It was just about, uh, 30 years ago that I bought my first “serious” turntable. Which meant a belt-drive, English-made design. Before then I’d dabbled with direct-drive units from Technics and lusted for a Linn ...

Consider for a moment the concentric spiraling façade of the Guggenheim in New York, the fanciful stainless steel sails of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the sensual bodywork of a vintage Ferrari ...

The PrimaLuna Prologue Three preamp and Five power amp are at the top of my list: good sound, good value, simplicity. They are also good fun, if you like playing with tubes (the power amp ...

Polk Audio’s new I-Sonic entertainment center may at first glance look like a “table radio,” but this nine-pound technology-packed wonder is light years beyond any other product of its kind. In addition to being an ...

A $30,000 pair of speakers has to be more than god. It has to be exceptional. The Gershman Black Swans meet this standard, not only to my ears but also to those of some other ...

Emmeline XR-10B If you have a conversation with Ray Samuels, you’ll discover that he’s an enthusiastic guy with a lingering affection for the military planes he used to build electronics for. This explains his habit ...

It bears repeating: Today, we can put together a high-performance, highly musical system for a fraction of what that cost a decade ago. And we have choices in each category to suit our musical tastes. ...

Every now and then a product comes along that to see it is to want it. Sometimes it’s the “cute” factor—remember the diminutive Metronome 7 speaker with its designer grilles? Sometimes the “cool”—Henry Kloss’ nifty, ...

It’s been said that the only things you can count on in this world are death and taxes. Personally I would add Bob Dylan and Wallace and Gromit to the list. And Dynaudio—a speaker company ...

Dynaudio is a company that leaves nothing to chance. Whereas others lean heavily on subcontractors for fabrication and construction, it is a virtual soup-to-nuts operation—from the conceptual stages to the last strip of packing tape. ...

In a way, this is a speaker the world has been waiting more than twenty years for. It has taken that long for driver technology to catch up with one of the grand visions in ...

It’s a fair bet that any company named Pathos and any product named Endorphin did not originate with conformists. And indeed, this Italian company’s motto is “the unorthodox approach.” Founded in the northern city of ...

MartinLogan’s revamped hybrid electrostatic line comprises a trio of models all sharing the company’s trademarked XStat electrostatic panel technology. At the top (not surprisingly) is the Summit, and one notch below it, the Vantage. The ...

I hesitate to call the TacT 2.2 XP the “component of the year,” since I’ve recently reviewed two superb sets of components from Krell and Pass Laboratories, and the Krell Evolution series is a breakthrough ...

If nothing more, the Hermes S interconnects and speaker cables from Legenburg could be used to conduct a clinic on the art of soundstaging. Of course there is more to the story, but this wire’s ...