From a speaker-designer’s perspective, $15,000 is a tricky price point. Above that, there is plenty of room to lavish resources on extensive R&D (e.g.—the KEF Blade), ultrarigid enclosures (the big Wilsons, Magico’s Q series), and ...

Back in 2008 I wrote very favorably about a CD player and integrated amplifier from Exposure’s 3010S Series. These components fell into the highly competitive mid-$2000 price range, which is reachable by most non-one-percenters and ...

Confession: Even though I’m a longtime contributor to (and once-upon-a-time editor of) these pages, I still await each issue with the same almost childlike eagerness I had as a “civilian” reader. And having attended many ...

Aesthetix Rhea/Rhea Signature $4500/$7000 With three inputs, variable cartridge-loading—adjustable at the listening chair via remote control—and a front-panel display of gain and loading, the Rhea is the Swiss Army Knife of phonostages. Although it has ...

Synergistic Element Series Interconnect: Element Copper, $1200/1m, Element Tungsten, $2000, Element CTS, $3600. Speaker (8' pr.): Element Copper, $1700; Element Tungsten, $2800. Element CTS, $7500 The Element Series represents Synergistic’s innovative and costly Galileo System ...

Odyssey Audio Khartago $795 Although the 130Wpc Odyssey Khartago solid-state stereo amp has been around for better than a decade, it was new to JV until ampconnoisseur Alon Wolf (of Magico) told him he used ...

Ortofon 2M Red $99 The swansong design of Ortofon’s former chief engineer Per Windfeld, the entry-level 2M Red uses a elliptical-tipped stylus. Though a little dry in the treble and lacking the Ortofon Black’s velvety ...

These days we take it for granted that our smartphones have more computing power than most desktop rigs of the not-too-distant past—not to mention far more elegant graphics, user interfaces, and once-unimaginable flexibility from something ...

While typing my finishing thoughts to this article, my hometown team won its second World Series in three years. As it was in 2010, this year’s edition of the San Francisco Giants seems a most ...

It is perhaps no coincidence that both our choices for Integrated Amplifier of The Year feature a direct-digital topology in which digital audio data at the amplifier’s input directly drive the output transistors. This technique ...

Some of the most noteworthy companies in the high end don’t do it. Magico doesn’t. Neither does Rockport nor Wilson Audio nor Audio Research. But Burmester and TAD do. What I’m refer- ring to are ...

What are your expectations for a $129/pair loudspeaker? Not all that high I would guess. At the very least, you’d expect it to work reliably, play reasonably loud, and not look too schlocky. But high-end ...

Until a review in this stupid magazine persuaded me to sell it and buy, sight unseen and sound unheard, a Marantz 500—which blew up the moment I plugged it in, before I’d heard a single ...

HiFiMAN HE-6 $1199 HiFiMAN’s flagship HE-6 planar-magnetic headphone is one of the most accurate, detailed, and revealing headphones Playback has ever reviewed. Heard at its best, this headphone offers stunning bass, smooth yet ultra- articulate ...

Magnepan MMG $595 Magnepan’s smallest planar-magnetic (available factory-direct only), the Product of the Year award-winning MMG, is one of the best buys in the Maggie line, and one of the real bargains in high-end audio. ...