NAT Distribution Consonance Speaker Consonance Droplet CD player Dynakit Dynakit PA 774 ReX Boxxer 7 (MSRP $4,500/pair, factory direct) Consonance electronics in ReX room High Water Sound room Harmonix Reimyo CDP-777 TW Acoustics turntable Silvertone Audio

Audio Odyssey (Dealer) Audio Odyssey Atohm Sirroco, MSRP $1,500/pair Jasmine Serenade integrated Mini Tube Amplifier Unison Research Mystery (top), Audio Analogue Maestro (bottom) Bastanis Prometheus… …driven by Lady Day amplifier Cheer Amplifiers

Preface On May 6 and 7, 2006 the Vacuum Tube Valley Audio Expo was held at the Embassy Suites in Piscataway New Jersey. The show was very much to my liking in both scale and the products represented. There were enough people present such that no room seemed empty, but neither was there terrible crowding […]

I had the afternoon off from work today and nearly completed the job of moving the bicycle from its winter storage alongside my bed (you have to be a townhouse-dweller to understand) to its seasonal placement on a hook by the backdoor. It’s a job because boxes and boards and other winter hallway pile-ups had […]

Foreword Being a digiphile, I was on an extended “tube trip” in the 80s and 90s, an euphemism coined by Arnold Marr, then-audiosales guru of Music Lovers of Berkeley, California. Even though several audio friends of mine became owners of B&K Component’s ST-140, not to mention the fact that their units sounded musically involving just […]

My System B&K Reference 31 Preamp/Processor, B&K Reference 7270 Amplifier, Boston Acoustics VR-970 Speakers, DIY Infinite Baffle subwoofer, DIY speaker cables using Belden 1810A, DIY audio cables DIY using Canare LV77S, DIY sound treatments. When evaluating the Maverick, I compared it to the source I listen to the most for music: my HTPC with a […]

The subject of this review is a $2,495 integrated amplifier by Krell, the KAV-400xi. Many high-end audio companies survive by producing a wide range of products in price and quality to capture different spending patterns; but Krell has always concentrated its resources in making only the top-level products. Thus, a budget equipment bearing the Krell […]

Tourists returning from a trip to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China often marveled at the city’s population density as personified by the shopping centers and the human presence everywhere. In a region distinguished by the main Hong Kong Island of 31² miles, a large peninsula of 18² miles, an adjoining rural area of […]

I recently had a flood – a flood of new audio toys to try in my system. The tide brought in Nordost’s top-of-the-line Valhalla power cords, Sphinx’s very excellent Project Eight Reference Preamp and Project Eighteen Power Amp, and a pair of Genesis 6 speakers, which are the subject of this review. This Is Your […]

The high-end audio is a hobby of variety and objectivity. In each of the industry’s primary product categories, there are polarities in approach and technology – such as the RIAA-based phonograph and the 16-bit/44.1kHz-based digital playback systems, MOSFET and tube-based amplifications, and finally, cone and planar loudspeaker technologies – that the proponents for each consider […]

The MD-300B is attractive in its light gold-colored chassis and taller light gray transformer cover. It has a wood front panel with a large round power button in brushed light gold, and two knobs that are triangle shaped on a round back in the same color and metal. One knob is an input selector switch, and the […]

April marks the beginning of the 2nd Quarter, and we at Dagogo have been busy rounding up great gear for your intellectual and spiritual pleasure. By now, we have all surely learned that the Harmonix Reimyo CDP-777 Extended-K2 CD player has been discontinued. The recipient of rare, universal acclaims, the CDP-777 is now in need […]

I have written a series of articles under the heading of Psychological Art Perspectives, and have based them on a succession of interviews I conducted with various artists from different genre. A few of the artists I have actually worked with in the past, and others were people whom I met throughout the years, and […]

Accuphase is a core constituent of a prestigious, global circle of modestly-sized audio companies. And in its indigenous market of Japan, Accuphase is a leader in both innovations and market share. Many of its amplifiers of the 70s and 80s continued to be regarded as reference-class products by the owners presently, and the company’s history […]

This is a review I struggled with. For I feared I would not have the right audio vocabulary to convey the sound of the Aurieges’ to you. I wish I could tell you that my system had a wider or deeper soundstage with the Shindo, or that music seemed more transparent when the Shindo arrived. […]

