Last year it was Phono Preamplifier Central over here, with me being spoiled with one product after another while testing out the Brinkmann Taurus turntable. While I never quite picked a favorite—there were far too […]
Tag Archives: allnic audio
Welcome to the Best Phono Preamplifiers section of the Part-Time Audiophile Buyers Guide for 2023. The Guide is more than “We heartily endorse this [fill in the blank].” This collection represents our enthusiasm. Every product listed […]
The Jeff Rowland Design Group Capri S2-SC preamplifier and Model 125 amplifier are soooooo tiny. How tiny are they? When the boxes arrived at my front door, I said “This can’t be right. These boxes […]
In all my years of being an audiophile, of being a high-end audio importer and distributor, of being an audio reviewer, I had never seen a pair of loudspeakers get split up in a shipment […]
Of all the audio gear I came close to buying over the last forty years, I probably got closer to a pair of LS3/5as than anything else. I’m reminded of that constantly in the presence […]
This isn’t the first time in the last few months where I had to explain my reasoning behind reviewing a certain component. Take this new Sumiko Amethyst cartridge, a moving-magnet cartridge that retails for a […]
The Grun Earthing System from Atlas Cables is the third product I’ve reviewed in the last year that addresses grounding in your high-end audio system. The first two products, of course, were the Nordost QKORE […]
The story of the Sonus faber Lumina II bookshelf speakers is also the story of “Yulunga,” perhaps my favorite reference track of all time. That old demo track from Dead Can Dance’s Into the Labyrinth […]
“Did you ever hear one back in the day?” Tim Stinson of Luminous Audio Technology (website) asked me. He was referring to his Arion phono preamplifier, the original version which created a lot of buzz […]
The AVM Ovation 6.2 Master Edition integrated amplifier just kind of snuck in here, made its impression, and left in just a few weeks. My time with it was so short, so fleeting. I didn’t know a lot about AVM before the Ovation arrived. This German company has been making quality hi-fi since 1986, and they currently have an extensive line that includes turntables, amplifiers, digital products and all-in-one boxes. Except for cables, loudspeaker and cartridges—AVM recommends Ortofon Cadenzas for their ‘tables on their website—you can easily assemble an all-AVM system. Let me tell you something that reviewers, as well as fickle audiophiles, will immediately understand—if you’re constantly making changes to your audio system, there are time when you’ll get lost. It’s like turning around a corner on a city block and realizing you wandered into a bad neighborhood full of room nodes and channel imbalances and the mysterious disappearance of all sorts of frequency responses. What happened? Where did I go wrong? The AVM Ovation arrived at my home, in its uber-cool flight case covered in shipping labels, during one of those times. Too many swaps, too many things coming in and out, and before I knew it I […]
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