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Speaker Choices
With a couple thousand brands of speakers out there, how have we decided to carry the options we carry? We offer two main families of speakers. Atohm of France an Bryston/Axiom of Canada. Atohm Atohm is an audiophile speaker line from France (7 year warranty) with extremely high resolution. The cabinets are domestically friendly because they’re modest in size with a lovely…
Vinyl
New readers will notice we’re not selling turntables. We do have the best cartridges on the market, the family of Ortofons which are precision made in Denmark. I have a hate/love relationship with vinyl. The cover art is large and fun. But that doesn’t get rid of the hum, rumble, mistracking or the excessive clicks and pops. Even on the best of…
TAS April 2026
I mentioned in a recent blurb that the TAS recommended product listing issue made me feel so ill that I threw the issue in the trash. That… was a first for me. I’ve read the magazine since issue #1. To see recommended products that were 95% unattainable for a working man… I was just disgusted. What a waste of time… twas completely…
NO OPEN RETAIL HOURS
We no longer have open retail hours to audition equipment. I opened Audio Emporium in February of 1977. My ethos has always been to sell the best gear at a given price- with a special focus on the law of diminishing returns. I don’t care that a company offers fancy speakers or electronics (or now cables!) for $50-100k on up. People that…
Observations Down The Home Stretch
Hi-Fi Mags The hi-fi mags of the 70s were written from the point of view of consumer advocacy. That’s long gone. I’m really sad about that. I still remember an early TAS where Harry Pearson was saying he had to go through a handful of ADC XLM cartridges, to find one where the cantilever didn’t collapse. He also pointed out that they…
More On CD Players
Herb Reichert of Stereophile has been an anti CD guy for 40 years. That has disappointed me because he should have known better. Often his writing on music and other gear is in line with my perceptions. Why has he been so OFF on CDs? I almost fell off my chair a few months ago when he said CDs have now come…
Tariff Talk 9-12-2025
The entire tariff situation remains a confusing mess. DT threatens tariffs of a wide range of percentages – on varying countries per his whim. What’s real? What isn’t? What is posturing? What actually is assessed? How can an importer PLAN AND PRICE? Europe This missive is specifically about the situation with Europe. The tariff is 15% now. To be clear, the American…