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Auralic Vega G2 Streaming DAC-Preamplifier

Written by: Jeff Fritz
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 April 2019

Reviewers' ChoiceI sit and read with sadness as insecure audiophiles on various audio forums denigrate each other’s six-figure stereo systems. Grown people ought to know better. If you’re used to watching Vikings and The Walking Dead, well, the carnage can be just about as gory.

Read more …

David Bowie: "Let's Dance"

Written by: Joseph Taylor
Category: Recording of the Month
Created: 01 April 2019

Parlophone DB83881 0190295692735
Format: LP

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

Let’s Dance, David Bowie’s 15th studio album, appeared in 1983. Videos based on its singles were in heavy rotation on MTV, which by then had established itself as the dominant promotional tool for new pop music. Bowie’s acute visual sense made him a good fit for MTV, and his videos for “Let’s Dance,” “Modern Love,” and “China Girl” won viewers and sales. Those singles were among his biggest selling, and the LP hit no.1 worldwide.

Read more …

Cocktail Audio X45Pro Music Server-DAC

Written by: Aron Garrecht
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 March 2019

There’s no arguing that playing music from a digitally stored library is more convenient than getting out of your chair, sorting through shelves of CDs, and spinning discs one by one. But there’s a catch -- first you must build that digital library. That process can take hours, days, even weeks, depending on the size of the collection.

Read more …

A Measured Approach to Room Acoustics

Written by: Jeff Fritz
Category: Opinion
Created: 01 March 2019

In September 2018 I wrote “Jeff’s New Room,” in which I wrote in detail about moving into my new listening room after selling our previous home and spending some time in a rental house. The room had not yet been acoustically treated when I wrote the piece, and it remained largely untreated throughout the listening sessions for the first product I reviewed there, the EgglestonWorks Kiva loudspeakers. The Kivas are terrific speakers -- despite being asked to perform in a room in which little attention had been paid to acoustics, they sounded quite good in my new space.

Read more …

Luxman L-509X Integrated Amplifier

Written by: Jeff Fritz
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 March 2019

Reviewers' ChoiceI begin forming strong opinions of an audio component at the unboxing stage. While some audiophiles will tell you that they pay only for sound quality, and that any black-anodized case will do, anyone in the real world of 2019 knows that high-end audio components costing close to five figures also need to look like luxury audio gear if they’re going to succeed in the marketplace. Consumers pay enough money for this stuff -- they want to have their cake and eat it, too. The Luxman ticks both boxes with bold pen strokes.

Read more …

My Little Fwend and My Double-Wide Equipment Rack

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: For the Record
Created: 01 March 2019

Last November, I accompanied Doug Schneider to the Warsaw Audio Video Show (read our coverage here). The AVS was wonderful -- a huge affair hosted by a city whose history goes back a thousand years. We found tons of new, exotic products, and the show -- and our coverage of it -- were raging successes.

Read more …

Matthew Sweet: "Girlfriend"

Written by: Joseph Taylor
Category: Recording of the Month
Created: 01 March 2019

Intervention IR-021
Format: LP

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

Matthew Sweet’s first two albums, Inside (1986) and Earth (1989), showed promise, but their production locks them in time. Nor, when he recorded them, had Sweet quite pulled together his influences into the inspired level of songwriting that would make his third album, Girlfriend (1991), so unexpectedly good, and one of the best records of the 1990s.

Read more …

Vivid Audio Kaya 45 Loudspeakers

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 February 2019

Reviewers' ChoiceReview components come and go, and for the most part it doesn’t take me long to get their measure. Speakers, especially, don’t take much time to figure out, and I’m fairly confident in my speaker-analyzing skillz. It’s a mature technology, right? A mechanical device with three, maybe four moving parts: drivers and crossover in a box.

Read more …

The Making of Two Vimberg Tondas

Written by: Jeff Fritz
Category: Opinion
Created: 01 February 2019

Last month, in “Jeff Buys Loudspeakers: The Vimberg Tondas,” I announced that I’d bought a pair of Vimberg Tondas to use as my reference loudspeakers. I also challenged Tidal and Vimberg designer and CEO, Jorn Janczak, to show us exactly what goes into the making of a set of Vimbergs. What follows, in words and photos, is the story of my pair of Tondas, from raw cabinets to packing in their flight cases, followed by a set of measurements of that pair of units.

Read more …

Audio Research Reference 160M Mono Amplifiers

Written by: Aron Garrecht
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 February 2019

It could be said that 1970 was a tumultuous year: the Apollo 13 accident, President Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, and Paul McCartney’s announcement that the Beatles had officially disbanded. On the other hand, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was put into effect, Boeing had just introduced the world to the 747 Jumbo Jet, and William Zane Johnson founded Audio Research Corporation (ARC) -- the same month Aerosmith was born.

Read more …

  1. Neil Young: "Songs for Judy"
  2. Weiss Engineering DAC501 Digital-to-Analog Converter
  3. Jeff Buys Loudspeakers: The Vimberg Tondas
  4. EgglestonWorks Kiva Loudspeakers
  5. From Furutech: Ag-16 Phono Cable and Monaco LP Stabilizer
  6. Charles Bradley: "Black Velvet"
  7. VPI Prime Signature Turntable
  8. Fitting Speakers to Room: Installing the EgglestonWorks Kivas
  9. AVM Ovation SD 6.2 Preamplifier-DAC-Streamer
  10. Confessions of a Junkies Junkie

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210x600 T+A R Criterion S (20240601)
Gryphon Audio Essence
 Electrocompaniet - AW300M
Dynaudio Contour 20BE

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