Network Hub Buying Guides Newsletter Signup Advertisers' Index
Shunyata Research
Shunyata Research
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Magico A3

Newest Updates

Most Popular Last 90 Days

Audience
Axiom
McIntosh Labs
Hegel
Pro-Ject Audio
3000 Pro
MSB Technology

Legacy link:
legacy_200w
This new site was launched in July 2010. Visit the older site to access previous articles by clicking above.

Audience
Gryphon Audio Essence
Rockport Technologies
Rockport Technologies

Details
Category: Recording of the Month

Verve Records B0032589-01
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

“The sound of popular music in the third decade of the 21st century is predominantly electronic,” Stuart Nicholson writes in his liner notes to The Lost Berlin Tapes, a newly released live recording of a March 1962 performance by Ella Fitzgerald. Nicholson notes that while the current generation of singers frequently perform with the aid of electronic enhancements, Fitzgerald required only her voice, a microphone, and—for this performance—a jazz trio playing acoustic instruments. She’s so well known, even nearly 25 years after her death, that her first name alone is listed on the cover of the new album; just as it was in 1960, when Verve released Mack the Knife: Ella in Berlin.

Details
Category: For the Record

I remain conflicted about my Vault subscription with Third Man Records (TMR). Four times a year, TMR ships me a release for around $70 (all prices in USD). The title is generally announced a month or so before it’s shipped, so there’s never really a surprise when it arrives. The albums are beautifully pressed and of exceedingly high quality, and the packaging is truly deluxe. The package usually includes at least two LPs, often with a 7″ 45rpm bonus disc, and some sort of glossy booklet. For some inexplicable reason, TMR often includes a DVD of concert footage. Given that I haven’t had a DVD player hooked up for years now, I don’t get much satisfaction from this inclusion.

Details
Category: Full-Length Reviews

So you’re on the hunt for an integrated amplifier in the mid- to high four figures. There are many options, and in some ways it would be hard to end up with one that wasn’t at least very good. But you’re a discerning shopper, with a refined taste who can’t be bothered with any of the run-of-the-mill, high-powered, class-AB options littering the audioscape. Class-D amps are out due to their lack of character. Most tubed amps require that the owner bias and occasionally replace the tubes -- and what are you, a mechanic? No, you’d rather be listening. Finally, you go weak in the knees when you see a product proudly emblazoned with “Made in the USA.”

Details
Category: Opinion

Last month, I wrote “The Best Loudspeaker Brands for Both Luxury and Performance: The Definitive List,” a shortlist of the best luxury and high-performance loudspeakers on the planet. Only four brands made the grade, though I listed two more as conditional entries. I knew I’d raise some hackles -- the extreme exclusivity of that list put off some readers and posters to various online audio forums. But anytime you state that one thing is better than another thing, or that anything is “the best,” you’re going to alienate some people -- and that’s never more true than when discussing high-end audio. I stand by what I wrote.

Details
Category: Full-Length Reviews

When you’re sitting in front of the Audio Research Reference 160S stereo amplifier ($22,000 USD), it’s hard not to see the appeal. Its GhostMeters are a brilliant design touch that modernizes the look of a metered power amplifier. So named because their needles appear at the front of an otherwise transparent pane of acrylic graduated in watts, the GhostMeters let the user simultaneously watch the needles dance along with the amp’s power output while peering past the meters to the glow of eight KT150 output tubes. Listening to music over a high-end stereo system can delight more than one sense -- if this sort of visual delight supports your pleasure in listening, then a plain ol’ slab of thick aluminum just won’t do.

Details
Category: Recording of the Month

Impulse! Records B0032077-01
Format: LP

Musical Performance: *****
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

In 2019, Verve Records and Impulse! Records, both now owned by Universal Music Enterprises, reissued titles from their catalogs on LP in a series they called Vital Vinyl. Sales were undoubtedly good, because Universal has now partnered with Acoustic Sounds to release selections from its extensive vault of jazz recordings on vinyl. The Acoustic Sounds releases will include LPs that originally appeared on the Impulse!, Decca, EmArcy, and Philips labels. Recordings from its Blue Note holdings will continue to be reissued in its Blue Note 80 and Tone Poet series, which launched in 2019.

Details
Category: Full-Length Reviews

Reviewers' ChoiceIn 1993, Rotel released the first three models in what became their critically acclaimed Michi line of electronics: the RHB-10 power amplifier, the RHC-10 passive controller, and the RHQ-10 equalizer. Rotel claimed that the Michis represented the very best they then had to offer in terms of design, technology, and sound quality. Over the next few years Rotel released five more Michi models, including a smaller power amplifier (RHB-5), an active preamplifier (RHA-10), an FM tuner (RHT-10), and a mammoth CD player (RHCD-10). The Michis were easily identified by their deep-gray cases of heavy-gauge steel, complemented by meticulously finished side panels of Japanese redwood -- but it was the many progressive technologies implemented in each that made them special.

Details
Category: Opinion

The last several months I’ve spilled a lot of virtual ink on luxury purchases, high-end sound quality, and where they overlap. It began in August 2020, with “The Purchasing of Luxury Audio and the Pursuit of Hi-Fi Are Two Different Hobbies,” in which I examined why people make luxury purchases in general, how this global appetite for luxury goods includes high-end audio, and why an audiophile who seeks only the high-fidelity reproduction of recorded music might be completely removed from such an experience.

Details
Category: Full-Length Reviews

Reviewers' ChoiceMy very first hi-fi purchase was a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.8 Mk.II floorstanding speakers, in 2002. My local dealer had set up a head-to-head with Bowers & Wilkins’s vaunted Nautilus 804, a beautiful loudspeaker that I fully expected to take home a pair of. But something about the boxy Dynaudio spoke to me.

Details
Category: Full-Length Reviews

Some 15 years ago, after improving the sound of my two-channel audio system by upgrading all of its cables, I looked into doing the same for my home-theater rig. An obvious place to begin was with the Monster Cable coaxial S/PDIF interconnect that was between my DVD player and A/V receiver. Remember, this was around the time HDMI cables first appeared.

  1. Renovating with Furutech
  2. Bob Mould: "Blue Hearts"
  3. Mola Mola Tambaqui Digital-to-Analog Converter
  4. Luxury High End: Heart vs. Head
  5. Synergistic Research PowerCell SX Power Conditioner
  6. Dion: "Blues with Friends"
  7. Focal Diablo Utopia Colour Evo Loudspeakers
  8. I've Changed My Mind About Luxury Audio
  9. Gryphon Audio Designs Essence Stereo Amplifier
  10. Paul Weller: "On Sunset"