In the October Issue, I reviewed the very excellent XLH M2000 monoblocks. This is a review of the XLH SL-11XS line stage preamp (no phono), both with the M2000 monoblocks and with other components. Preamps I’ve dated (but not married) I’ve auditioned and reviewed several very good preamps in my various systems: the one-time class […]

I have previously used six Walker Audio products in my own system, and all but one gave me great “bang for the buck” results. The Walker Extreme SST, Ultra Vivid CD/DVD Enhancer, Silent Source power cables, Silent Source Silver Signature Interconnects, and the Velocitor Power Enhancer (yes, the Velocitor is great “bang for the buck” […]

The year is quickly coming to a close, and holidays are upon us again. For Dagogo’s December Top-Of-The-Month Issue, rather than following its routine of concentrating in publishing reviews on top product models, the Staff of Dagogo have compiled reviews on four economically-priced products to compliment your celebration of this gift-giving season. Hence, the Part […]

In my last column article, I admitted how hard it is to review a piece of equipment that doesn’t exactly light my fire. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a very fine or even an exceptional piece of equipment. What I’m discovering is that reviewing is becoming a greater educational experience for me than I […]

The Tube Circuit When I first set out to design the tube circuit, I had just received a remarkable piece of computer software courtesy of my business partner Mike Tseng. This software called “Multisym” by Electronics Workbench enables anyone to “build” complete circuits and connect them in operational configurations and to measure various quantities like […]

“Be careful what you wish for” was never truer when I received a call from a freight company, advising me that I had a shipment of 4 palletized crates weighing 1500 pounds! With the help of friends and a truck with a lift-gate, we unloaded, uncrated and shlepped the 1812’s inside the house. The picture […]

Nagra Audio of Switzerland drafts its space-age engineering prowess from its parent company, the Kudelski Group, a 650-million-dollar, publicly-traded European conglomerate founded by Stefan Kudelski in 1951. Today, the company continues to be run by the founding family, and another of the Kudelski Group’s divisions, Nagravision, develops and owns the exclusive encryption technology used by […]

While reading stimulates the intellect, and music-listening provides stimuli of powerful emotions that make us feel alive, the audio/visual entertainment, on the other hand, constitutes an artificial experience package, and aims at engulfing its participants with adequate sensory stimuli to evoke as high a degree of a sense of reality as possible. As the latest […]

First Impressions You got to be kidding me! How do I hook up the speaker wire? From my listening chair, the front panel of the preamp looks like a cassette tape. I need interconnects three inches long. Why did they send them to me not broken in? How could anything without a separate power supply […]

Bösendorfer (bûr-zen-‘do-fer) The core realm of high-end audio has always been purveyed predominantly by enthusiasts with electrical engineering background. Back in the 60’s, there were also the amateur DIYers around the world whose hobbyist passion fueled the formation of many of today’s renowned audio companies. Now, Bösendorfer of Austria, the oldest piano maker in the […]

It’s been awhile since I’ve been really excited about an audio product. You’d think that with a truly great amplifier as well as a world-class set of speakers on hand that wouldn’t be the case. But this summer, I had some health issues and a war raged, so audio has slipped away, somewhat. So much […]

The Long And Winding Road To A Hard Drive: You Know It Don’t Come Easy. There are numerous reasons for using a hard drive-based audio system. To explain mine I must make a confession: I am sloppy. Despite my best intentions CDs are scattered throughout my listening room, some in stacks on the floor, others […]

Intro Is there a more well-known company in audio than McIntosh? Sure, Wilson Audio, Krell and Quad are the stuff of legends, but those companies are for hard-core audiophiles; the masses think hi-fi means Bose (egads!) or, if they’re a bit more knowledgeable, will think of McIntosh as the defining brand of “hi-fi.” However, it’s […]

Many pioneers of the audio industry have borne the brunt of a reluctant and skeptical customer base, and have faced the risk of rejection bravely. If lucky, they also stand to reap their trailblazing visions. In those days, unlike the vastly advanced iterations in today’s cable products, high-end audio cables were just beginning to replace […]

Let me just say it in the first sentence: the GINI iTube is a nifty product. It looks nifty – in fact, it looks like a big white iPod with two little iPods – it makes nice music from cool sources like the iPod, iBooks, and of course from other computers and any other line […]

