High-End Audio Reviews / Hi-Fi Audiophile Equipment Review Magazine

High-End Audio / Audiophile Equipment Reviews And Think Pieces

October 2019

Industry News: Essential High-End Audio Info
Enjoy the Music.com's audiophile news and information.

New York Audio Show 2019 Report
NYAS 2019 Show Report By Enjoy the Music.com
Held at the Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan from November 8th through 10th, the New York Audio Show 2019 features the latest in high-end audio technology. This ranges from loudspeakers created to perfection, headphones with excellent fit and sound for you, to Hi-Res Audio digital sound for your home or on the go. Also featured were many state-of-the-art turntables for your beloved vinyl LP collection.
---> See our New York Audio Show 2019 report here.

Capital Audiofest (CAF) 2019 Show Report
CAF 2019 Show Report By Enjoy the Music.com
Capital Audiofest (CAF), launched in 2010 as a very casual show, has evolved into a well-organized and well-attended event. CAF is recognized as a fun, friendly and family-oriented show where you often see parents with children strolling from room to room listening to music, auditioning gear, and browsing the multiple bins of vinyl records, CDs and accessories.
---> See our Capital Audiofest 2019 show report here.

Toronto Audiofest 2019 Show Report
Toronto Audiofest 2019 Show Report By Rick Becker
Enjoy the Music.com's Toronto Audiofest 2019 show report features Canada's luxury high-technology home audio showcase. The Toronto Audiofest is Ontario's new and acclaimed consumer electronics (CE) exhibition.
---> See our Toronto Audiofest 2019 show report here.

RMAF 2019 Show Report
Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest 2019 Show Report
Featuring a luxury destination at the brand-new Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, our Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest (RMAF) 2019 show report celebrates our sweet 16 years covering this highly popular high-end audiophile event. Take in the friendly atmosphere at RMAF where all are welcome and questions are encouraged.
---> See our RMAF 2019 show report here.

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Senseless Ramblings
RMAF Vs. CEDIA And Twice Vs. CE Pro
And we'll never have a high-end audio organization.
Editorial By Steven R. Rochlin
Since this is a Senseless Rambling article by Yours Truly, loyal readers of mine know what to expect. So grab the popcorn, a fine beverage and listen to some cool n' crazy tunes. Or something more 'age appropriate' as we are discussing the latest generations of music enthusiasts.
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Ear Jewelry For Audiophiles
Roger Skoff writes about the state of the 'art' in Hi-Fi.
Article By Roger Skoff
Have you seen what some of the latest, ultimate, super-duper High-End turntables look like? To me, they're reminiscent of what the "cities of the future" looked like in those old Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s � great networks of massive gleaming towers, all surrounded and interconnected by loops and swirls of the aerial highways predicted by the people back then to be the roads for the flying cars of the future.
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Synchronicity And Serendipity
Synchronicity and serendipity took this issue of HIFICRITIC and turned it into a de facto celebration and turned it into a de facto celebration...
Article By Andrew Everard Of HIFICRITIC
There's a lot of received wisdom involved in the world of Hi-Fi: things accepted as being facts just because � well, just because they've always been so, and as a result are beyond challenge. It's a nice, cozy way of thinking, taking in all sorts of myths and legends built up over the years, such as 'source first', 'analogue is always best', and 'the more boxes the better'.
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RMAF, CAF And NYAS
Plus Our Annual Blue Note Awards
Three shows in three months plus our Best Of 2019 Blue Note Awards!
Editorial By Steven R. Rochlin
What do Denver, Washington DC and New York have in common from September through November? If you guessed luxury audio shows you'd be correct! First up is Rocky Mountain International Audiofest (RMAF) from September 6th through 9th at the brand-new Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center. From November 1st through 3rd is the Capital Audiofest (CAF) at the Hilton Hotel Rockville (near DC). Lastly, there's the New York Audio Show (NYAS) at the city's Park Lane Hotel by Central Park from November 8th through 10th. Let's take a look at each show, and then sum things up shall we?
