Stereophile

High-end audio equipment news and reports with audio engineer interviews

Stereophile5 min read
Taking Care of Business
As Jim Austin wrote in this space in the December 2024 issue, following a medical procedure that he had in mid-October, he needed to take several weeks’ leave to recuperate. He delegated the magazine’s production to Managing Editor Mark Henninger, AV
Stereophile1 min read
Stereophile
EDITOR JIM AUSTIN JIM.AUSTIN@STEREOPHILE.COM TECHNICAL EDITOR JOHN ATKINSON MANAGING EDITOR MARK HENNINGER SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITORS HERB REICHERT, KALMAN RUBINSON, JASON VICTOR SERINUS WEB PRODUCER LEN PORCANO COPY EDITOR LINDA FELACO FOUNDER J.
Stereophile5 min read
Letters
As a longtime subscriber, this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to write in response to a review. I couldn’t agree more with Robert Baird’s opening line in his review of MoFi’s The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle: “Now he’s making medi
Stereophile2 min read
Calendar Of Industry Events
ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, email Chris Vogel at vgl@cfl.rr.com. (Please note
Stereophile10 min read
Industry Update
VPI Industries, the New Jersey–based, high-performance turntable maker, has introduced the Model One as the first offering in its new Forever Series. The new design emphasizes modularity and upgradability, allowing users to adapt their systems over t
Stereophile12 min read
Record Player Revelations
Like romance or car racing, the act of playing records is tactile by design. Like drifting through curves or making out, spinning vinyl is a learned skill that requires users to touch everything with practiced assurance. To play a disc with Technics’
Stereophile11 min read
Phono Preamplifier Seduction
“Give me the seduction, give me the pleasure,” Ron Sutherland was nearly shouting into the phone. “I want to turn off the analytical mind and just enjoy myself!” Sutherland speaks in the chipper Midwestern cadences of a comic character actor from the
Stereophile12 min read
The Rega Naia Turntable. Add Lightness.
To watch as Rega very slowly expands its turntable offerings upmarket requires the patience of a Thomas Pynchon addict waiting for each new tome from the notoriously slow-working and reclusive author. Starting out 51 years ago with just one turntable
Stereophile14 min read
Gryphon Audio Designs Diablo 333 INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
What’s in a name? Denmark-based Gryphon Audio Designs laid down a marker when company founder Flemming Rasmussen chose that name in 1985. Browsing through the current Stereophile Recommended Components list, I only found one other manufacturer that u
Stereophile5 min read
Measurements
Typically, though not exclusively, amplifiers employing reduced levels of corrective feedback may also exhibit some thermal drift, a ‘feature’ more common still when the amplifier is also generously-biased. Gryphon’s very substantial Diablo 333 is a
Stereophile12 min read
Clearaudio Signature TURNTABLE
In midsummer 2022, I reviewed the Germanmade Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable, 1 a $30,000 vinyl virtuoso that played music with clear-headed realism, brain-opening transparency, and lifelike speed and dynamics. Its performance was nothing shor
Stereophile17 min read
Moon 891 STREAMING PREAMPLIFIER
No less than eight boxes, powered by six after-market power cables, comprise my current reference front-end. 1 As much as separate boxes can afford superior isolation and provide far more room for visionary engineers to work their magic, the advantag
Stereophile6 min read
Measurements
I performed a full set of measurements on the Moon 891 using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system,1 repeating some of the testing with the magazine’s higher-performance APx555 analyzer. For logistic reasons, I measured a different sample from that revie
Stereophile11 min read
Buckeye PURIFI EIGENTAKT 1ET9040BA1 MONOBLOCK POWER AMPLIFIER
Back in 2016,1 I documented the rise of class-D amps using the early TriPath technology. Used in the Bel Canto eVo 200.2, 2 TriPath cracked open the door to the High End but was never admitted due to a dim and opaque treble. The second wave was based
Stereophile4 min read
Measurements
