What the heck are these things? Well, most obviously they’re shiny silver cylinders about 4” in diameter and 4 ¾” in height and weighing 8.8 pounds each. On top, they have two inputs, one RCA and one XLR. They also have one XLR output. Based on that unsophisticated description, they’re gizmos, thingamajigs or widgets. Turns […]

I now have definitive proof: you can never have too much power. A few months ago I received a single Plinius SA Reference amplifier to review as a stereo amp. At the time I received it, I had several other high-power amps available, all of which were monoblocks. I thought it would be interesting to […]

Getting Wired Up! I have to make an admission. I am known far and wide as a Type A personality. I prefer to think of myself as a recovering Type A. You can say that I am fairly wired by nature, and this review seems sort of serendipitous in a way. I also have another […]

I consider myself rather fortunate that I review almost exclusively high-end Hifi items. It has been my experience thus far that I have not listened to anything that did not sound rather spectacular in its own way. When you are playing in this rarified air you have the right to expect things that are beyond […]

Lowther’s worldwide debut of the DX-65 driver in the Teresonic Magus XR A new driver from Lowther is real news. A new five inch driver is even rarer news, so it was with great anticipation that I waited on this pair of speakers to arrive. It was the Teresonic Magus XR with the new Lowther […]

Mike Allen and Jolida always brings great gear and this year he displayed a trio of his little 12-watt EL84 driven Cube amps. He was also using his own Tascam BR-20 10-inch reel-to-reel. Are these tape decks making a comeback? Evidently so and I for one am glad. While Mike’s little amps may not be […]

Sanders I have always been taken with the Sanders speakers and electronics. This year the system had excellent speed and leading edge definition, and excellent extension at the frequency extremes. Resolution and imaging were also strong points. It could have been a bit warmer through the midrange but overall was one of the better systems […]

Some of you may not be familiar with the name of Haniwa yet but you will be. Born out of the fertile mind of Dr. Tetsuo Kubo and his Kubotek Creation Engineering company, known worldwide for their CAD engineering programs, Haniwa and is manufacturing the full compliment of audio gear including amplification and phono cartridges! […]

Last year I did a show report entitled the “Top Ten Rooms” where I simply listed my ten favorite rooms in alphabetical order. This year I tried to spend more time in the rooms that “really floated my boat” so I would be able to tell you much more about these rooms. I’m not claiming […]

ECONO-SHOCK! In the past Wharfedale has always meant polite Brit sound to me and nothing serious. Lately the company is getting more serious, especially with its Opus 2-2 Towers ($2,299 – 3,499 depending on finish). The big payoff in design is the implementation of the same upper drivers as the flagship Airedale at $20K. Large […]

Attendance was down significantly this year. A number of exhibitors chose to stay in the rooms which they had used in past years (Audio Federation, Aaudio Imports, EAR, Audio Unlimited, etc.). In general this was a wise choice, particularly with respect to setting up systems in more familiar acoustics. Exhibitors generally seemed upbeat. Sound was […]

K.T. Audio Import The K.T. Audio Import exhibit took place in the extremely large Evergreen Ballroom A. Though large, the room was occupied by none other than the $155k Gamut S9 loudspeaker system, as driven by the $26,000/pair M250 monoblock amplifiers. What normally would require the larger of systems to fill the room sonically with, […]

Do you really want a system that let’s you hear what’s on the record? We audiophiles often say that’s what our goal is. Other audiophiles say they want a system that brings them as close as possible to what the original performance sounded like. I don’t know how the second could work if, by it, […]

Sometimes the little things irritate me. What little things in particular? Misleading frequency response specifications, an example of which would be, “20 Hz – 25 kHz”. It means very little to real world audio. I could tell you that I am 6’ 5” tall, weigh 175 pounds and can slam a basketball. Of course, that’s […]

My mind brims with thoughts about enduring, not pertaining to involvement in the audio hobby, but to the habit of finding new gear, putting systems together in an effort to achieve that “work of art”, the realization of a rig that brings us as close as we can to our ideal HiFi experience. This article […]