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Why Listen?
Roger Skoff writes about the very essence of our hobby.
Article By Roger Skoff
If you've read any of my other articles in this publication or elsewhere, you know that I've always advocated listening as the final basis for any audio decision: Spending your time poring over spec sheets; reading reviews � regardless of how many, by whom, or in which magazine or blog � and even discussing the latest products, systems, or "software", with your friends or fellow audiophiles (even learnedly and with great passion) are simply not adequate substitutes for the evidence of your own ears.
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The Long View On Cables
Audiophiles are divided as to whether cables are snake oil or nirvana.
Article By David Schwartz, Member Of Gotham Audio
Last year, members of Audio Syndrome, a Long Island based audio club, got into a discussion about cables. They had all read a series of articles by Belden engineers Galen Gareis and Gautam Raja, on audio cable design. One of the club members looked into the cost of the Belden Iconoclast cables designed by the authors. He found them to be quite expensive.
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High Style In High-End Audio
You don't need to be an Audiophile OG to chill with a sense of style.
Editorial By Steven R. Rochlin
Have been taking photos of audiophile gear for many decades, and am always impressed by the creative flow of many designs. Below are a very small sampling of the incredibly talented engineering and design by a variety of high-end audio manufacturers.
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Best Of 2019 Blue Note Equipment Awards
Celebrating the best high fidelity audio gear of 2019!
As Chosen By The Staff At Enjoy the Music.com
Enjoy the Music.com's Best Of 2019 Blue Note Awards celebrates the many great achievements by audiophile manufacturers within the high-end audio and Hi-Res Audio industry. Our 2019 Blue Note Awards is a culmination of 19 years of reviewing and carefully choosing what products have earned special recognition for our annual awards. Our Best Of 2019 Blue Note Award celebrates the finest products we have reviewed during the previous 12 months.
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Mola Mola Makua Preamplifier / DAC / Phono
Mated With Kaluge Class D Mono Power Amplifiers
Reimagining Net Neutrality
The Mola Mola Kaluga Class D mono power amplifiers and companion Makua preamplifier with onboard DAC and Phono modules.
Review By Maurice Jeffries Of Positive Feedback
Now that GTT Audio & Video head Bill Parish and I are finally back on friendly terms (heck, he even calls me on the phone occasionally to give me a hard time, and to ask when I plan to get around to finishing the reviews I promised to write, if ever), it seemed like the right time to share with the world my thoughts on a wonderful suite of electronics from the cutting edge design team at Mola Mola, the Dutch electronics wizards with the funny sounding name.
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Audio Analogue Maestro Anniversary Int. Amplifier
A sonic wolf in sheep's clothing.
Review By Tom Lyle
When I was asked if I would like to review Audio Analogue's newest integrated amplifier, I exclaimed "Yes!". Why? Because even on paper it seemed as if it was an extremely well-designed integrated amplifier, and also could easily power my reference speakers with a healthy 150 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms, its power doubling each time its impedance load is halved � and besides all this, I love equipment that's made in Italy. Even if some of this gear isn't a perfect match for the system in which it would be auditioned, I never have been disappointed in the sound quality of any of those components.
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Kharma Elegance dB7-S Floorstanding Speakers Review
Gorgeous looks... and they look as good as they sound.
Review By Tom Lyle
Let's be clear. Kharma Elegance dB7-Sare not the largest or the most expensive high-end loudspeakers one can buy. They aren't even the largest or most expensive speakers in the line that they are a part of. But they are gorgeous high-end speakers that sound as good as they look, and obviously designed, built, and are intended to be included in the best high-end audio systems that are owned by those that consider themselves to be discriminating audiophiles. One can place them into an existing system, or one can build a fine system around these speakers.
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LampizatOr Golden Gate 2 DAC Review
An accurate and unfettered music source for my system.
