2nd Edition
Show Report: Munich 2014
Art Dudley reports live from Munich where he tries, but fails, to avoid Jazz at the Pawnshop, Rebecca Pigeon and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
MBL Corona C15 monoblock power amplifier
A year or so ago, in my review of the Pass Labs XP-30 preamplifier, I wrote that the heart of an audio system is the preamplifier, in that it sets the overall quality of the system's sound.
Lector Strumenti Audio Digitube S-192 D/A converter
Ten years ago, the average consumer was unaware that he or she needed an e-book reader. Since that time, neither those people nor the authors whose books they consume have changed very much.
T.H.E. Show Newport Beach Starts Friday
No sooner has the Munich Show ended than T.H.E. Show Newport Beach is set to commence. Jason Victor Serinus reports live from the show.
Wilson's Sasha Series 2 Debuts in SF
Wilson Audio Specialties' Sasha Series 2 loudspeaker ($29,500/pair), which began shipping in March, celebrated its formal California debut on Saturday, May 24, at Music Lovers Audio in San Francisco.
Harry Again
The long overdue rediscovery and re–enshrinement of Harry Nilsson that began with the 2010 release of the film, Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?) shows no signs of abating which is a good thing for fans of the man’s songwriting and most of all, his peerless voice.
Why Music?
Why does music matter so much to so many of us? Some, like Stereophile's readers, go to great lengths to reproduce it in their homes with accuracy and impact, and build libraries of their favorite works.
Recording of June 2014: The Rite of Spring
The link between jazz and the works of Igor Stravinsky is well known. In Conversations with Igor Stravinsky, his landmark 1959 collaboration with Robert Craft, the composer mentions jazz artists like Art Tatum and Charlie Christian.
VPI Classic Direct Drive Signature turntable
VPI Industries' Harry Weisfeld has tried, built, and marketed almost every known way of spinning a platter. He began in the early 1980s, before many recent turntable enthusiasts were born.
VPI JMW Classic 3D 12" tonearm
In 1995, Harry Weisfeld's son Jonathan was killed in an automobile accident. Jonathan was a charismatic young man whom I had come to know--a genuinely gifted artist and musician who, at the time of his death, was helping his father develop the tonearm that would be named for him: the JMW Memorial Arm.
1st Edition
Jimmy Page Drops Some Clues About New HD Led Zeppelin Releases
Poor Jimmy Page. After listening to eight tracks from the newly remastered Led Zeppelin studio albums from Atlantic/Swan Song/Rhino, the first three of which, I, II, III, will be released on June 3, the guitar great graciously opened himself to questions.
Goodbye & Hello
It was the summer of 2000. We had closed Stereophile's office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the City Different in the Land of Enchantment, where the magazine had been headquartered since 1978, and moved lock, stock, and audio systems to New York City.
Coming This Week: Munich High End 2014
Bill Parrish of GTT Audio calls it "the best." Jonathan Halpern of Tone Imports describes it as "the most well-organized, well-attended show, with the greatest number of products I've never heard or seen before."
Billion Dollar Babies
So audiophiles are all effete snobs right? Hanging out in their mansions, listening to $500,000 speaker systems, sipping something expensive, noses in the air, with the occasional sniff that maybe this isn’t the best performed or pressed Beethoven Symphony Cycle after all?
Grange and Randall Lead Management Buyout of Fine Sounds Group
Mauro Grange, CEO of Fine Sounds SpA, and Charlie Randall, longtime President of McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., have announced their plans for a management buyout of Fine Sounds Group in partnership with LBO France and Yarpa.
Music in the Round #66
Most interesting was the demonstration of a new approach to room equalization, presented by the canny folks from Dirac Research.
Regina Carter: A Family Affair
Making a recording is always a personal journey—everyone has a story to tell. Jazz violinist Regina Carter's latest, Southern Comfort, is an eloquent musical expression of Carter tracing the roots of her paternal lineage back five generations.
NAD Masters Series M50 Digital Music Player & M52 Digital Music Vault
"Physical discs are so 20th century," I wrote back in 2006, when I began experimenting with using, in my high-end rig, a computer as a legitimate source of music.
Raven Audio Spirit 300B Reference Stereo power amplifier
No one can say precisely how or when the ancient 300B triode tube made its cross-kingdom leap to the modern world of consumer audio, but we've got the where pretty much nailed down: It all began in Asia.
Sony HAP-Z1ES high-resolution file player
I've said it before and I'll say it again: High-end audio is the tail of the dog that is the consumer audio business. We have little leverage in determining where the technology is going, even though we undoubtedly know more about it than the average buyer.
VTL Siegfried Series II Reference monoblock power amplifier
Big tube amplifiers were once scary monsters reserved for those who didn't mind heavy maintenance, careful tweaking, and the occasional explosion. Blown tubes required replacing, preferably with pricey matched pairs, then biasing with a voltmeter.
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