An Important Factor in Choosing a Blu-ray Player Robert Harley I recently took delivery of Classé Audio’s ambitious new $8000 SSP-800 controller for review. I was surprised, however, that the review sample did not decode ...

Very few products can lay claim to being unquestionably the best in the world. In any field there are always several candidates for the stateof- the-art, with experts disagreeing based on personal preference or varying ...

Consider for a moment the concentric spiraling façade of the Guggenheim in New York, the fanciful stainless steel sails of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the sensual bodywork of a vintage Ferrari ...

Oppo has released some information on its much-anticipated BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc player. The DSD-over-HDMI feature is an interesting twist, as is the direct conversion of DSD to analog (rather than converting DSD to PCM for ...

It’s a fair bet that any company named Pathos and any product named Endorphin did not originate with conformists. And indeed, this Italian company’s motto is “the unorthodox approach.” Founded in the northern city of ...

Talk about the mother of all dream assignments. Ten years ago, as an audiophile civilian, I had to literally beg the local hi-fi dealer for a brief, in-home audition of the now classic Meridian 508.24 ...

Cary Audio made a name for itself with vacuum-tube power amplifiers, primarily the single-ended triode variety. Indeed, it was a passion for SET amplifiers that inspired Dennis Had to found Cary Audio Design in 1989. ...

Music Hall in Great Neck, New York, has long been a source of musical, mostly twochannel audio equipment. The folks there are uncannily good at finding high-performance gear that won’t break the budget. I’m thinking ...

I was tickled pink by Cayin Audio’s A-88T all-tube integrated amplifier from the moment I began to unpack it. The inclusion of white gloves signaled an attention to detail in the presentation that puts to ...

I’ve recently been the beneficiary of an embarrassment of high-end riches. This happy bit of serendipity has allowed me to evaluate loudspeakers from ATC and DALI, and electronics from Plinius (most notably, the CD-101 CD ...

Audio critics seem to forget that the people buying the stuff they write about are doing so for a pretty simple reason: to get musical pleasure. And while it is their job to convey how ...

Back in the late 90s I reviewed the Simaudio Celeste PW- 5000 integrated amplifier. It was my first experience with a component from Simaudio, the Canadian firm established in 1980. It was a terrific little ...

I usually cover all digital products at shows, but this year I split the task with Alan Taffel. I took the disc players, transports, and DACs, and Alan tackled “Next-Gen Audio” (hard-disk-drive storage, Web-based content ...

Back in the late 90s I reviewed the Simaudio Celeste PW- 5000 integrated amplifier. It was my first experience with a component from Simaudio, the Canadian firm established in 1980. It was a terrific little ...

Epos M16 It’s hard to not be excited by the Epos M16. For fifteen-hundredninety- five bucks you get an English-designed, Chinese-built speaker possessing truly special performance qualities. The M16 can whisper yet still be clearly ...