Review By Matthew Clott
Vacuum tubes versus solid-state are the Audiophile's version of red versus white wine. Both are lovely and both have die-hard fans and haters alike. I don't buy into either club completely, and I don't want to start the next Vacuum Tube Versus Solid-State war. I have enjoyed and currently own both tube and solid-state gear, and use both for reviews. That said, years ago I developed an aversion to tubes in my DAC's, partly due to experience and partly due to unsubstantiated personal bias (hey, at least I'm honest!).
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Copland CTA 408 Vacuum Tube Integrated Amplifier Review
A tube amplifier in disguise.
Review By Dr. Phil Gold
It has been seven years since I reviewed the Copland CTA 506 Power amp which I liked very much at the time and is still available today. From my 2012 review of the CTA 506: The Copland CTA 506 combines classic design with the latest developments in vacuum tubes to create an impressive and attractively priced power amp that seems equally at home across musical genres. It stands up well against the other power amps � tube and silicon based � that have been through my listening room.
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T+A SDV3100HV Streaming DAC
And PDT3100HV Disc Drive
T+A took a giant step forward with its HV series.
Review By Matthias B�de Of STEREO Magazine
Imagine if you had a free choice on the wheel of fortune. Over and over again. As often as you want! That's how it feels when you press the mighty volume control on T+A's brand new SDV3100HV Streamer-DAC-preamplifier, whereupon it jumps into source selection mode and scrolls through the numerous options in the turquoise illuminated display kind of like you would on a smartphone.
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World Premiere Review!
LampizatOr Amber III Hi-Res DAC
Fall in love with your music all over again.
Review By Dave Hanson
It's one thing to create a component that listeners can appreciate. It's quite another to create a component that makes listeners appreciate their music even more. For me, the LampizatOr Amber III digital to analog converter ($2750 on up depending on options) falls into the latter category, quite decisively, in fact. It's a component that reintroduces you to your music, and it produces love at first listen.
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World Premiere Review!
Fidelice Precision DAC By Rupert Neve
As the artists intended.
Review By Gary Barker Of Headphone.Guru
Musicians and regular attendees of CanJams will be familiar with the name Rupert Neve. Rupert Neve began designing custom mixing consoles for the music industry back in the 1960s and his current company Rupert Neve Designs continues in that tradition, building custom mixing consoles, microphone preamplifiers, equalizers and accessories for Pro-Audio. Fidelice is a new line of Reference Consumer Audio products created by Rupert Neve Designs with the intent of bringing studio-quality sound to the average music lover, and the Fidelice Precision Digital-to-Analog Converter is their opening salvo.
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Quiescent Mains Cable Loom
The concept of vibration control in signal-carrying cables is a relatively well understood, but can the same factors affect a system via its mains cable?
Review By Kevin Fiske Of HIFICRITIC
Following my positive reviews in HIFICRITIC of the Quiescent Technologies Peak Speaker Cables (Vol. 12/2) and Peak Interconnect (Vol. 12/3) I was invited by the company to try its more costly Apex Interconnect. However, in my system the Apex sounded too fat in the bass and rather sluggish. I preferred the Peak. Quiescent's Steve Elford suspected my mains loom. Could one of his colleagues bring a selection of Quiescent � formerly Vertex AQ � mains products to try in my system?
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Sonus faber Olympica @ World Of McIntosh NYC
A good high-end system is akin to a time machine.
Review By Tom Lyle
Last year I took a tour of World Of McIntosh, a very impressive five-story luxury townhouse in the Soho neighborhood of downtown New York City. World Of McIntosh is an amazing place, packed with working audio systems featuring gear from McIntosh, Sonus faber, Pro-Ject Audio Systems, Audio Research, and more. This luxurious space is used as an event space, for invitation only audio tours, and for anything else one who wants to use a space "where music and design are merged in a way that's striking, memorable, and undeniably enjoyable".
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Audio Ramblings And The SOtM sNH-10G Switch
Worth the differences? For us, yes.
Review By Dave Clark Of Positive Feedback
For those of us who are pushing things in terms of what can we accomplish with playing our music back via files within some networked system, well... where does one stop? Or better yet, what else can one do to improve things? Obviously, it starts with files whether ripped from a CD or sourced from some website. So, we do our best to rip files in a reasonable way and / or source files that seem to be as perfect as we can figure out.
