Audiophiles rage on this debate till all hours on the Internet. Let’s go! Room Treatment Yep. Number one, if you don’t treat your walls with some absorbing materials, the sound will bounce around like a gymnasium. I’m not intending to get into esoteric and expensive solutions here. Those certainly abound. I’m recommending you at least PAY ATTENTION to the problem and deal…

Isotek Polaris Mains Conditioner $500 The price includes one Initium, which is a high end power cable that connects Polaris to the wall. You can buy additional Initiums for $100 each. They should replace the cheapy black cables that came with your nice hi-fi gear. Polaris has been on the market now for several years and has earned a reputation for improving…

Kimber Kable Carbon Interconnect .5m $558, 1m $668, 2m $888 Brand new, and performance breaking for me, is the Kimber Carbon Interconnect cable. For its price point, Carbon shatters the glass ceiling of dynamic range performance most noticeably! It sounds like you added more power to your system, which you did NOT. Along with improved dynamic range, you’ll hear deeper, tauter bass…

Ortofon Bronze MM Cartridge $440 Best Bang For Your Buck! There are zillions of cartridge choices out there. Which cart, out of all of them, hits the point of diminishing returns? I’m here to tell you, it’s the Ortofon Bronze 2M Moving Magnet cartridge. It will give you the biggest slice of very high end vinyl at an attainable price point. Why?…

Streaming is lots of fun. The option to choose a song with a light touch of your tablet is pretty tempting. We are so spoiled! Yet for those of us who listen to entire works, or ALBUMS (can you imagine?!), please don’t lose track of your silver discs. That would include Red Book CD, and of course SACD. I for one, still…

“The speaker’s upper cabinet contains the new tweeter, which sports a lightweight polyimide diaphragm loaded by Klipsch’s Tractrix horn.” Like no other. “This is a striking sounding design, in an almost entirely positive way. It’s the aural equivalent of a bright, fresh autumn morning with an azure-blue sky and a chill in the air through which the sunshine blazes a path. Listening…

I admit, I chide magazines like Stereophile & The Absolute Sound. There’s no doubt the writers are smart guys that love the hobby. But their perspective on price/performance doesn’t correlate with ours- the readers. The magazines don’t buy products to audition. Products are loaned. All you have to do is read a review or two to see how out of touch these…

BEE of NAD has died after being with the company 46 years. What a run! BEE was born in Norway and gets significant credit for changing the face of affordable audio gear. After stints at Dolby Labs and AR, BEE helped kick start a new audio company, NAD, in England in1972. In 1978 BEE designed the iconic NAD 3020 integrated amplifier. It…

Classical Piano There are many reasons we listen to music. Whatever floats your boat is fine with me. Born in 1953… I enjoyed the same pop/rock music as everybody else growing up during these years. It’s impossible to beat a pretty girl (from Jo Stafford & Dusty Springfield to Diana Ross & Marilyn McCoo to Shelby Lynne & Grace Potter) singing she…

Most speakers in the kingdom of audiophilia sound best well away from the walls. Virtually all esoteric speakers sound best at the 50 yard line. Ideally you would hear the sound of your speakers ONLY. Any and all reflections, or bounces, off walls, ceilings and floors, take away from the purity of your speakers. Room treatments can help quite a bit. Please…

Klipsch Cornwall 4 Speakers, $6600 per pair(38h, 25 3/8w, 15 1/2d, 100 lbs, 102dB SPL) Black, Walnut & Cherry Real Wood Finishes Most of our customers are on a short leash from the wife. She’ll accept speakers in the living room so long as they don’t take over the room. Depending on your negotiating skills, you might get sleek towers, maybe some…

Harry Pearson started The Absolute Sound Magazine in 1973. He became THE go to reviewer for audio gear for many years. HP virtually invented the language we use to describe the sound of audio gear. HP helped propel the improvement of audio gear with his criticism. In 2009 HP was speaking at an audio show and was asked where he thought the…

The signal coming out of your wall looks like this. When we measure distortion with our Mains Noise Analyser, the typical number we read is 800.  The signal coming out of an Isotek Aquarius looks like this.The typical number we read from Aquarius is ZERO! Purpose The main reason you want an Isotek Mains Conditioner in your system is that it improves…

Tonal balance and timbre are exceptional. Imaging dead on. The bass? Tight, punchy and deep. They aren’t at all fussy about placement that I could tell. They play loud and effortlessly. In many recordings, I just smiled to myself at the ability they have of disappearing and letting me see the event in my head—wonderful. Drums, piano, upright bass, strings, horns, you name it, they were all spot on. Transient swings were powerful and dynamic. They beg you to keep upping the volume…

HiFi Exclusive – Bryston Pre and Power Amplifier 17BP3/4B3 – Canadian Power – Bryston amplifiers are living legends. They represent high end sound combined with famous stamina, embellished with a 20 year warranty.

Some nice accolades for five (5) Bryston products in this years Absolute Sound Magazine’s 2018 Editors’ Choice Awards!