Every month Stereophile magazine offers authoritative reviews, informed recommendations, helpful advice, and controversial opinions, all stemming from the revolutionary idea that audio components should be judged on how they reproduce music.
THIS ISSUE: High-performance audio products are getting increasingly expensive. Last July and September I made two loudspeakerrelated road trips: first to Rockport Technologies, in Maine, to audition their new Lyra; and then to high-end dealer-distributor GTT Audio, in deepest, darkest New Jersey, to audition YG Acoustics’ new Sonja XV. Both speakers offer innovative, proprietary drive-units and heroic audio engineering, especially regarding their enclosures, which are constructed from aluminum. Both experiences took place in superbly well-designed and optimized listening rooms with front-end and amplification components that were beyond reproach. The sound quality offered by the Rockport and YGA speakers was simply superb, both stepping entirely out of the way to offer maximum communion with the music. But . . . Rockport’s enclosure-within-an-enclosure Avior costs $149,500/pair, and YGA’s four-enclosure Sonja XV costs…
TAKE HEED! Unless marked otherwise, all letters to the magazine and its writers are assumed to be for possible publication. In the spirit of vigorous debate implied by the First Amendment, and unless we are requested not to, we publish correspondents’ e-mail addresses. Erratum Our apologies to readers: The “Contents” page of the December 2016 issue listed Herb Reichert’s Follow-Up reports on Audeze’s LCD-X and LCD-4 headphones and Pass Labs’ HPA-1 headphone amplifier as appearing on pp.119 and 143, respectively. In fact, Herb’s comments on these products were included in his “Gramophone Dreams,” which begins on p.41 of that issue. —John Atkinson John Bedini Editor: John Bedini died suddenly on Saturday, November 5, 2016: see www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/20629-endera.html. Thought you’d want to know. —Jefferson Kolle kolle1@comcast.net Sad news. As well as making…
SUBMISSIONS: Those promoting audio-related seminars, shows, and meetings should e-mail the when, where, and who to JAtkinson@enthusiastnetwork.com at least eight weeks before the month of the event. The deadline for the April 2017 issue is January 20, 2017. US: SANTA MONICA John Atkinson I am sad to report that, 19 years to the day after I recorded her performing Erwin Schulhoff’s Sonata for Solo Violin for the Stereophile label, Ida Levin passed away on Friday, November 18, 2016, after a lengthy battle with leukemia. She was 53. Our condolences to her family, her fellow musicians, her students, and to all who, like me, were thrilled by her playing. At the recording session, Ida played the demanding Schulhoff Sonata with passion and fire. As the Nagra-D’s reels turned and I followed…
ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated solely to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophilesocieties. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@XLinkAudio.com. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA ❚ Sunday, January 22, 1–4pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting, presented by San Diego’s Alma Music and Audio in the beautiful Penthouse Ballroom of the Holiday Inn Buena Park (7000 Beach Boulevard). The acoustics are excellent, and there will be seating for all. Our host, Fabio Storelli of Alma Music and Audio, will demonstrate examples of top-of-theline equipment, including: speakers…
THIS ISSUE: Dan D’Agostino’s Momentum Phonostage and Gold Note’s Tuscany Gold MC cartridge. At the beginning of this century, when the vinyl resurgence was at best nascent and few believed it would be as strong as it is today, Boulder Amplifiers manufactured a phono preamplifier that cost $29,000. I reviewed that model, the 2008 (now discontinued), in the July 2002 issue.1 With a power supply that would probably be more than adequate for a high-wattage power amp, it was built to a standard approached by few other makers of phono preamps. More than a decade later, today’s audio market is well populated with luxury phono preamps costing $30,000 and up. That this fact drives the antivinyl crowd absolutely crazy only adds to our pleasure. With his lines of power amplifiers…
THIS ISSUE: Audio Origami’s UniArm unipivot tonearm and the Little Fwend tonearm lifter. My first attempt at writing this piece began with a list of the Top Ten Audio Products I Wish Were Still in Production. Unfortunately, that proved unworkable. Although some of my selections—the Audio Research SP-6C preamplifier, the Stax ELS-F81 loudspeaker—were straightforward, it turned out that most of the others were burdened with complications. Examples: It’s no longer feasible to mass-produce Bakelite headshells for a revival of the original Ortofon SPU or similar phono pickup. It’s no longer possible to obtainthe precisely correct vacuum tubes and other components required to return to production the Leak Stereo 20 amplifier. And I’m certain that a torch- and pitchfork-wielding mob would prevent the manufacture of an authentic Altec 604B drive-unit, unless…
