2nd Edition
Complete AXPONA 2019 Show Report!!!
Jason Victor Serinus, John Atkinson, Jim Austin and Herb Reichert provide complete coverage of the rooms, new products and significant events from the biggest consumer audiophile show in the US.
Emotiva Audio Airmotiv T2 loudspeaker
Visit any consumer audio show these days and you'll see rooms full of systems costing from six to seven figures. Manufacturers like to put their best foot forward, and demoing systems with loudspeakers designed to sell for $50,000/pair and up (often up) seems an obvious way to go.
dCS Rossini Transport SACD/CD transport
he good-sounding products that pass through a reviewer's system fall into three categories: those he liked but felt little sense of loss about when they were sent back to the manufacturer or distributor; those he loved and could afford to purchase; and those he loved but that were financially out of reach.
McIntosh Laboratory MC462 power amplifier
It hit me not long ago: I need more Mac in my life! I promptly purchased the current production version of McIntosh Laboratory's time-honored MC275 tubed amplifier, to mate to the Mac C2300 tubed preamplifier I already owned. The recently reinvigorated debate in these pages comparing solid-state and single-ended tube designs got me to thinking.
KEF LSX wireless loudspeaker system
I keep getting older. By the time you read this, I will be genuinely old. When I was genuinely young, I bellyached, "Wires are the worst part of hi-fi--there's gotta be a way to get rid of them."
Who Watches the Watchers?
When we launched Stereophile's website at the end of 1997, we decided that we would not reprint the magazine's most popular features, including the biannual "Recommended Components" listings and Michael Fremer's monthly "Analog Corner" column. We were concerned that doing so would cannibalize magazine sales.
Recording of May 2019: Never the Same
Guitarist Francesco Diodati is one of the freshest voices to enter jazz in the new millennium. If this news comes as a surprise, you probably live in the US. A disproportionate amount of the innovation and energy within America's only indigenous art form now comes out of Europe.
From the J. Gordon Holt Archives: Genelec Studio Monitor 1031A loudspeaker & Studio Monitor 1092A powered subwoofer
Which loudspeakers do audio professionals listen to? And why should we care? After all, it's not as if recording engineers are the kind of refined, sensitive, music-loving types who read Stereophile. As much as they may love music, many audio pros appear only to view the original sounds of musical instruments as raw materials to be creatively reshaped and manipulated.
1st Edition
From The Archive: Carver Silver Seven-t monoblock power amplifier
In 1988, Bob Carver set out to design the best amplifier he possibly could, without regard for cost. It was more of an ego exercise than an attempt to build a product with wide commercial appeal. The result was the four-chassis, $17,500 Silver Seven.
Lighting Strikes: a Bolt From the Blue
One evening late last summer I took the most expensive workout of my life. In my hurry to meet a friend at the gym, I left the house, leaving my computer and hi-fi on despite the ominous look of the sky. In the South, experience teaches you to dash about disconnecting everything at the first sign of a thunderstorm. Usually I do, but this time my mind was elsewhere.
Philip Glass Premiere from Third Coast Percussion
Philip Glass (b. 1937) may not quite be a household name in America, but he's surely as well-known as any living classical composer, and the repetitive minimalism that is the hallmark of his music has influenced everything from rock music to TV commercials.
Jean-Michel Jarre: Organic meets Electronic
"I have an organic approach toward music but I've always been interested in electronics," says Jean-Michel Jarre, whose luxurious electronic pop conquered the world in 1976 with his hit album Oxygene. Even today, Oxygene's bubbling tones and saturated textures provide a blissful sonic experience.
Gramophone Dreams #27: EleKit TU-8600R amplifier kit
I will never forget. In 1988 I had my first experience with Western Electric 300B tubes. It took place on a quiet, streetlights-and-snow night at my friend Ryoichi's apartment on Riverside Drive, in Manhattan.
An Integrated Amplifier Shootout: Ayre Acoustics EX-8 vs Cambridge Audio
In our February 2019 issue, when I reviewed a new integrated amplifier from Colorado-based Ayre Acoustics, I concluded that "the EX-8 Integrated Hub is a high-end contender at a competitive price". In that review I promised a Follow-Up in which I would compare the EX-8 with Cambridge Audio's Edge A integrated amplifier, which Ken Micallef had positively reviewed in our January 2019 issue.
PS Audio DirectStream Power Plant 12
In the November 2018 issue of Stereophile, Jim Austin reviewed PS Audio's DirectStream Power Plant P20 AC regenerator ($9999). PS Audio had sent me the less expensive DirectStream Power Plant 12 ($4999), hence this review.
Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital D/A headphone amplifier
I first met Pro-Ject Audio Systems' founder and president, Heinz Lichtenegger, in 2016, at the US launch of the Austrian company's The Classic turntable. His passion for all things hi-fi was so intense I thought his head might explode.
Audia Flight FLS1 preamplifier
Our conservative two-channel audio world doesn't easily accept change. Not that many years ago, even remote control was considered a sign of electronic moral decay certain to degrade sound quality.
Fischer's Glorious Mahler Seventh
The first and only time I heard a live performance of Mahler's five-movement Symphony No.7, from Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, I left Davies Symphony Hall confused. The bad press that the 70+ minute work has received for over a century, mainly for its innate ambiguity, convinced me that it was, at best, a problematic work.
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