Audez’e LCD-2 $945-$995 audeze.com The Audez’e LCD-2 is a planar-magnetic headphone that both looks and sounds gorgeous. The LCD-2 offers generally neutral tonal balance with a very slight hint of warmth, coupled with extremely high ...

ESI Juli@ Soundcard $199 esi-audio.com This modestly priced soundcard was the clear winner of our eight-way soundcard shootout in Issue 209. The oddly named Juli@ features a reversible plugin board that is fitted with RCA ...

REL T5/REL R-218 $599/$1399 sumikoaudio.net Fast and tight, yet tonally supple, with well-defined timbres, these mini-subs are also remarkably potent for a single 8" driver (the T5) or a single downward-firing 10” (the Class D ...

Cambridge Audio’s Azur 840C CD player made quite a splash back in 2007. In my review of that device (Issue 174, September, 2007) I was shocked not only by the advanced technologies and build-quality of ...

Sonus faber, I thought I knew you—that we had an understanding. What happened? You’ve seduced me for years with romantic, walnut-and-leather-accented, lute- shaped loudspeakers inspired by the 18th century craftsmanship of the Cremonese master luthiers. ...

William Zane Johnson, God bless him, may be gone and his pathbreaking company, the Audio Research Corporation, may now be owned by an Italian holding company, but in spite of the loss of its founder ...

GamuT Audio, a Danish company, has recently established a U.S. subsidiary for North American distribution, headquartered in Sturtevant, Wisconsin. After what seemed like some fits and starts with a North American presence a while back, ...

When A. R. Bailey unveiled his novel “non-resonant loudspeaker enclosure” in 1965, commonly referred to today as a classic transmission line (TL), he took direct aim at the popular bass-reflex speaker design. Bailey’s measurements and ...

The Boston Symphony Orchestra evokes warm memories for me. In high school I spent a summer at the Tanglewood music camp in the Berkshires, where I got to study with the Empire Brass Quintet. One ...

There’s an embarrassment of riches in the under-$2k loudspeaker category and, fortunately for me, I’ve been able to experience firsthand some of those bargains over the last few issues. For example, I recently wrote about ...

The Sony SS-AR2 is a smaller version of the Sony SS-AR1 that appeared to general acclaim a year or so ago. Sony is at some pains to make clear that the AR2 is not in ...

The Jeff Rowland Corus linestage and 725 power amplifiers are the most beautiful, and beautifully made, electronics I’ve had in my home. They are visually stunning, with a unique diamond-cut front- panel adorning a chassis ...

To confess, when RH suggested this review I felt a pang of hesitation. As I’ve spent much of my audio life in the company of tube preamps, the prospect of auditioning a solid- state design ...

Insomniacs must populate NuForce’s R&D department. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for NuForce’s rapidly expanding stable of new products. I reviewed its excellent DAC-100 in Issue 228, and now NuForce has ...

The latest generation of reference-quality, multi-driver loudspeakers approaching the state of the art have several things in common: cabinets that go to fanatical lengths to reduce and control resonances; sophisticated crossovers utilizing very expensive high-quality ...