Technology
Stereophile
EAT F-Dur
TURNTABLE WITH EAT F-NOTE TONEARM
10 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Hi-fi near and far
As the Spin Doctor, I tend to lead an analog life. I'm not just talking about my preferred ways of listening to music, but also my approach to other everyday technology.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
HiFi Rose RA280
It's been said before, but the essential truth remains as shiny as a new 2A3 tube: A well-made, good-sounding integrated amplifier is a sonic marvel, a triumph of audio engineering. Sound quality is just the beginning.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
15 FOR 50 1975 IN 15 RECORDS
WAS IT SOMETHING IN THE AIR, SOMETHING IN THE WATER? COSMICALLY INSPIRED BY THE STARS AND THE MOON? OR MAYBE THE DEVIL WAS FINALLY CLAIMING HIS OWN AS ROCK MUSIC IN ALL ITS VARIANTS WAS UNASSAILABLY ASCENDENT.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Doing it for themselves—and for us
Women have undeniably become the most dynamic and vital creative force in music today. Without their good energies and ideas, music, which in the digital age has become more background than art, would be much less interesting and inspiring.
3 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
McIntosh DS200 STREAMING D/A PROCESSOR
McIntosh, which is based in my home state of New York, has long been in my audio life.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
The BEAT Goes On
Adrian Belew had an itch that needed some serious scratching.
7 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Half a century in hi-fi
Not many hi-fi dealerships can say they've survived half a century of history. Natural Sound, which is based in Framingham, Massachusetts, about 20 miles west of Boston, is one that can.
3 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
The skating force phenomenon
At the beginning of last month's As We See It, I wrote that I've lately been focused on \"analog things.\" I proceeded to write about refurbishing and modding my old McIntosh tuner. That's \"analog thing\" #1.
4 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Monk's tenor
In Robin D.G. Kelley's definitive, 450-page biography of Thelonious Monk, Monk and tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse first meet on p.100, in 1944.
4 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
ECM's vinyl essence
In the 1990s into the 2000s, I had the pleasure of interviewing jazz drummer and composer Paul Motian for both Modern Drummer and DownBeat.
3 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
T+A Symphonia STREAMING INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
German aesthetes are fond of saying “Das Auge isst mit”: “The eye feasts too.” In audio terms, your ears do the listening, but your eyes want their share of pleasure.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Umami tunes
If you go to Tokyo, there's a good chance you'll develop a new appreciation for shopping malls. The Japanese know malls. They know just what to do with them. Inside a Tokyo mall, you can peruse the usual handbags and shoes in their unending variety. But you can also stare at Fuji apples as large as a baby's head swaddled in tissue paper, flip through the world's most exquisite stationery, stock up on fabric from the 1920s, and taste things that will haunt you well into retirement.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
The Meters
That sound: body-scratching grooves, syncopated second-line rhythms, bass, guitar, and keyboard lines so deep they seemed to bubble up from the earth beneath New Orleans.
4 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition
Although I have very much appreciated how the best floorstanding loudspeakers have performed in my various listening rooms over the decades, I have always been most comfortable with relatively small two-way standmounts.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Who's the next 007?
Walking through any big art museum, even at a brisk pace, it's impossible not to notice how boldly each object wears the unique stamp of its time and place of manufacture.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
In defense of sticker shock
There are faster ways to start an online fight, but not many. Say “$10,000 DAC” and watch audio-forum commenters descend like pigeons on a dropped hot dog, flapping and furious. They’ll tell you the designers are crooks, the buyers are dupes, and anyone not DIY-ing with AliExpress kits is a poseur.
3 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
Doing it for themselves—and for us
Women have undeniably become the most dynamic and vital creative force in music today. Without their good energies and ideas, music, which in the digital age has become more background than art, would be much less interesting and inspiring.
3 min |
November 2025
Stereophile
15 FOR 50 1975 IN 15 RECORDS
WAS IT SOMETHING IN THE AIR, SOMETHING IN THE WATER? COSMICALLY INSPIRED BY THE STARS AND THE MOON? OR MAYBE THE DEVIL WAS FINALLY CLAIMING HIS OWN AS ROCK MUSIC IN ALL ITS VARIANTS WAS UNASSAILABLY ASCENDENT.
10+ min |
November 2025
Stereophile
PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid
These days, listeners the wide world over enjoy hearing their music recreated for them by equipment whose origins are international; trade isolationists might consider the example of PrimaLuna.
10 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
Bricasti Design M21
Those of us who review audio equipment, and even audiophiles who don't, often talk about our reference systems.
10+ min |
October 2025
Stereophile
Pablo Records via Granz and Kassem
Way back in my ignorant youth I thought that Pablo Records, the label of jazz producer/promoter legend Norman Granz, was where jazz artists went to fade away, where they were put out to pasture.
3 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
Hi-fi for (very) small spaces
For the past few months, I've been getting ready to move. Those of you who've looked for an apartment in New York City know that it may be the single most dismal thing about living here.
10+ min |
October 2025
Stereophile
RECOMMENDED RC2025 COMPONENTS
Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable. Occasionally we get complaints from manufacturers who object to being included in, say, Class B. That's their error: Inclusion in Class B is a significant honor.
10+ min |
October 2025
Stereophile
The Shanling ET3 CD transport
Costing just $899, Shanling's top-loading ET3 CD transport appears to have been designed by people who recognize the multitude of big and small fails (or lost opportunities) of previous CD transports. In use, the ET3 felt like a distillation of what I've always wanted in a transport: strong, solid, compact, cool-looking, and feels good to use. Everyone knows I like pro-audio cool with no froufrou. This Shanling deck looked so damn smart and felt so good to touch that it kept my mind repeating, \"Yep! That's how a CD transport should be built!\"
10+ min |
October 2025
Stereophile
JOHN GIOLAS ASSUMES MARKETING LEADERSHIP AT CH PRECISION AND WATTSON AUDIO
Industry veteran John Giolas, global director of marketing for Swiss-based Wattson Audio since November 2024, has expanded his portfolio by also becoming global director of marketing for Wattson's parent company, CH Precision. The appointment, effective July 16, 2025, consolidates marketing strategy across both Swiss brands under Giolas's direction.
8 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
CH Precision C10
It takes audacity for a company that already builds one of the finest DACs on the planet, which is already expensive, to set out to build one that's so much better that it warrants an extra digit in the model number and a much higher price tag. But then CH Precision has never lacked audacity.
10+ min |
October 2025
Stereophile
The prince of dark melody
John Michael Osbourne was obsessed with the Beatles. Better known by the sobriquet “Ozzy,” the cofounding lead singer of Black Sabbath who later turned uber-successful solo artist and still later became a reality TV star was deeply in love with the Fab Four. Osbourne passed away on July 22, 2025, at age 76.
3 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
A poor man's audio show review
My local audio dealer told me that neither of the two stereo mags would be reporting from the Costa Mesa audio show, which I attended in June, which is formally called T.H.E. (Total HiFi Experience) Show SoCal,¹ so I thought I would step in and give it a quick-and-dirty review from the perspective of regular Joe Audiophile rather than that of the polished, professional reporters Stereophile usually sends.
3 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
Octave Audio Jubilee
Way back in the age when Stereophile’s print magazine was the size of a theater playbill, common wisdom declared that the tube preamp was the ideal complement to solid state amplification.
10+ min |