Bellagio Suite (From left to right) Constantine Soo, Michel Reverchon of Goldmund and John Fairchild (Importer) Memesis Series SRP2.3, SRDVD NEW EIDOS 720 DLP VIDEO PROJECTOR (MSRP TBA) With the Eidos 720 projector, Goldmund shows how its “Mechanical Grounding” construction principle can improve the Video picture quality in both stability and sharpness. Using the latest […]

Alexis Park Suite 1651 Combak Corporation’s Managing Director, Mr. Kazuo Kiuchi Equipment List CDP-777 CD Transport/Player $17,000 *Extended K2 Processing *176.4kHz 24bit 4 times oversampling yielding 705.6kHz Debut CAT-777 Vacuum Tube Control $17,000 *Single-ended no negative feedback *Output tubes 12AU7(x 2) & 12BH7A (x 2) *Rectifier 6x4WA(x 2) *Solderless wiring, non-magnetic Carbon resistors, InFiniCap film […]

St. Tropez Hotel Main System 4704 PITrace CD transport $25,000 with optional, 2nd 4700 power supply for seperate motor drive and laser pick up operations. Total MSRP = $26,800 4705-G Gemini Progression DAC $3,500 with two 4799 power supply ($1,800 each) for dual mono operations Total MSRP = $7,100 4706 Gaincard Amplifier with two “S” […]

January 25, 2004 A stretch of US 1 in Maine is called the Coastal Route. When Lee and I drive south to Camden, we have the option of taking Route 1 or going inland. Both have their attractions, and we are aesthetes, no use denying it. We relish what pleases the eye and deplore the […]

On November 1, 2003, I auditioned a Goldmund system driving a pair of speakers identical to the $20,000 Audio Note AN-E SEC Silvers I reviewed in February, 2003. Joe Cutrufelli of JC Audio recently became Goldmund of Switzerland’s Northern California dealer, and invited my wife and me to his place for a private auditioning of […]

BACKGROUND The HE 2003 Show that was co-sponsored by Stereophile in June included a semi-horn speaker system from Italy, the Royal Device Laura Studio Mk II with Miranda Horn. Royal Device is a trademark of the Italian speaker company, Aliante s.r.l. that offers eight special, 2-way high-end horn loudspeakers under the RD name, ranging from […]

Preface Inventing a solid-state rectifier made from a Tantalum-Lead Alloy, Guy R. Fountain began his audio-related career in 1926, and subsequently founded Tannoy in the early 30s. In 1947, Fountain’s chief engineer, Ronnie H. Rackham, developed the landmark, Dual-Concentric™ driver system, in which “a horn-loaded compression driver was built concentrically with a direct radiator bass […]

DECEMBER 23, 2003 As a stone devotee of classical music from age eight, I’ve found a reaction to recordings I’d play for the occasional visitor amusing and disconcerting. Generally, if the piece was composed anywhere from the latter part of the nineteenth to about mid-twentieth-century and was in any way emotional or however vaguely programmatic […]

Loth-X is a German-owned international enterprise with operations in countries such as South Korea and Singapore. They design and manufacture complete high-end audio systems including turntables, amplifiers, speakers and cables. Quoting from the company’s website, Loth-X’s expressed goal is “… to create products far beyond the norm which would satisfy the dreams of the world’s […]

Klimax Twin is the stereo version of Klimax 500 Solo, Linn’s latest amplification statement. The Twin is identical in dimensions and weight as one monoblock 500 Solo with a little less than half the output capability. The Linn’s accompanying, ring-bound 24-page Owner’s Manual rivals the readability and resourcefulness of manuals I have read to date […]

Prologue Nearing the completion of this review, my wife and I paid a short visit to the residence of Audio Note’s U.S. Distributor, Ray Lombardi, in Southern California’s Simi Valley. 380 miles from my home, Simi Valley is several thousand feet above sea level on the far side of a mountain range that the southbound […]

Continuing The Journey In my earlier look at the Decware SE84C Zen Triode amplifier, I examined and recognized the petite amplifier’s subtle but efficacious tonalities and excellent contrasting dynamics during low to medium volume levels in the company of the Klipschorn. Still, the persistent dynamic compressions and loss of soundstage coherence during higher listening levels […]

As the Gaincard was the primary amplification in my earlier reviews of ELAC 518, Loth-X BS1 and Linn Ikemi, I encourage readers to examine my findings in those pages for a broader perspective, and I shall attempt to refine my opinions on the Gaincard in these pages. The Gaincard Preliminaries The main body of the […]

As evident in my recent 47 Laboratory 4713 Flatfish CD Transport/Player and 4705 Progression DAC review, it would seem that as our understanding and implementation of the art of CD playback advances, more companies are able to produce excellent CD playback systems with unprecedented implementations of the 16-bit/44.1kHz non-upsampling technique. Prime examples are 47 Lab’s […]