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Noble Audio's Mighty Khan In-Ear Monitors
A rare instrument that make listening to music as good as it gets.
Review By Frank Iacone Of Headphone.Guru
The Wiz has been busy creating new universal and custom designs using hybrid technology. Dr. John Moulton is well known in the personal audio community for creating outstanding designs with artful flair; John is an audiologist by trade and spends most of his time working with his brother Jim Moulton, an attorney by trade, who is the marketing arm and partner for Noble Audio. Jim is based in Texas and has been doing all the personal audio shows showing the new designs that the Wiz has been creating.
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World Premiere Review!
ELAC Alchemy DDP-2 DAC/Pre/Streaming End-Point
A benchmark accomplishment!
Review By Greg Weaver
Audiophiles exploring the boundaries of Red Book CD playback from the early to late nineteen-nineties will no doubt recall California based Audio Alchemy gear with great fondness; I know I do! Founded on the inspired design and engineering of one Peter Madnick, Audio Alchemy almost single-handedly set the stage for the acceptance and ascent of multi-box Compact Disc playback systems. Initially offering their lineup of very affordable yet remarkably high-performance outboard DACs...
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Legacy Audio Powerbloc2 Stereo Power Amplifier
A great value Class D stereo amplifier!
Review By Rick Becker
When I first discovered high end audio nearly 30 years ago, my economic circumstances and skepticism of the value of products kept me in tortoise mode. The real value of tortoise mode early on was to allow me time to learn how to listen and time to experience of a lot of gear at audio shows to learn what my personal acoustic and aesthetic values were. As the decades have rolled on, my ability to spend larger sums of money has increased but the pace has remained in the tortoise league.
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Melco N10 Music Server And PS10 Power Supply
Enveloping sound that activates all my audiophile senses!
Review By Tom Lyle
By now, the music server shouldn't be a foreign concept to most audiophiles. When servers first began to be a part of our digital front-ends, all that most audiophiles wanted and needed were designers to provide a convenient way to play their music files. Since then, enough research and development have gone into designing and building music servers that there are now plenty of options available at many different price points. Today, the name of the game is sound quality. Melco has upped the ante by providing not only a perfectionist audio module, but one that has its own outboard power supply connected to it in order to increase the level of sound quality.
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Backert Labs Rhumba Extreme 1.3 Preamplifier
A neutral presentation that excels in micro dynamics and harmonics.
Review By Dean Cacioppo
In my humble opinion, the two most under appreciated aspects of high-end audio are room acoustics/speaker placement and the preamplifier. These are the unsung heroes of the best sounding audio systems in the world. Speakers are generally front and center - kinda like a quarterback for a great football team. The power amplifier and the speakers complete the final circuit in audio reproduction, so the matching of the power amp and the speaker is crucial.
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World Premiere Review!
Audiomods Series Six Tonearm
It takes a great tonearm to get the best from your cartridge.
Review By Clive Meakins
The Audiomods Series Six is the first totally in-house all-Audiomods tonearm. Previous versions up to the Five relied upon the ubiquitous Rega arm-tube, albeit a modified version. Jeff Spall is Audiomods; it's his business based on his tremendous interest in vinyl replay and tube amplifiers. Jeff is an enormously practical "un-tweaky" audiophile. Over 10 years ago Jeff started out by modifying Rega arms; as the years progressed there became less and less Rega content in the Audiomods arms and upgrade kits
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A Homebrew Horn For Dual Concentric Loudspeakers
Article By Roy Hilsley From Sound Practices Issue 17
I consider myself to be very lucky. My father introduced me to hi-fi when I was a teenager. That was over forty years ago! In those days audio electronics and hi-fi was very much an experimenter�s hobby and my father loved to put electronic components together to make all manner of things. He built our amps, tuner and speakers � first for mono and then stereo. He even built our first TV set!
