I first heard about the solid-state Soulution 710 about a year ago. This hefty (176 lbs., uncrated), 240Wpc (into 4 ohms) Swiss-made stereo amp had already won a number of prestigious awards in Europe and ...

I’ve been patting MBL speakers and electronics on the back so often lately for their transparency and resolution that the front-end components I’m about to review have been kind of lost in the shuffle. True, ...

In the past two decades, a slow evolution has taken place in audio, as top-notch designers come more and more to understand the nature of the beasts they are working with. Today it is not ...

Today’s Mark Levinson brand of electronics traces it lineage back to 1972 when Mark Levinson (the man) founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS). The company’s first product, the JC-1 preamp (named after its designer, the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

Only a couple of years ago I was convinced that a new generation of high-resolution digital formats, SACD and DVD-Audio, was poised to grab the baton from flagging Red Book CD and run with it. ...

A fundamental principle of high-end audio design holds that the signal path should be as short and simple as possible, and the power supply as elaborate and massive as practical. The VK-600M SE solid-state monoblock ...

The very first time I powered up the new linestage preamp and monoblock power amps from ARC, I knew they were extraordinary. As fate would have it, I was listening to an EMI LP [ASD ...

Cruising the halls of Consumer Electronics Shows, I’ve often paused to admire the products of Simaudio, a Canadian firm with over twenty-five years’ experience manufacturing high-quality electronics. It has always had a reputation for high ...

Where does one find highly musical and reliable, full-range tube monoblock amplifiers for around $2k per pair that are capable of driving most any loudspeaker, while also avoiding the syrupy thicknes, soggy low end, and ...

This is not a review for audiophiles who have blundered into the wrong magazine and think that all amplifiers sound the same. It is an exploration of two new amplifiers from the same designer and ...

Music Hall in Great Neck, New York, has long been a source of musical, mostly twochannel audio equipment. The folks there are uncannily good at finding high-performance gear that won’t break the budget. I’m thinking ...