The High-End audio industry is resplendent with value-oriented products as well as cost-no-object, performance-oriented ones. In the course of reviewing, rather than criticizing the shortcomings of the lesser products and giving lavish praises to the superior products, I try to maintain a balanced perspective of the values of the High-End. If an expensive piece of […]

Brian Morris of Linn stopped by San Francisco on June 7 2002 after the New York Show, and we got together for an evening of music listening and conversation at my home. I played him some CDs not readily available in the U.S., including a track from a British CD, “Moonlight Shadow”, from Mike Oldfield’s […]

Minimonitors have become significant products nowadays, beginning back with the advent of the Rogers LS3/5A. Although they possess space-saving, non-intrusive appeal to both the audiophile and his/her aesthetically driven spouse, these advantages are quite often offset unfortunately by an equally uncompromising need for individualized system matching to exploit the speaker’s full potential. The subject of […]

Background Information ELAC is a German speaker company that offers eight series of speakers, ranging from the most affordable 1 Series through the more affluent 5 Series, with the 4 Series representing the company’s finest efforts, culminating in the $12,000 pair of Spirit Of Music. The company also offers the infamous NXT technology in the […]

April 2002 marks the twenty-first anniversary of the CD, and in that time the format has gone through two decades of refinement in the forms of oversampling, jitter reduction, upsampling and so forth. In our continuing understanding of the CD playback process, each innovation resulted in higher levels of sophistication, propelling CD playback to an […]

The Amplifier Scene Half-a-century ago, supposedly in reference to driving his hundred-some-dB-sensitivity Cornwall, Paul Klipsch said, “What this country needs is a good five-watt amplifier.” What Mr. Klipsch probably didn’t anticipate were the commanding prices of some of today’s five-watt amplifiers. In the vacuum tube amplifier family, the single-ended triode tube amplifier is the much […]

Foreword The one most deplorable sight for an audiophile upon unboxing new equipment is probably that of a generic power cord. In fact, of all the equipment I have purchased, common emphasis was placed on power supplies and regulations. Not one manufacturer had addressed the importance of the power cord. This is a predicament for […]

by: Laurence A. Borden & Chris White Audiophiles tend to spend a lot of time evaluating audio equipment. We evaluate equipment because we are trying to decide what gear to buy. Other times, it’s because we are reviewing equipment for a publication (paper or electronic). Most of the time, it’s simply because it’s fun and informative […]

This is a review of a one-meter pair of Granite Audio’s model #470 silver interconnects. The review took place before the WBT-0101 Topline RCA plugs became available. An audio system is only as good as its weakest link, be it a turntable, CD player, preamp, power amp, speakers, etc. If you have invested substantially in […]

Object of Art Audio Note’s M3 pre-amp is the matching companion to its line of single-ended directly heated 300B monoblock amplifiers in Level 3, such as the recently-reviewed Quest. The M series pre-amplifiers begins with the $699 M Zero and increases to the silver-faceplate, large chassis M3 as the optimized pre-amplifier platform, incorporating dual mono […]

My July 2001 review of Audio Note’s AN-E/D speakers was the first of three AN hardware reviews, followed by this review on a pair of AN’s own single-ended, directly heated, no feedback triode monoblocks, the Quest, and an upcoming one on the M3 pre-amp. Since the AN-E/D review elaborated on how the speaker performed with […]

I mentioned in my Granite Audio interconnect review that I would be posting a review of my Klipschorn speakers, which I put aside because of commitments. Recently, a reader reignited the flame by inquiring into the status of that review. Thank you, reader. Some of you may have contemplated adding horns to your systems. While […]

Founded by Hiroyasu Kondo in the ’70’s, the current Audio Note is a British operation reflecting twenty years of collaborative effort between Peter Qvortrup and Hiroyasu Kondo. Peter Qvortrup is an avid vinyl connoisseur. According to Ray Lombardi, Audio Note’s U.S. West Coast Importer, Peter has the largest private vinyl collection in the world. The […]

The proprietor and designer, Mr. Godfrey Wong, holds a law degree from England and worked in the Hong Kong Finance sector before he came to the U.S. Currently, he pursues other interests in the U.S., with high-end tube amplifier design being one of them. There is a limited but growing number of dealerships for his […]

The following is a combined review on the Perpetual Technologies P1A Digital Correction Engine (upsampler) and the P3A 24/96 DAC. Although both components can be purchased separately, Perpetual Technologies emphasizes the synergistic benefits of using the P3A to decode the upsampled signal from P1A. For example, via the I2S connection, the combo of P1A and […]

Foreword These are exciting times, what with the dawn of the Super Audio CD format coinciding with the emergence of enhancement technologies such as 24/96 upsampling from Perpetual Technologies, and 64-times oversampling from Wadia Digital. In the months of April through June of 2000, I was deeply involved in evaluating the Perpetual Technologies P1A Digital […]