Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), the new digital audio encoding technology that delivers better-than-high-resolution sound in a file small enough that it can be streamed, took another step toward becoming a reality at the 2016 Consumer ...

Robert Harley: Let’s start with an overview of the concept of MQA—not the technology but the objective. J. Robert Stuart: MQA embodies a philosophy as well as a group of technologies. The philosophy starts with ...

Meridian co-founder J. Robert Stuart was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) at a ceremony in Dallas in October. I had the honor of attending the dinner ...

Wireworld founder David Salz has long maintained that the only true test of a cable’s quality is to compare it not against another cable, but to no cable at all. In his more than 30 ...

November 7, 2015 - Overture Ultimate Audio Video in Wilmington, Delaware will host Robert Harley for the world premier of the landmark book The Absolute Sound's Illustrated History of High-End Audio, Volume Two: Electronics on ...

High-end audio has a long history of manufacturers refining their existing products and then applying the “Mk II” designation. Given that high-end audio designers are perfectionists by nature, it’s understandable that they will revisit a ...

Magico Q7 Mk II$229,000 Magico has taken the Q7, a speaker I’ve long considered to be the state of the art and, surprisingly, made it significantly better. The Q7 Mk II benefits from an entirely ...

I’m thrilled to announce that by the time you read this the second volume of The Absolute Sound’s Illustrated History of High-End Audio will be at the printer. As you may know, the Illustrated History ...

Active digital loudspeakers have long been a tough sell. Audiophiles have avoided them because active speakers don’t give them the opportunity to tune and upgrade their systems by swapping out different amplifiers, DACs, and cables. ...

Audience is an interesting company. Although this 18-year-old firm offers signal cables, AC power cords, AC power conditioners, and speakers, it doesn’t easily fit into any of those particular niches. Audience brings products to market ...

I recently had the great privilege of spending a couple of days with Nelson Pass at his home on the Northern California coast. Unlike most meetings between an audio writer and a manufacturer, this one ...

The most interesting demonstration of cables I’ve ever experienced was about 20 years ago when AudioQuest founder Bill Low visited me with a carton of nearly every cable he made—and a boom box as a ...

Imagine a digital-audio encoding and decoding system that delivers far better sound quality than that of any previous analog or digital technology, including 192kHz/24-bit and quad-rate DSD. Now imagine that this system’s bit rate is ...

Excerpted and adapted from The Complete Guide to High-End Audio (Fifth Edition). Copyright © 1994–2015 by Robert Harley. hifibooks.com. To order call (800) 841-4741. Subwoofers are often misunderstood, both in name and in application. While ...

The lowly headphone amplifier has come a long way. That ¼" jack on the front panels of a few preamps used to be an afterthought—a cheap op-amp circuit thrown in for convenience. But some of ...