The BC-1 Mk-II linestage preamplifier and the BP-1 Mk-II 500Wpc stereo amplifier from celebrated Japanese audio engineer Fumio Ohashi of Bridge Audio Laboratory (BAlabo) are the most exquisitely beautiful sounding audio components I’ve yet heard—tube ...

(Editor's Note: The following press release was just released by Krell Industries. It looks like an already great surround preamp/processor has become even better with the addition of the Krell Automatic Room Equalization System.) Krell ...

There is no greater feel-good story in audio than a company that, having fallen on hard times, manages to pull itself up by its boot straps, reorganize, and re-enter the competitive marketplace. Micromega is one ...

Designer Vladimir Lamm, who is equally at home with tube as well as solid-state circuitry, has refreshed the LL2 design, LAMM’s long-standing entry-level tube linestage preamp. The LL2.1 is a direct replacement for the LL2. ...

My beat at the sixth annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest was upper-end preamplifiers and power amplifiers. This show started out as a showcase for ultra-expensive exotic gear, but as it shifted toward the mainstream, the ...

Since the early 1970s, the arrival of a new preamplifier from Audio Research has been an occasion for excitement, and sometime early next week I’ll be getting ARC’s latest thinking on a piece of equipment ...

An interesting shootout is shaping up chez Valin. As some of you already know from previous posts and blogs (see www.avguide.com/blog/best-amp-ever-soulution-710-amplifier), I’ve had the Soulution 710 stereo amp, the Soulution 700 monoblock amplifiers, and the ...

Founded in 1978, T+A Elektroakustik of Germany began by building loudspeakers and by 1988 had expanded to electronics. By 1997 T+A which stands for Theory + Application was into active loudspeaker design, CD players, tuners, ...

Let me begin this review with the punch line. The new Pass XP20 is one of the best linestage preamps around, and the XA160.5 power amp one of the best Class A power amps I’ve ...

It’s serious business striving to be taken seriously. Even when you’ve been producing exceptional electronics for years, as Cambridge Audio has, the moniker “value high-end” is a stigma that tends to stick. But some companies ...

Today’s Mark Levinson brand of electronics traces it lineage back to 1972 when Mark Levinson (the man) founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS). The company’s first product, the JC-1 preamp (named after its designer, the ...

The PrimaLuna Prologue Three preamp and Five power amp are at the top of my list: good sound, good value, simplicity. They are also good fun, if you like playing with tubes (the power amp ...

I hesitate to call the TacT 2.2 XP the “component of the year,” since I’ve recently reviewed two superb sets of components from Krell and Pass Laboratories, and the Krell Evolution series is a breakthrough ...

Only a couple of years ago I was convinced that a new generation of high-resolution digital formats, SACD and DVD-Audio, was poised to grab the baton from flagging Red Book CD and run with it. ...

The very first time I powered up the new linestage preamp and monoblock power amps from ARC, I knew they were extraordinary. As fate would have it, I was listening to an EMI LP [ASD ...