Stereophile Jan-14

The New Audio Geek It’s no secret that the high-end audio industry has done a poor job of reestablishing the mainstream respect it enjoyed through the latter half of the 20th century, but its lack of reach has never been as painfully obvious as it is today. Teens are inextricably tied to smartphones, moms and dads are infatuated with Bluetooth streaming, and most people would rather pay too much for an MP3 than anything at all for a DSD download. In a world dominated by fancy gadgets and intriguing technologies, the pursuit of true high-fidelity sound remains an obscure pastime for a relatively small group of aging males. Everyone knows Apple, Beats, and Bose, but few have heard of Vivid, Wilson, or YG. Even high-end audio’s most respected companies lack…

FEEDBACK TO THE EDITOR Silence Editor: I just wanted to drop you a note to tell you that I was touched by Jason Serinus’s essay, “The Death of an Audiophile” [“As We See It,” November 2013, p.3, www.ster eophile.com/content/death-audiophile]. I see friendship, love, honor, and passion. Thanks again . . . there are many readers out there who enjoy reading Stereophile but who remain silent. —Eddie Ma Hong Kong eddiekma@me.com Strands of silk Editor: Clearly, Jason’s friend Charles (November 2013) was tweaking his woebegone system with strands of silk in the hope of turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse—an extreme example of what so many of us do, unwittingly or not. —Bruce Moss Santa Fe, NM brucemoss@earthlink.net Sam is back! Editor: Great to have Sam Tellig back! Stereophile…

AUDIO NEWS & VIEWS THE NEWSSTAND: 2014 ULTIMATE HEADPHONE GUIDE Ariel Bitran Are you looking for a set of luxurious, wood-grain, open-back, hi-fi headphones to complement your reading room? Maybe you need a headphone amplifier with a super-low output impedance to drive those fancy new cans. Maybe you need a new pair of lightweight in-ear monitors that pack the sonic punch to keep you on your toes during your morning commute. Chances are you need something. Whatever your ears desire, you can find it in the new 2014 Ultimate Headphone Guide, a collaborative production between the teams at Stereophile and Geek magazines and InnerFidelity.com. The Ultimate Headphone Guide hosts a listing of headphones and headphone amps currently on the market as well as a cornucopia of editorial content about the…

Sam Goes Ape John DeVore names his speakers after primates—apes, to be specific. Something to do with a family member being a zoologist. John once worked at a hi-fi retailer in lower Manhattan. Now, as president and chief designer of DeVore Fidelity, he manufactures loudspeakers across the bridge, in the former Brooklyn Navy Yard. I talked with John the other day about his new speaker, the Orangutan O/93. John makes two Orangutans, both floorstanders: the O/96, with a sensitivity specified as 96dB, over which Art Dudley went ape, in the December 2012 issue (Vol.35 No.12, www.stereophile.com/content/devore-fidelity-orangutan-o96-loudspeaker). Artie has made the O/96 his reference loudspeaker. It goes for $12,000/pair, stands included. Now there’s the new, smaller Orangutan O/93, specified at 93dB. It retails for $8400/pair with a front baffle in fiddleback…

Far from the Madding Bling Thales TTT-Compact turntable Though clearly built more for performance than for looks, the Thales TTT-Compact ($13,200), designed and built in Switzerland by Micha Huber, ranks among a handful of today’s most elegant new turntables. Like the Spiral Groove SG 1.1 or the AMG Viella 12, the TTC-C, true to its name, is compact and self-contained, with its belt and built-in motor hidden under the platter. That Huber was once a watchmaker is evident in every aspect of the densely packed TTT-Compact, which measures approximately 18" wide by 3.5" high by 12" deep. From the packaging and instructions to its muted, satiny finish, the TTC-Compact exudes sophistication of design and execution. These days, Huber’s concept of a self-contained, singleunit, high-end turntable is not unique, but not…

Cargo and Speed If you travel along Route 20 in upstate New York, you might see the hitchhiker my family and I refer to as the Old Soldier—so called because this slightly built man, whose age could be anywhere from 55 to 90, is always dressed in a military uniform from some long-ago campaign. When we first saw him, his topcoat suggested a recent return from Chateau-Thierry; in more recent sightings, the old man has taken to wearing the trim khakis and sharply creased legionnaire cap of the late 1940s—chronological zigzagging that made me think, at first, that this traveler was aging in reverse. That the Old Soldier is often seen in or near the wonderfully odd village of Sharon Springs, where at least one house is painted coal black,…