This is a review of the XLH M-2000 Self-Analyzing monoblock amplifiers. Most audio reviews start with a description of the physical appearance of the product. I generally skim over those parts of the review, except where they provide information about features and number of inputs and outputs. As a result, I’m going to change things […]

“One eye open, sometimes it’s both, but the Cyclops eye of the camera lens opens & closes just like the eyes in our heads! And with them both you see a single view, although we observe with two individual orbs. It’s the picture you see, whether that observation is the single plane flat surface of […]

This all started when Steve Woolsey, my long time audio-bud, jumped early on the SACD band wagon and purchased a Sony SCD 777ES. Then David Robinson of Positive Feedback began writing about the SCD1. A few months later (Aug. 2000), I discovered the Audio Asylum website, a much friendlier and smaller community then. There, several […]

Introduction What does the name “Einstein” bring to mind when mentioned? Oh sure, some people think “genius” and simply leave it at that. But not to astrophysicists; to them, he’s much more—he’s a revolutionary. Prior to Einstein, Newtonian physics was the norm in scientific circles: the belief that time was an absolute construct to be […]

There are a lot of speakers I have liked and owned: Advent, Altec, Celestion, Gershman, Infinity, KEF, Klipsch, Spender, Spica, and Vandersteen. There were many others that came home with me for evaluation, but there’s only one that I wish I had never gotten rid of, the QUAD 57s. I spent a lot of time […]

The subject of this review, the Shindo Monbrison preamplifier, was a demo unit from Pitch Perfect Audio in San Francisco, it already had over 400 hours of playing time. The first thing I noticed when I unpacked the Monbrison was that it didn’t look anything like the pictures I had seen of it. It was […]

The first three Dagogo Reviews published in our September Issue describe what today’s technological competency can do to three categories of products: an SACD player, a tube preamplifier, and a loudspeaker. Among the reviewed is a modified Sony SCD-777ES, an SACD player I owned until last summer, which I stopped using in light of the […]

This will be the first of 2 installments on the medium of Photography, with regards to the history, background, devolvement, etc. of the medium itself; while the 2nd installment will be a direct response / point of view in facture, from two different working artists in the field. “…But that’s not really a true art […]

A new year brings the Consumer Electronics Show, and the opportunity to review the latest audio designs. Right now, I have no less than three 300B amplifiers crowding my listening room and competing for my attention. The DA08SE’s were first to arrive just a few days after C.E.S. ended, courtesy of C.C. Poon, proprietor of […]

You youngsters out there may think that Oracle is the name of a database management system, and the name of the company that owns and sells it. You older (and, I hope, wiser) folks know that an “oracle” is an entity that is a source of wise counsel or prophecy, usually supernatural in nature. In […]

Prologue The 1980’s was a period of certain enlightenment for the audio industry. After a decade’s worth of joint engineering efforts between Sony and Philips, the industry finally introduced the compact disc technology to the market, injecting unprecedented excitement and energy into both the music and the hardware manufacturing business. Just as the compact disc […]

They’re white. They’re heavy. Heavy-duty even. They have lots of ins and outs. They’re in my office and they get lots of attention… and that’s without anyone even listening. I have had the AudioEngine A5 powered loudspeakers in my office for just about two months now. They are always on… mostly at low volume in […]

I’ve been treated like royalty. My ears have been treated like royalty. John Quick, Verity & Nagra’s North American marketing rep, drove down from Massachusetts to deliver the Tamino x2’s, Verity’s entry-level loudspeaker, to my Philadelphia home. What a gentleman. He did all the unpacking… from those awesome protective foam-lined luxurious flight cases. He placed […]

Wayne Parham of Pi Speakers is an Electrical Engineer with a software consulting business, Parham Data Products, and the very passionate belief that everyone should have high quality speakers he’s become the John Beresford Tipton of Audio. Pi Speakers will sell you a completed speaker for your living room, saloon or church, but Wayne would much rather give […]

The Roksan Caspian FR-5 Speakers are tall, elegant beauties. Taller than both my Meadowlark Kestrel II’s and the Verity Audio Taminos, which are also in for review. With their high-gloss deep lacquer on black, and with their straightforward geometry, they are also very confident-looking speakers. Clean and simple, they look like a fine piece of […]