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Triophoni: Triode Triumph
Article By Dan Schmalle From VALVE Issue 8, August 1994
This month I will take the opportunity to show off a little (Oh brother, not again...). I have today been putting the finishing touches on my latest amp project, a pair of triode output power amps called Triophoni. Since I spent a fair amount of time writing up a blurb to advertise them I will use excerpts from said blurb to describe them: 6CK4 cathode type triode valves operate class AB1 push-pull as the output tube.
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Pass Labs X250.8 Solid-State Stereo Amplifier
A powerful, detailed and delicate sounding power amplifier.
Review By Anthony Nicosia
Not too long ago (in a galaxy...), during July 2012 actually, it was my privilege to review two products from Pass Laboratories. Specifically, their very impressive XP-10 preamplifier and outstanding XA 60.5 monoblock power amplifiers. Both were a joy to have in my audio system and were sorely missed when returned to the factory after my standard two month review period. So when the opportunity arose for me to borrow their new .8 series amplifier, the X250.8, there was absolutely no hesitation on my part to jump at the chance to again audition a Nelson Pass design.
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World Premiere Review!
Monoprice Monolith Liquid Platinum Headphone Amplifier
Monoprice resurrects a Cavalli Design that captures the imagination.
Review By Dave Hanson
The Monolith Liquid Platinum, like the Liquid Crimson before it, is one of Cavalli's most neutral sounding offerings. I wouldn't call it an "analytical" sound, however. If anything, it is just a little midrange-centric, with the mids taking the front of the stage, the treble and midbass relaxed just a hair behind, and the sub-bass just a bit further back behind that.
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Soulution Audio 330 Stereo Integrated Amplifier
A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Review By Phil Gold
Sometimes a review is difficult to write. Not today! This review writes itself. I'm not quite sure if a twenty-grand amp can be called a bargain, but I'm going to do it anyway, and I'm going to have to tell you why. Forget for a moment the looks, the size of the box, the technological nuggets inside, just listen to the sound, experience this special imaging. If you were blind testing you'd swear this was a tube amp, so full and alive is the midrange. But what tube amp has such control in the bass?
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World Premiere Review!
Merrill Audio Element 118 Monoblock Amplifiers
A transparent, powerful, refined, good looking, but admittedly pricey brute.
Review By Tom Lyle
The Element 118 monoblocks are Merrill Audio's newest products. I read about them long before I received my review samples, so I already knew that they are the most ambitious components that Merrill Audio has ever produced. They are named Element 118 after Oganesson, the newest element in the periodic table. Merrill Audio used this for the name of their amplifier because it "reflects the newest in technologies in the Element 118".
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Van den Hul
The Frog MC Phono Cartridge
Smooth and soothing sounds for vinyl lovers.
Review By Steven R. Rochlin
Over the past five years i have been fortunate enough to avoid the digital wars. Let the other guys deal with DVD-Audio, SACD, HD DVD and Blu-ray as i sit back and enjoy my 8000+ and growing vinyl collection. Almost a year ago my review of the Oracle Delphi MK V turntable with Oracle-SME 345 tonearm proved that vinyl indeed has much to offer music lovers worldwide. While attending the recent Munich High End show (2007), i was chatting with Aalt Jouk van den Hul (A.J.) at some press event for another manufacturer. Have known A.J. for well over a decade, as he attends many shows, and we have sat down and enjoyed some nice conversations about music, audio equipment... whatever.
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Analogue Artisan A1 Series Turntable
Remote VTA / SRA Mongoose Tonearm & Pod
Truly reference sound quality with astonishingly low distortion.
Review By Tom Lyle
Brian Calaio, the owner and chief engineer of Analogue Artisan and I have two things in common. The first is our love of music; the second is that we both believe that once a high-end audio system gets to a certain level of refinement, everything contributes to the sound of the system. The problem is that if the manufacturer of a component believes that everything makes a difference, and designs equipment with that maxim in mind with no regards for price, things can get a bit hairy, that is, very expensive.
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