Technology
Stereophile
NAD Masters Series M50.2
Back in May 2014, I reviewed NAD’s Masters Series M50 Digital Music Player ($2499) and M52 Digital Music Vault ($1999 with 2TB storage). 1 At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, NAD announced the M50.2, which is almost identical to the original M50 but now incorporates two 2TB hard disks, arranged as a 2TB RAID array, to ensure data integrity, and adds TosLink and coaxial digital inputs, Bluetooth with aptX for streaming music from a smartphone or tablet, and two single-ended analog inputs—all for $3999, or $499 less than the combined cost of the two earlier products.
7 min |
December 2017
Stereophile
As We See It - Not-So-Giant Steps
I’m a thirty-year-old puppy doing what I’m told And I’m told there’s no more coal for the older engines,” —ANDY PARTRIDGE,
4 min |
September 2017
stereophile
as we see it
steve guttenberg's 116th dream.
4 min |
november 2016
Stereophile
Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Again!)
New Audiophile Reissues Burnish a Proud Legacy.
10+ min |
June 2017
Stereophile
Listening
There was a fight. And when the fight took a turn for the worse and things began being broken and thrown, it was time to leave. Not later. Not soon. Now.
10+ min |
June 2017
Stereophile
Gramophone Dreams
As much as I delight in pagan dreams of sweetly perfumed garden nymphs, I’m embarrassed to admit that my mind also drifts in pleasant reveries whenever I hear the words research and development in the same sentence.
10+ min |
June 2017
Stereophile
Auralic Altair
D/A Processor.
10+ min |
March 2017
Stereophile
Both Sides Now
An Interview With Record Producer Joe Harley, of Audioquest and Music Matters Jazz
10 min |
January 2017
Stereophile
As We See It
THIS ISSUE: Are audiophiles ignoring the most affordable means of achieving true high-end sound?
4 min |
July 2017
Stereophile
Listening
THIS ISSUE: A belt-drive turntable with a skeletal plinth, an acrylic platter, and an apparently lowish-torque DC motor. From Serbia.
10+ min |
July 2017
Stereophile
Record Reviews
The blues, that wonderful basis of so much American popular music, has for many listeners grown a bit stale and old-fashioned. It’s not much of a draw outside bar bands, and other than Alligator Records and APO Records, most of the biggest blues labels have folded or gone dormant. Losing many of the music’s first- and secondgeneration practitioners hasn’t helped.
3 min |
July 2017
Stereophile
Analog Corner - Notes From The Road
At audio events held by the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society, I’m usually called on to speechify about one thing or another, or to roast an honoree at one of the Society’s December Galas.1 But at last spring’s Los Angeles Audio Show,2 Bob Levi, the Society’s president, quipped, “This is one awards dinner where you won’t have to entertain—so relax and enjoy!”
10 min |
September 2017
Stereophile
Listening - Shindo Redux
As with the older Monbrison and Masseto alike, the line stage of the new Monbrison is based on a stereo pair of triode-pentode tubes—in this case, the Telefunken ECL 94S, used in the previous Monbrison.
10+ min |
September 2017
Stereophile
Mytek Hifi Manhattan II
D/A Preamplifier-Headphone Amplifier
10+ min |
September 2017
Stereophile
Ortofon Launches The Windfeld Ti Cartridge
Ortofon, which turns 100 next year, launched the original Windfeld cartridge nearly a decade ago. Named for cartridge designer Per Windfeld—who had just retired at age 75, after 30 years with the company—that top-of-the-line cartridge cost $3400 at the time of its introduction.
10+ min |
August 2017
Stereophile
Vinyl Apocalypse
Solving the Lp Shelving Dilemma
9 min |
August 2017
Stereophile
Rockport Technologies Avior II Loudspeaker
Following my review of the floorstanding Magico S5 Mk.II last February,1 I spent some time with two-way stand-mounted speakers from Aerial Acoustics, Bowers & Wilkins, and Dynaudio. As much as I appreciated the small speakers’ virtues, I found myself missing the big Magico’s bass extension and ability to play loud; my next loudspeaker review, therefore, would be of another floorstander.
8 min |
August 2017
Stereophile
See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me (Again)
Once it was a cherished ritual: come home from the record store, tear off the cellophane, drop the needle, and lose your self in the artwork, the liner notes, the smell of the jacket’s freshly glued seams.
4 min |
August 2017
Stereophile
Analog Corner
Do good things come in small packages, or is bigger better? Your call.
10+ min |
November 2016
Stereophile
Master Quality Authenticated
MQA’s Spencer Chrislu on reaching out to the Record Industry.
7 min |
September 2016
Stereophile
Inside CH Precision's P1 Phono Preamplifier
Although Swiss-based CH Precision is a relatively young company, its core design team has been involved in high-performance audio for many years.
10+ min |
April 2017
Stereophile
All Things To All Musicians
An Artistic Incubator Grows In Brooklyn
9 min |
May 2018
Stereophile
Bowers & Wilkins 702 S2 LOUDSPEAKER
Bowers & Wilkins 702 S2 LOUDSPEAKER
10 min |
May 2018
Stereophile
A New Epoch!
Brooklyn-based Grado Labs has been in business for 64 years, manufacturing moving-iron phono cartridges, headphones, and, for a while, even a unipivot tonearm with a wooden arm wand, as well as the sophisticated, S-shaped Signature Laboratory Standard arm.
10+ min |
December 2017
Stereophile
Collecting and The Cloud
I’ll inch out on a limb here and say that most audiophiles are also collectors of recordings.
4 min |
December 2017
Stereophile
Follow-Up
PEACHTREE AUDIO NOVA300 DAC–INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER Come back, baby. You’ll find a million poems deep in your destitute soul. —Richard Hugo, “Second Chances”
6 min |
December 2017
stereophile
aural robert
blues at 45
4 min |
november 2016
Stereophile
Moon by Simaudio Evolution 780D D/A PROCESSOR.
Moon by Simaudio Evolution 780D D/A PROCESSOR.
10+ min |