A few weeks ago I spent an afternoon with engineers Bill Schnee and Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab, Sax's 5.1-channel facility in Ojai, California. I was there ostensibly to listen and to offer feedback ...

During a tour of Chinese audio-equipment factories last year, I visited the home of “The World’s Number One Audiophile,” Mr. Ji Hui Li. In addition to owning perhaps $3 million dollars worth of high-end gear ...

December 3 - China's booming economy and rise as an exporting giantare having an increasingly important effect on the audio industry. The influence is two-fold. First, Chinese audio factories are turning out high-quality products in ...

December 10 - "You have to see it with your own eyes to believe it." So I was told by more than one person during the GuangZhou audio show about the hi-fi systemâno, make that ...

I just got back from a ten-day overseas jaunt that took me, first, to beautiful, richly historic Istanbul, Turkey, then to Amsterdan in The Netherlands, and finally to Breda in The Netherlands. (Those of you ...

Removing the Sword in the Stone: MSB Technology's iLink iPod Station The "sword in the stone"âan apparently insurmountable problemâof the iPod for audiophiles is the inability to access the digital bitstream so that we can ...

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 ...