Articles
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Audience Au24 SE USB Cable
|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 ...read more -
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Nelson Pass: Four Decades of Innovation
|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 ...read more -
AudioQuest Wind Interconnect
|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 ...read more -
Beyond High-Resolution
|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 ...read more -
Subwoofer Basics
|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 ...read more -
Moon by Simaudio Neo 430HA Headphone Amplifier
|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 ...read more -
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Alma Music and Audio Hosts Special Open House
|The following is a press release issued by Alma Music and Audio. July 6, 2015 - Alma Music and Audio will host a very special event on Saturday, July 18 and Sunday, July 19 at ...read more -
THE Show Newport
|THE Show Newport’s fifth annual event was bigger and much better than ever, thanks largely to the change in venue to the just-renovated Hotel Irvine. The new digs were far better suited to hosting an ...read more -
Munich Update: Meridian's MQA
|There was much anticipation that Meridian would make an important announcement about its Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) technology, but the press conference was more of an overview of how the technology works. I did, however, ...read more -
The 2015 Munich High-End Show
|If there was ever any doubt about the Munich high-end show’s ascendance to the world’s premier audio event, the 2015 show will put any reservations to rest. This year the vibe was even more upbeat ...read more -
Raidho X-1 Loudspeaker
|Raidho’s X-1 must be the smallest speaker I’ve ever reviewed. With a 4" woofer/midrange mated to Raidho’s ribbon tweeter, the X-1 can nearly be held in an outstretched hand. Obviously, a 4" driver in a ...read more -
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JL Audio e112 Subwoofer
|I’ve been a fan of JL Audio’s subwoofers since their debut at a CEDIA show about ten years ago. At that time this company, which had already redefined bass performance in high-end car audio, was ...read more -
Understanding Digital Music Systems
|Issue 254 of The Absolute Sound includes a comprehensive primer explaining the new architecture of digital music systems. A table in that article was abbreviated because of space restrictions. We reprint the full table here. ...read more -
Mastering Engineer Doug Sax: 1936–2015
|The great mastering engineer Doug Sax passed away on April 2 a few weeks short of his 79th birthday. It would not be an exaggeration to say that virtually everyone who has listened to recorded ...read more -
First Listen: Magico Q7 Mk.II
|I just visited Magico's Hayward, California, factory where I heard the new and upgraded Mk.II version of the company's vaunted Q7 loudspeaker. The Q7 is, in my view, one of the world's greatest speakers—perhaps the ...read more