Five of these six albums showed up at my house early in November. The Live in Paris album I have had for a few months; two are remasters of rather old LPs and two are new releases. The two Diana Krall albums are new vinyl released of CDs that have been out for several years. […]

This month, Dagogo has the privilege of publishing the premiere review of the Teresonic Magus XR, an American loudspeaker design utilizing Lowther’s latest technological tour de force: the DX65. All major loudspeaker manufacturers adopt multi-driver designs. While some opt for as many as a 5-way design with 5 or more drivers to maximize speaker capability […]

Introduction The Aural Symphonics Chrono b2 is more a study in contrasts than most cables. Chrono b2 refers to balanced version 2. Visually, it is a large diameter cable covered in an outer jacket that appears black with a diamond pattern etched in white thread, rather unexceptional, but functional. At night, in a darkened room, […]

Except for the Klipsch horn-based speakers I owned between 1977 and 1981, I have been the owner of electrodynamic point source speakers all my life. In 2002, I seriously considered the Martin Logan Prodigy, but elected instead to purchase Bower & Wilkins 802. That’s the closest I ever came to buying a pair of electrostatics. […]

History and Description At the 2008 Rocky Mountain Audiofest I was impressed by the fact that several systems that were all-out assaults on the state-of-the-art were using a non moving-coil cartridge from Soundsmith. The cartridge was a moving iron design called “The Voice.” It is based on the much underrated and one of my favorite […]

If you’re a regular reader you probably know how often I find my audio priorities the same as the artisans of the Japanese high-end audio community. Their handiwork or better yet, their art, often seems unconventional to those who engineer audio equipment to meet specs. This alignment of priorities has been especially true for amps […]

Every now and then you get a chance to do something really unique and highly enjoyable as a reviewer and the subject of this review is one of those times. I was recently offered a chance to audition two Koetsu stone body platinum cartridges. As an owner of two Koetsu cartridges, a Black (long since […]

When a Plan Comes Together – Like in a pair! The AcousticPlan Company was formed in 1996 by German Claus Jäckle after spending 15 years experimenting on music reproduction. Claus was driven to find new and unusual ideas in the way of music reproduction. High quality components require not only innovative design and professional engineering […]

As is the case for my audio trips, I met early Friday morning in Dallas with an audio buddy, this time John Semrad, to eat breakfast. Breakfast at Mama’s Daughter’s is a tour de force of old fashioned Southern style breakfast. Eggs, biscuits, bacon, sausage, ham steak, and even chicken fried steak, are mainstays on […]

Well this was my second RMAF in as many years and it was with some trepidation and anxiety that I attended this year’s event. Like many others I have waded through the financial disasters of the past couple of years and have directly felt the sting in my family pocket book. I have heard numerous […]

(Left to right: Doug Schroeder, Jack Roberts, Constantine Soo, Fred Crowder, Ed Momkus. Not in the picture but at the Show also: Gary Lea and Phillip Holmes.) I know everyone says that the best part of going to audio shows is see old friends, and making new ones, and surely I would agree that this […]

Foreword I felt a very relaxed atmosphere this year at RMAF; despite the two power outages from an overloaded electrical service, and local fire department sweep of the building, there was a pervasive sense of ease. The haughtiness of HiFi headspace was deflated a bit by the recession, and manufacturers along with distributors and music […]

Aaudio Imports (Tidal speakers) A most bizarre show-going experience occured to me at Aaudio Imports’ Acapella (Larkspur Suite, see Coverage 1) and Tidal exhibits (Room 2004), in which the company’s dealers congregated. I mean his dealers are so supportive of the importer, their enthusiasm is a rarity in the industry. The Tidal speaker exhibit was […]

Foreword On the cover of this year’s Rocky Mountain Audio Fest official directory were the words “Remembering Al Stiefel”. In previous Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I could always spot show founder Al Stiefel walking the venue. He was among the taller of guys and you could always see him way down the corridor. That day […]

Different Sounds for Different Folks I’ll cover the RMAF in a more conventional fashion with show reports, but your ‘Ole Beatnik’ wants to take this space to talk about two philosophical dilemmas that were brought to mind at this year’s RMAF. Dilemma #1 The idea for the first of these two dilemmas came to me […]