Technology
Stereophile
Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Roon Core - STREAMER/SERVER/DAC
A useful way of thinking of this device is as a 21st century integrated preamp on steroids, where Roon (plus streaming services) is the new tuner, and a way to play records, with the possibility of endless future improvements via software updates.
10+ min |
September 2023
Stereophile
MoFi Electronics SourcePoint 8 - LOUDSPEAKER
When I got these new speakers for review, they were so new that, at the time I unpacked them, no official user manual was included or posted on the manufacturer's website, and the promised matching stands didn't exist. Yet, I have the abiding feeling that I am getting to the party long after it has started. The Mobile Fidelity SourcePoint 8 is the newer, smaller sibling of the SourcePoint 10 reviewed by John Atkinson in Stereophile's February 2023 issue, with a follow-up by Ken Micallef in June.¹
9 min |
September 2023
Stereophile
Audio Research I/50 - INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
The first true high-end component I owned was an Audio Research SP-10. I reviewed this two-box, tubed preamplifier in the May 1984 issue of the English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review.
8 min |
September 2023
Stereophile
SPIN DOCTOR
Hallo München!
8 min |
August 2023
Stereophile
GRAMOPHONE DREAMS
It's all about the source
10+ min |
August 2023
Stereophile
Acelec Model One
LOUDSPEAKER
10+ min |
August 2023
Stereophile
MY BACK PAGES
Five things I learned at hi-fi shows
3 min |
August 2023
Stereophile
RABBIT HOLES
Quincy Jones: An Appreciation in Five Albums
4 min |
August 2023
Stereophile
REVINYLIZATION
Little Feat’s evolution in two classic albums
4 min |
August 2023
Stereophile
AURAL ROBERT
Vince Mendoza’s learning laboratory
4 min |
August 2023
Stereophile
SAMARA JOY
THE STEREOPHILE INTERVIEW
10 min |
August 2023
Stereophile
SME Model 60
RECORD PLAYER
10+ min |
August 2023
Stereophile
Raidho TD3.8
LOUDSPEAKER
10+ min |
August 2023
Stereophile
RE-TALES - Succession
Many family-owned hi-fi companies have experienced generational leadership transitions over the last few years: Wilson Audio, Von Schweikert Audio, PS Audio, and VPI Industries, to name a few. In two of those cases, the founding father is still around. One of those is VPI Industries.
4 min |
July 2023
Stereophile
AURAL ROBERT - Elton's Magic Year
In 1973, Elton John and Bernie Taupin capped one of pop music's most epic periods of sustained creativity by writing, recording, and releasing the 10-track single disc Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and the 17-track double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, both of which are now celebrating their 50th anniversary. As two of the strongest entries among the many classics that make 1972-73 the peak years for rock albums, both went #1 in the US and UK and arguably stand as the dual highpoints of John's recorded legacy.
3 min |
July 2023
Stereophile
REVINYLIZATION - OJC rises (yet) again
Liner notes from jazz albums of the 1950s and 1960s can be shot through with naivete, hipsterism (usually faux), and callousness toward the abundance of musical talent then working. Few though are as shortsighted as the original essay by Jack Maher on the back of 1960's Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. Opening with \"Miles Davis is the most maligned and idolized musician in modern American jazz today.
3 min |
July 2023
Stereophile
JAZZ AT A DARK MOMENT
THIS YEAR'S SAN JOSE JAZZ WINTER FEST HAD MEANING BEYOND MUSIC.
10+ min |
July 2023
Stereophile
Living Sounds Audio Discovery Warp 1 - POWER AMPLIFIER
It takes a while for audio-related technologies to mature. Tubed amplifiers were invented by Lee de Forest in the nineteen-teens, but while there are still some adherents of early high-distortion triode designs, the age of mainstream high-fidelity amplification dawned with higher-power/lower-distortion amplifiers developed by Williamson and McIntosh followed by the Ultralinear take on the Williamson concept.
10+ min |
July 2023
Stereophile
Miyajima Laboratory Wo-1 - PREAMPLIFIER
A phenomenon formerly unique to Japan, which in recent years has been emulated in cities around the world, is the jazz café (known as jazz kissa in Japan), where salarymen can find respite from their hectic lives, loosen their ties, and enjoy hi-fi jazz over coffee or a drink.'
7 min |
July 2023
Stereophile
Antipodes Oladra - SERVER/STREAMER/RECLOCKER
Servers, servers, servers. How we who embrace digital hi-fi love them for their potential to make files and streams sound better (more alive, vital, musical, moving, transparent) than music served from a computer.
10+ min |
July 2023
Stereophile
Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3 - LOUDSPEAKER
Over a lifetime of involvement in audio, I have had stand-mount speakers-bookshelf speakers, as they were called back then-only twice.
8 min |
July 2023
Stereophile
HiFi Rose RS520 - STREAMING INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
My first car was a decrepit, mustard-yellow Peugeot 304 with a navy hood. The blue hue wasn't a fashion statement; after an accident, the previous owner had gone to a salvage yard where only a blue replacement could be procured.
10+ min |
July 2023
Stereophile
SPIN DOCTOR - Swiss precision
In 1928, Swiss engineer and inventor Jean-Léon Reutter created a clock that could run for years without human interaction or any type of external power source. The Atmos Clock required no AC power, batteries, solar panels, or hand-winding. It was able to wind itself by leveraging subtle changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature.
10+ min |
July 2023
Stereophile
BRILLIANT CORNERS - Come Hell or High Water
New York is an ugly city, a dirty city,\" John Steinbeck wrote in 1953. \"But there is one thing about it-once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.\" Decades later, the novelist's insight about this appalling, incomparable city still feels true.
10+ min |
July 2023
Stereophile
GRAMOPHONE DREAMS - An affordable purist amplifier with punch
It was a cold March-in-Brooklyn morning. Clouds had been shedding wintery mix since daybreak. By 9am, birds were flash-mobbing my window, demanding suet. But I was frozen-unable to pull my mind loose from the grave flowings of American composer Ned Rorem's Book of Hours, as performed by Les Connivences Sonores on the album Musikalische Perlen (24/48 FLAC, Ars Produktion/Qobuz). The sounds in my room were sensuous and mesmerizing, and I needed to float in their mysterious energy as long as I could.
10+ min |
July 2023
Stereophile
AVM Inspiration CS 2.3 - CD RECEIVER
In the 1960s, my dad gave me a Panasonic receiver with two cube speakers, just in time for the advent of FM stereo radio in the San Francisco Bay Area.
10+ min |
June 2023
Stereophile
Dan D'Agostino Momentum M400 MxV - MONO AMPLIFIER
The Momentum M400 MxV Mono amplifier ($79,500/pair)¹ is the latest iteration of Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems' debut amplifier of 2011, the Momentum Mono amplifier.
10+ min |
June 2023
Stereophile
VPI Avenger Direct - TURNTABLE
Founded in 1978, VPI Industries appears to be one of the most successful turntable manufacturers in the world-certainly in the US.
10+ min |
June 2023
Stereophile
PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream MK2 - D/A PROCESSOR
When Art Dudley reviewed the original PS Audio Perfect Wave DirectStream D/A processor in Stereophile's September 2014 issue, he very much liked what he heard.
10 min |
June 2023
Stereophile
TAD CE1TX - LOUDSPEAKER
The most money I've ever spent on a pair of loudspeakers was back in the early 1990s, when I bought a pair of used TAD TH-4001 wooden horns and their associated TD-4001 compression drivers.
10+ min |