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 ...

Vandersteen Model 7 Loudspeaker Preview Robert Harley One of the “must-hear” systems at CES was Richard Vandersteen’s all-new Model 7 loudspeaker. The buzz surrounded not just the exceptional sound the system produced, but the radical ...

The Magico M5 floorstanding loudspeaker was undoubtedly the most anticipated debut at CES 2009 and it didn't disappoint. For those of you familiar with the great MartinLogan CLX its sound is easy to describe and ...

Channeling the spirit of the ultra coherent, two-way the Magico Mini II couldn’t have been an easy task for the masters at Magico but the new V2 seemingly does the impossible. This 2 ½ way, ...

Ron Sutherland says he engineered his new stop-of-the-line phonostage, The Hubble (which he calls, not entirely without justification, a “phono preamplification instrument”), by starting from a blank sheet of paper on which he listed only ...

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 ...