As many of you already know, my musical tastes are wide-ranging. Pop and rock, classical (the occasional opera aria), a smattering of jazz, a dash of musical theater. As a kid growing up in the ...

I received this letter from Koetsu's US distributor regarding the perils of buying Koetsu cartridges from "gray market" resellers. KOETSU BUYER BEWARE Recently, Koetsu has received numerous inquiries about so-called “new” and “cheap” Koetsu phono ...

A $10k Electronic Device for a Penny? Robert Harley Back in 1979, Walter Becker and Donald Fagan (Steely Dan) wanted to store drum sounds in solid-state memory. Their long-time engineer, the great Roger Nichols, set ...

For Magico lovers and the just plain curious, here's a little photo journal covering the delivery of the fabulous Magico M5 loudspeakers. 1) Here they are in their cartons on the delivery truck--about five hundred ...

Taking the Guesswork out of Phonostage Gain Robert Harley The March issue of TAS includes a sidebar on matching a phono cartridge output level to phonostage gain. To summarize, if the phonostage has insufficient gain ...

I’ve been listening to an exceptional pair of integrated amplifiers over the last few months and I thought I’d share a couple early impressions. The Marantz PM-11S2 and the ATC SIA2-150 are not small units. ...

I returned to the Sumiko suite in the Venetian on two different days this year and was rewarded with the opportunity to hear two speakers that this well-regarded distributor/importer will be pinning much of its ...

Digital Audio Jitter and Image Stabilizer Binoculars Robert Harley I recently bought a pair of Canon Image Stabilizer binoculars for wildlife viewing. Image Stabilizer technology, widely used in digital cameras and camcorders, optically eliminates the ...

This CES brought a whole slew of affordable new integrated amps, preamps, and power amps from established players as well as from less-familiar brands. The biggest news in affordable electronics at CES was undoubtedly the ...

Is Balanced Connection Better than Unbalanced? I received this e-mail from a reader, and thought I'd share his question and my answer. Editor: I am hoping you can clarify or comment on balanced vs unbalanced ...

Several noteworthy phonostages made their CES debuts. Pass Labs introduced its new high-performance phonostage, the SCP-1 (less than $4000), which has up to 76 dB of gain. Unlike the two-chassis Xono, which it replaces, the ...

For many reasons this was a CES to remember. And although this is not the best of times for some, there was still a lot of fertile ground to cover in this broad segment—a task ...

Ultra-high-end turntable systems helped produce some of the finest sounds of the show. The use of magnetic suspension to float platters, magnetic drive, twelve-inch arms, exotic materials, sophisticated stands to isolate ‘tables from structural resonances ...

One of the odder and more unexpected surprises at this year's CES was a trio of loudspeakers that used thick sculpted sheets of tempered glass for their cabinets or, in one very expensive and remarkable ...

In the recesses of the Alexis Park Hotel, I heard perhaps the best sound at either CES or T.H.E. Show . Keith Herron was featuring his wonderful Herron Audio electronics, including his new SP-4 hybrid ...