Perhaps I need a few different systems for different kinds of music. I guess for Dagogo’s readers with varied tastes, not that mine are that varied, the ultimate goal of building a hi-fi system would be to put together one that does justice to all their favored types of music. I can tell you right […]

With this presentation I would like to offer from the genre of music composition, one of the many examples of the mind-set upon one, when in the midst of composing a work. No matter what the medium; it’s the pulse, the pace, the very atmosphere of the moment. One allows the depth of things to […]

Let’s see if three’s a charm. In the last two issues of Stereophile magazine, they featured a review and a follow-up of the Sonic Euphoria Passive Line Controller (PLC). I have made it a point not to read those reviews… waiting until I finish my own, and then see how my impressions compare. I’ll let […]

Previous setup: I had the speakers on Audio Note’s 4-legged, mass loaded steel stands. They were filled with a lead and sand mixture as described by Audio Note. The equipment had been sitting on DH Cones and Squares. Speaker Stand Description The Sistrum stands have three steel legs that are filled with “Micro-Bearing Steel” fill, […]

I wish tweaks didn’t matter. Think about how simple this hobby would be, if absolute performance was as simple as buying the best components you can afford, and having good recordings. That’d free up enough time for me to write that great American novel I’ve been mulling over. But alas, it is these “tweaks”, which […]

It is hardly a secret that the listening room makes a significant contribution to the sound of our systems, arguably as large as that of the gear itself. And yet, while audiophiles delight in trying new (and often expensive) equipment, the room often goes neglected. My first hands-on exposure to room treatments occurred a number […]

House of Music (Retailer) If you had asked me the reason McIntosh needed to create an 8,000 watt peak-power amplifier before I had attended their West Coast Premier of the Ultimate System on February 2, 2006, I would probably have not been able to tell you that McIntosh intended for their 3-chassis amplifier to have […]

If you had asked me the reason McIntosh needed to create an 8,000 watt peak-power amplifier before I had attended their West Coast Premier of the Ultimate System on February 2, 2006, I would probably have not been able to tell you that McIntosh intended for their 3-chassis amplifier to have the most accurate reproduction […]

Dagogo welcomes Gordon Pryor as its Commentator. (Pryor’s first Dagogo article marks the beginning of a series, which introduces the world of artistic creation to Dagogo and its readers. In the present article, Pryor shares his exploit with us , in the first part of “Art! The Perspective in the Creative Process”) And this, my […]

Besides distributing revered audio products from companies like Harmonix Reimyo by Combak, Roksan, Gradient, etc, May Audio Marketing also imports a sizeable amount of CDs. Among the labels MAM carries is Jazznote of Singapore. The label was formed in December 2004 by jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro, whose previous recording projects with JJ Jazz Records, the […]

I am listening to a sublime, natural, entertaining, minimal system in my Brooklyn apartment… and loving every minute of it. My room has come alive! The system consists of the German-designed Bastanis Prometheus Black loudspeakers, American-designed Red Wine Audio Clari-T amplifier and Chinese designed Original CD-A8T tube and solid-state CD player. There’s a lot here […]

In the past four years, I have reviewed Audio Note’s previous base “E” loudspeaker, the $2,750 AN-E/D, as well as a previous version of its former champion, the $19,500 AN-E SEC Silver, the latter of which I continue to regard as my personal preference. In late 2004, Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note and his gifted […]

Feature Exhibitors: GamuT Audio, Genesis Advanced Technologies GamuT Audio L5 loudspeaker speaker. MSRP = $12,000/pair GamuT Audio owner and president Lars Goller enjoyed at least relating one other thing more than his thoughts on all things GamuT, and that is his ideas on psychoacoustics. We spent two hours at the GamuT Audio House talking about […]

Feature Exhibitors: Bosendorfer, Harmonix Reimyo Bosendorfer New York demonstrated two systems and the Bosendorfer SWAROVSKI Crystal Piano. The main system utilized the $22k VC 7 full-range speaker system in piano lacquer, as driven by Einstein’s $7,500 The Last Record Player CD player, Gill Audio’s $4,500 Alana tube linestage and Art Audio’s $20k Adagio monoblock amplifiers. […]

The auspicious commencement of 2006 CES for me was the Jonathan Scull party at the Furutech Exhibit at Alexis Park. The party began at 5:15pm, and by the time my airline found me an alternative flight to replace my cancelled original flight, I didn’t get there until 6pm. John Atkinson was already talking about his […]