Most power amplifiers, and the amplifier sections within integrated amplifiers, are strikingly similar in operation. These so-called “Class A/B, push-pull” amplifiers have been around for decades and are the staple technology of nearly every amplifier ...

Click here to check out our entire list of RMAF 2011 blogs. Before getting to my beat at this show—electronics above $15k—I’d like to tell you about what was for me show’s sonic and musical ...

It’s no secret to followers of this hobby that solid-state electronics and Red Book CD players have recently advanced to previously unheard—and for some, perhaps, unimagined—levels of musical performance. Indeed, recent articles in these very ...

Since I plan to compare the MBL 6010 D linestage preamplifier—the big brother to the 5011 that Wayne just extolled—with the best tube preamplifier I’ve heard, the Audio Research Corporation Reference 3 (reviewed in TAS ...

It is fair, I think, to say that there wouldn’t be a “high end” as we now know it if it weren’t for the Audio Research Corporation, whose founder and chief designer, William Zane Johnson, ...

Normally, I try to avoid dragging readers through the problems I have in obtaining equipment and making it function. In this case, however, I would do a distinct disservice to any audiophile looking for a ...

As most of you know, I’m a tube guy at heart—particularly when it comes to preamps. But if I were in the market for the state of the art in analog, I’d make a big ...

Digital signal processing offers amazing possibilities for improving the sound of an audio system. And the Holm DSPre1 really delivers the goods. It offers the ease of an automatic system together with the superior results ...

Robert Harley on Upper-End Electronics The mood at this year’s Audio Fest was markedly more upbeat and optimistic than that of a year ago, and particularly that of two years ago. The show saw a ...

Some of you may have wondered why my TAS review of the ARC Reference 5 preamp was relatively succinct. There were two reasons actually. First, I knew that the Anniversary Edition Reference preamp was waiting ...

Meet the new boss in tube preamplifiers chez Valin. No, it’s not the same as the same as the old boss of the Valin household, the Audio Research Reference 3, my reference tube linestage for ...

This is Part 2 of Anthony H. Cordesman's Review of the Quad system. You can read Part 1 here. Quad 99 Stereo Preamplifier If you are a true high-end puritan, you are going to be ...

When Benchmark Media’s DAC1 digital to analog converter was introduced a few years ago, it not only garnered rave reviews, but those reviewers who performed rigorous laboratory tests only wound up confirming Benchmark’s claims that ...

Editor's Note: Conrad-Johnson has a long tradition of producing statement preamplifiers and line stages, and migrating that technology down to more affordable products, so I received the following press release from CJ with great interest. ...

Am I alone in being puzzled or amused by what has long seemed a curious contradiction in high-end audio? On the one hand, components are made for long use, the prominent buzzword when it comes ...