Technology
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 |
October 2025
Stereophile
Radiant Acoustics Clarity 4.2
On the first page of the Radiant Acoustics Clarity 4.2 Welcome Guide, Radiant Acoustics founder Peter Lyngdorf states, \"The first thing you'll notice when listening to these speakers is the absence of distortion.\"
10 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
Static, the Master Wand, and very large choirs
The largest regularly scheduled choral singing event in the world is the Estonian National Song Festival, or Laulupidu, which comes around about once every five years in Tallinn, Estonia's capital city. The numbers are pretty mind blowing.
10 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
A Succession Story in Toronto
This month's Re-Tales takes us to Toronto again—though it's quite a different story than the one we told last month, in a different part of Toronto.
3 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
50 years of blues at Antone's
There have been venue owners who have been larger than life—Hilly Kristal (CBGB) and Doug Weston (Troubadour) come to mind—but few live-music club owners have ever lived in and for the music the way that Clifford Antone has. He also lived a life of extremes.
6 min |
October 2025
Stereophile
THE GRIMM TRUTH
A Q&A WITH AUDIO DESIGNER EELCO GRIMM
10+ min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Bruce Springsteen's later-career back catalog
Seeing Bruce Springsteen perform live in the 1970s and early '80s, pre-Born in the U.S.A., could be a life-changing experience. Bruce was the hungry leader of a relentless, turn-on-a-dime R&B band. A burning star streaking across the rock'n'roll sky, he threw his fiery young self into maximum shows full of urgency (to invoke one of his best rhymes) and those wordy, anthemic pleading/strutting urban fairy tales. He was leagues beyond almost everything and everyone else in those days.
3 min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Kimber Kable Carbon Series
SPEAKER CABLE AND INTERCONNECT
6 min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Weiss DAC204 - D/A PROCESSOR
Weiss Engineering D/A processors are widely known for their high quality, in both home audio and pro-audio circles.
10+ min |
August 2025
Stereophile
GRAMOPHONE DREAMS
The newest star of the Schiit show
10+ min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Rollin' with Leo
Horn players were always the show ponies of bebop.
3 min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Magico S5 2024
I have lost track of how many loudspeakers I have measured with DRA Labs' MLSSA system since Stereophile started accompanying its reviews with measurements in the late 1980s, but it must be close to 1000.
10+ min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Eversolo AMP-F10
A century ago, pioneering psychiatrist Carl Jung had a wild encounter with the power of sound.
10+ min |
August 2025
Stereophile
PSI Audio AVAA C214
ELECTRONIC BASS TRAP
10 min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Treehaus Audiolab "The Preamplifier"
Imagine navigating the hectic rooms of an audio show at which a sea of similar-looking, similar-sounding gear blends into a predictable thrum, drawing a chorus of familiar nods.
9 min |
August 2025
Stereophile
A whirlwind European hi-fi tour
It was supposed to be so simple, a well-trod path I've followed almost every May for the last decade: A six-day trip to Munich to attend the final Munich High End Show before it decamps to Vienna next year.
10+ min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Munich, Je t'aime
During the past decade and a half, the trips I've taken have tended to be for magazine stories.
10+ min |
August 2025
Stereophile
Audiophiles behaving badly
By my estimation, this year's High End hi-fi show—the last in Munich before the world's largest audio show moves to Vienna—was a major success, perhaps the first I've attended since the pandemic that managed to completely escape that shadow. Every day but Sunday it was very busy—sometimes too busy; on the busiest days, the hallways at the MOC convention center reminded me of NYC's Fifth Avenue on Black Friday, an experience I've had once and hope to never have again. Most important: I heard a lot of really good sound.
3 min |