I performed a complete set of measurements on one of the Buckeye Purifi 1ET9040BA amplifiers. I primarily used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system,1 repeating some of the testing with the magazine’s higher-performance APx555 system. Because class-D amp
Stereophile1 min read
Ultimate Class D?
There’s a clear evolution in technology and performance from Hypex’s original and innovative “self-oscillating” UcD through to NCore and now to the Purifi Eigentakt class-D module used in the Buckeye amplifier. The original UcD circuit married an inp
Stereophile11 min read
Estelon X Diamond Mk II LOUDSPEAKER
Taste is a funny thing. Love cilantro? Millions swear it tastes like soap. Similarly, design cognoscenti will gush over a minimalist Scandinavian sofa that others dismiss as just a pricey plank with delusions of grandeur. There’s no accounting for ta
Stereophile4 min read
Measurements
I measured one of the X Diamond Mk II loudspeakers, serial number 65793A, in RvB’s listening room, driving it with his Krell FPB-200c amplifier. I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system with a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to examine the speaker’s behavior in
Stereophile10 min read
Kef Kc92 powered Subwoofer
I was fascinated by Herb Reichert’s adventures with the KEF KC62 subwoofer, 1 so I borrowed one. Beautifully engineered, contoured, and finished and chock-full of cutting-edge technology, it would be welcome in any room and easily integrated into any
Stereophile5 min read
Roon And The Hegel H400 Integrated Amplifier
After my review of the Hegel H400 streaming integrated amplifier was published in Stereophile’s October 2024 issue, 1 it finally received Roon Ready certification. Because the Roon control interface is more user-friendly and offers more searching and
Stereophile4 min read
T+a R 2500 R Phono Module
Tom Fine mentioned in his review of the T+A R 2500 R in the August 2024 issue 1 that a phono module would be available for this multisource receiver. 2 After that issue’s content had been sent to the printer, TF received a phono module, which he forw
Stereophile11 min read
Instantly Iconic
FROM MAY 4 THROUGH AUGUST 18, 2024, THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (SFMOMA) STAGED THE LARGEST MULTISENSORY INSTALLATION CUM PERFORMANCE ART EXHIBITION IN ITS HISTORY. ENTITLED ART OF NOISE, THE MULTIROOM SHOW, WHICH OCCUPIED 14,000FT 2 ON TH
Stereophile4 min read
Montreal’s Aux 33 Tours and Return to Analog
The return of vinyl, which has stayed popular and profitable since its resurgence, has now developed a surprising nuance. Pierre Markotanyos, the owner of the reissue label Return to Analog and Montreal record store Aux 33 Tours (which refers to the
Stereophile4 min read
Lone Justice Rides Again
For musicians’ sake, the terms “sure thing” or “a hit” should be permanently stricken from the music business lexicon. Like Beetlejuice, if you say it enough, bad things are sure to occur. But in the long annals of the music business crushing the dre
Stereophile4 min read
Uh-Oh, Talking Heads Come to Town
A quick Clash, survey of 1977’s rock albums shows a vibrant genre, pushing in many directions at once. British punk went major label, with debut albums from The The Damned, Wire, and The Sex Pistols (their only studio album). The Ramones released Roc
Stereophile13 min read
Record Reviews
Music history, like all human history, is filled with nooks and crannies—digressions from the main course of events. Take Anton Bruckner for example. The global concert hall calendars are filled with performances of his symphonies and some of his cho
Stereophile4 min read
Trust, And What’s Tried And True
Myriad distribution factors drive and affect the hi-fi marketplace. Ultimately, these can impact end customer purchasing choices. Recently I’ve written—including in the December 2024 issue—about evolving new distribution models and how the term’s mea
Stereophile4 min read
Manufacturers’ Comments
Thanks to Ken Micallef for reviewing Clearaudio turntables over the past five years and accurately assessing what he calls their “house sound … refinement, lucidity, clarity, precision, and quietness.” Precision-made in their German factory two hours
Stereophile4 min read
The Perfect Sides
Before the bits and bytes, before the streams, the music business and its most talented artists, producers, and engineers conjured up a notion of musical-sonic holiness: the perfect album side. Remember albums? The idea is quaint in the era of strea

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