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.
The commercial impact of tariffs (and of vinyl) As I write this, the current US president recently put into effect large import tariffs on almost every country except (oddly) Russia and North Korea, then paused for most countries (including EU countries) for 90 days (except for 10%, and then another 10%). The 145% tariff on Chinese exports wasn’t paused (except for computers and smartphones). Tariffs are the dominant force in our industry right now, due partly to the added cost but also to the uncertainty they create. New products, especially those made in China, have been delayed because prices can’t be set. Companies in Europe and elsewhere are waiting and seeing; some have implemented or are contemplating price increases; others have decided (for now) to keep prices the same. Many…
Brilliant Future I want to thank Alex Halberstadt for his brilliant and, above all, hopeful Brilliant Corners column about the future of our beloved hobby.1 At 66, I’m part of the Boomer generation that helped build this hobby. I still remember cycling down as a 12-year-old to Pacific Stereo on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco, and with one boxed component at a time, cycling home. That was the kind of passion this hobby inspired. Alex’s piece captures today’s reality: Younger generations—Millennials, Gen Z, and beyond—may not own homes or dedicate living rooms to listening, but they are hungry for high-fidelity sound. They’re finding it in galleries, bars, and public spaces. It’s not solitary anymore—it’s communal. And that shift is powerful. It brings us closer to music’s roots: connection and shared…
United States CALIFORNIA ■ Friday, June 6, 12pm–Sunday, June 8, 4pm: T.H.E. Show SoCal 2025 will take place at the Hilton Orange County Costa Mesa (3050 Bristol St., Costa Mesa, CA). The longestrunning audio show in the country offers attendees the opportunity to audition a wide range of audio gear. Audio media and accessories will be available for purchase. For more information and tickets, visit theshownow.com. ■ Sunday, July 20, 2–5pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society holds its Second Society LP Event at AudiophileUSA (10572 Calle Lee #126, Los Alamitos, CA). Host Mark Hoover will discuss the vinyl industry and record store culture. Special LAOCAS record discounts available. For more information, visit laocas.com or call 1-657-298-3003. COLORADO ■ Thursday, September 4–Saturday, September 6: CEDIA Expo 2025 takes…
SOUND UNITED FINDS A NEW HOME WITH HARMAN Mark Henninger Masimo Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Masimo Consumer Audio division, which is made up of the former Sound United hi-fi brands, to Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, for $350 million in cash. Pending regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close by the end of 2025. The sale transfers an extensive portfolio—including Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, Classé, and Boston Acoustics (although that brand is just a name at this point)—to a buyer with business firmly rooted in audio. The deal includes the HEOS multiroom streaming platform, which Sound United has developed into a robust, hi-rez–capable system that competes with Sonos. Harman mentioned HEOS in its press release; Masimo…
The iron-and-tube ethos Woo Audio’s 20th Anniversary WA24 headphone amplifier comes in a distinctive, low-slung chassis that welcomes the eye with gentle angular volumes and bright, frosty-surfaced, copper-toned controls. In the always-crowded Woo–JPS Labs–Stax room at CanJam 2025,1 Woo’s new $12,999 flagship caught everybody’s eye, sitting on a table next to its similar-looking stablemate, the $8999 WA23 LUNA, a tube-rectified single-ended amplifier that, unlike the new WA24, uses 2A3 tubes. I asked Woo Audio founder Jack Wu how he came up with this design. He told me, “My brother, Zhidong Wu, designed it. He did all the original drawings. But after that, we worked together, slowly revising and refining those drawings. We started out with a 3D-printed model, then we had numerous revisions leading up to a metal sampling. It…
Two things that don’t suck There are things that make me feel so unpleasantly lightheaded that some days I worry my cranium might float away like a helium balloon. Like baby animals generated by AI that I can no longer distinguish from real ones. Skin care for tweens. Headlines about American politics that read like headlines about Turkmenistan. The music of Charli XCX. And being middle aged. Even the term is a con. At 54, I’m not in the middle of anything, and given the way my back feels in the mornings, the thought of living to 108 fills me with terror. There are things about this stage of life that arrive imperceptibly, and not just the physical frailties. Chief among them is the way one’s time on earth begins…
