Like almost everybody else who grew up in the sixties, I can honestly say that rock ’n’ roll changed my life. In particular, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band changed my life. That girl doll ...

My coverage category had some new and interesting entries at this year's calmer, and better organized, “High Performance Audio” section of CES held at The Venetian, Las Vegas hotel. A trend I have noticed over ...

On the first morning of the show, I sat next to Robert Deutsch of Stereophile in the McIntosh room, noshing on bagels and fruit while awaiting the start of the press briefing. We were tended ...

I was saddened to learn prior to the CES that David Manley, the progenitor of both VTL and Manley Labs, had passed away in late December after a long illness. A memorial gathering of friends ...

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 ...

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 ...

The expression “entry level” covers a vast swath of price points in the high end. For Vitus Audio, a premium maker of electronics from Denmark its Reference Series, which includes the RI-100 is at $13k, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Peterborough, Ontario December 11th, 2012 - Bryston LTD, builders of the world’s finest audio electronics and celebrating 50 years in 2012, has announced the introduction of the BP17, a state-of-the-art analog/digital stereo preamplifier derived from ...