There's Hope for Our Youth After All I was having dinner with Bob Carver in Austin, Texas,the other night when a funny thing happened. As you probably know, Bob Carver is the founder of Carver, ...

The Absolute Sound- Insider with Robert Harley Welcome to the first installment of my weekly high-end audio blog, where I'll be bringing you information, observations, and, I hope, insights into high-end audio. I'll also share ...

Esoteric P-03 Universal Disc Transport & D-03 Digital-to-Analog Converter I've just returned from a visit to the U.S. headquarters of TEAC, parent company of the Esoteric brand of high-end disc players. I was there researching ...

Is the $149 Oppo DV-970 Universal Disc Player a Giant-Killer? Dec 12 - There's been much buzz about Oppo's bargain disc player being competitive with much more expensive units. There's no question regarding the DV-970's ...

The Rumor Mill Dec 14 - Can any mini-monitor be worth $22k? That's the question surrounding MAGICO's controversial Mini loudspeaker, reviewed by Jonathan Valin in The Absolute Sound 163 (see also the current issue of ...

I recently had a mind-blowing listening experience I'd like to tell you about. No, it doesn't involve hearing a high-resolution disc on mid-six-figure stereo system, but rather a 40+ year-old recording reproduced by a sound-reinforcement ...

Anticipated Product Introduction Dec 13 - As I write this, the first examples of Arcam's new DV139 universal player are hitting the market. Arcam's marketing director, Geoff Meads, visited me last week with the $2995 ...

Wilson MAXX 2 Loudspeaker: Further Thoughts Dec 19 - I've lived with Wilson's MAXX 2 loudspeaker for nearly two years now and can report that I'm just as thrilled with this loudspeaker as when I ...

Upcoming in The Absolute Sound Dec 29 - We're just finishing Issue 170 (March 07 cover date, January 31 mail date) and it has some reviews of exciting new products. Neil Gader reports on an ...

HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc as High-Res Music Formats? Dec 30 - All the talk about HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc has centered on their video capabilities and the unfortunate war between the two competing ...

Upcoming in TAS Jan 3 - One of the great mysteries of digital audio (to me, at least) is how CD transport-mechanism quality affects the sound. I'm not talking about the differences between transports as ...

The Loudness War: A Must-View YouTube Video Jan 4 - It's no secret that record companies crush the dynamic range of rock and pop releases in order to make their records sound louder during radio ...

The Next Speaker-Manufacturing Mecca is . . . Cali, Colombia? Jan 5 - China could be in for some competition as the loudspeaker manufacturing capital of the world. I know someone in the industry who ...

The Heyser Box Jan 5 - I was talking to Absolute Multimedia CEO Tom Martin recently about why subwoofers sound so different (and why we can't quantify those differences through measurement). He suggested that we're ...

How Do Professionals Listen? It's fairly well-known that recording engineers, producers, and recording artists listen at fairly high playback levels when recording and mixing. But just how loud is the mix they listen to? And ...