turntable and matching arm. Sounded like an interesting combo. I had previously […]

Digital audio has made strides in a frantic pace since its commercialization in the early 80s, when the industry abandoned engineering resources for perfecting the compact cassette and analog turntable media, and instead focused on advancing the state-of-the-art in the compact disc medium. The result was a convergence of talents and ingenuity the likes of […]

Who is Allnic? Kang Su Park of South Korea built quite a good reputation with Silvaweld Electronics. Now he heads up a Korean company, a family-run company called Allnic Audio, where all seven employees are family members. It was my privilege to have a nice long phone interview with Mr. Park. I learned from the […]

The adolescent Doug Schroeder When I was in my early teens I rode the Screamin’ Eagle rollercoaster at Six Flags St. Louis. What a memorable first ride! It must have been about 1977, maybe a year after the coaster opened, and it was a hot, sticky summer day. At the small band shell near the […]

No, you can’t always get what you want. The number of loudspeakers surpassing the cost of a decent family sedan is staggering. Then there are speakers that cost as much as a house. Regardless of cost, I believe all audio products need to offer a blend of good performance and decent value. Fortunately, there are […]

What is it about being under the Tuscan sun? I love all things Italian! Food, Lamborghini’s and Ferraris, Colnago and Campagnolo, the Giro de Italia, Gina Lollobrigida and Chianti, without the liver and Fava beans, thank you very much Hannibal! Goldnote may not be a familiar name to most of you as they are somewhat […]

Any audiophile worth their salt has heard of Clearaudio. Fantastic turntables, up to and including the monster Statement table for $150k, a wonderful array of phono cartridges, great record vacuum machines and many other products related to the reproduction of vinyl! One such item is the subject of this review: the 2-chassis Clearaudio Basic Plus […]

Jorma Design is a small Swedish company that manufactures loudspeaker cables and interconnects at a variety of price points. The Jorma cables utilize very high purity copper wire, non colored Teflon dielectric, WBT Nextgen silver connectors and in some instances Bybee Quantum Purifiers. All are handmade and evidence a level of fit and finish that […]

A “Fixer” is a person who makes it right, who takes a seemingly impossible situation and corrects it, sometimes by not so universally adopted and sanctioned methods. Often, the problem is inconvenient or even dangerous, but the Fixer can be counted upon to shepherd his client safely through the chaos. Over the years I have […]

ShengYa and Grant Fidelity ShengYa products are distributed by Grant Fidelity, located in Alberta, Canada. They span a variety of models and manufacturers, but their focus is high-value audio products. I met the proprietor, Ian Grant, at the 2009 RMAF. He was quite the knowledgeable audiophile, and had a roomful of great products. The CS-6 […]

Description The original Aesthetix Io phono stage was first introduced in 1995 and has earned quite the reputation as one of the world’s finest phono preamps. The designer is Jim White, formerly of Theta Digital fame. The Aesthetix Io Signature Phono Stage with the volume control can be used as your only pre-amplifier in a […]

Usher Audio/JPS Labs cables/Power Modules(David Belles) There was quite good sound coming from this room. I sat down and could relax to the excellent recordings from the folks at Puget Sound Studios using some of the highest sampling rates available. I’m less enamoured with the techno-babble and more interested in the results, and the Usher […]

The darkness of economic downturn has begun to dispel as evidenced in a more upbeat mood at CES/T.H.E. show. The mindset of many manufacturers and distributors was that their business had escaped a death sentence, and if things improved soon might get out of jail. The industry seems to have turned a bit more toward […]

I found myself not very much looking forward to CES this year. Las Vegas can be fun, but the mood at last year’s show was decidedly downbeat. In addition, I do not find the Venetian to be a particularly easy venue for me to navigate. The rooms on the lower floors are essentially separated by […]

MIT / Magico / Technical Brain / The Tape Project MIT Cables presented two pairs of its MA-X speaker interface ($34,500/pair) in driving Magico’s new Q5 speakers ($54,000). A rather large venue, such as this one, usually represents a challenging acoustics to work with, especialy when the speakers employed are of non-horn, smaller-diameter drivers configuration. […]

In this final installment on a highlight on turntables at the CES, we are including exhibits from Richard Beers’ T.H.E. Show at The Flamingo Hotel. The only other component in an audio system that can impart a visual statement as striking as a pair of loudspeaker is the turntable. Everything else are just boxes, whether […]

The high-end audio world once again descended on the city of sin treating dealers, reviewers, press, manufacturers, and whoever else snucked in to a whole lot of exercise, walking long seemingly endless hallways to audition the next greatest system. I realize that show conditions are not perfect but virtually every room is in the same […]

Turntables ought to be obsolete as a contact medium for sound reproduction. Instead, through adaptations of new technologies from other industries, the medium is having, probably, its third wind. Turntable is a fascinating object, with all the moving parts and a platter that is getting thicker and thicker, a customized platform that is getting prettier […]

I mentioned in our 2010 CES at Venetian Snapshots posting about the nicely dressed businessmen at CES, I also want to mention the air of professionalism and sincerity they brought to the event. In stunning contrast were the semi-naked waitresses and the majority, non-audiophile participants of CES, puffing away with their cigarettes and an indifferent […]

Clearaudio Innovation Compact Wood turntable ($7,000) with TT3 tangential tonearm ($3,500) (Imported by Musical Surroundings) MSB Technologies’ M202 class-A no-feedback monoblock amplifiers (prototype) MBL system: 101 E MK II Reference loudspeakers, 1621A Transport, 1611 D/A Converter, 6010D Preamplifier, 9008 monoblock amplifiers. Air Tight amplification imported by Axiss Distributions. Pass Labs unveiled two pairs of its […]

There are six annual U.S. audio shows now, namely the up and coming AXPONA in March, the AKFEST in May, the Lone Star Audio Fest in July, the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in October, the CES High Performance Audio Exhibits in January and the T.H.E. Show that takes place alongside CES. Being an industry-only show, […]

Well it’s 2010, (I prefer “twenty-ten”, what about you?), I wish you all a happy new years and I’m sure we all hope this year will be a slight better than the 2009. On January 1st at our house, we all got up early to watch the Auburn Tigers win their bowl game. It started […]

Last month my record reviews were about the Analog Productions Numbered, Limited Edition 45 rpm Blue Note Remastered LPs. I received an email saying that I should have mentioned the option of picking up the originals since most of them were available for about the same price. That’s a very good point, but I did […]