high-end audio

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2011, held last weekend at the Denver Marriott Tech Center Hotel, showcased a vast array of affordable and high-end audio designs. Hundreds of manufacturers from North America, Europe, and Asia were represented at the show. RMAF has a very different vibe than the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas every January--RMAF is more of a grassroots affair.

I noted a trend to more stylish audiophile speakers, like the 28-inch tall Davone Ray ($7,500/pair) and the curvy, aluminum-bodied Dali Fazon F5 ($4,495/pair). Most bona fide high-end speakers are big and bulky … Read more

Audio Research Corporation (ARC), based in Minnesota, was in the vanguard of the American high-end audio movement in the early 1970s. By then mass-market transistor electronics had all but killed off the vacuum tube, but ARC's founder, William Z. Johnson, not only believed his tube amplifiers sounded better than solid-state gear, he thought tubes were technically superior. That's why ARC billed itself as a "high-definition" company since its start, decades before HDTV came on the scene. ARC was in large part responsible for starting the tube renaissance, and time has proven Mr. Johnson correct, as there … Read more

Audio Arts may be NYC's newest high-end audio shop, but you can tell it isn't really competing with the more established stores in the area. You see, the others carry a mix of high-end and mainstream brands to cater to the broadest possible market, but Audio Arts' Gideon Schwartz only sells products from the most esoteric manufacturers. That said, the services all of these NYC brick-and-mortar shops offer--side-by-side auditions of audio components and hands-on customer service--can't be duplicated by online retailers. Maybe that's why despite astronomical rents, NYC high-end retailers aren't just surviving, new shops … Read more

The Axpona (Audio Expo North America) high-end audio show came to New York on Friday and Saturday. It was a fairly small affair, but I managed to find more than a few astounding sound demos. The most amazing of all came from a tiny S-Series subwoofer-satellite system from Steinway Lyngdorf, which produced an audiophile-grade, lifestyle-oriented system. "Lifestyle" audio is usually synonymous with mediocre sound, but this very small system produced extremely good sound. The S-Series speakers may be just 10.2 inches high, 7.8 inches wide, and 3.1 inches deep, but they (and their matching subwoofers) … Read more

High-end audio shows are a great way to see and hear the very best gear. I'm getting good feedback about the goings-on at T.H.E. Show: Newport being held this weekend at the Hilton Hotel at the Orange County Airport in California.

There are oodles of outrageously priced, groovy turntables; gorgeous amplifiers; and statuesque speakers on display; and lots of great music to buy. More than 100 high-end audio companies will be demonstrating their best products in rooms throughout the hotel.

T.H.E. Show: Newport is also presenting a series of seminars on computer audio; tips on … Read more

Luxman was making high-end amplifiers long before the term "high-end" was coined. Take the original Luxman SQ-38 integrated amplifier; it debuted in 1963, the upgraded SQ-38D came in 1965, and the design was revised and refined again and again over the years. I recently reviewed the SQ-38u, which is the 11th incarnation of the amp! The new one still looks like 1970's hi-fi, but its insides reflect modern thinking. Or should I say modern tube amplifier thinking? The complete SQ-38u review appears in the latest issue of Tone Audio magazine.

There's a weird thing happening in … Read more

Onkyo may be best-known for its receivers and home theater-in-a-box systems, but the company planted deep roots in audiophile-grade hi-fi in the 1970s. As I recall, Onkyo had more street cred among audiophiles than Sony or Pioneer in the days before home theater ruled the roost.

Today at CES in Las Vegas Onkyo will debut a new range of elite stereo hi-fi components, with a style reminiscent of the company's classic models of the 1980s. All three components--the P-3000R preamplifier, M-5000R power amplifier, and C-7000R CD player--incorporate Onkyo's new Dynamic Intermodulation Distortion Reduction Circuitry (DIDRC), that is said … Read more

First, I have to admit that a lot of high-end amplifiers are so ugly you'd have to be an audiophile to buy them. But there are more than a few truly gorgeous examples, like the Devialet D-Premier. It's French, after all, and the French know a thing or two about style.

In 2007, Pierre-Emannuel Calmel and Matthias Moronvalle decided to launch a new high-end audio company, Devialet, in Paris. The two men had both worked for Nortel's R&D department, and they weren't the least bit interested in crafting just another high-end amplifier.

It looks like they're off to a grand start; the Devialet D-Premier is a unique Class A/Class D hybrid design. Bona fide Class A circuits are only used in very high-end audiophile amplifiers, but Class A designs are extremely inefficient and consume huge amounts of AC power to produce low power output. Class D amps are highly efficient designs, but their sound quality falls short of the highest audiophile standards.

The D-Premier was designed to have the sound quality of Class A and the efficiency of Class D designs. … Read more

High-end audio, just like high-end everything else--cars, clothes, watches, boats--is in large part about style. Sure, high-performance is part of the appeal, but exquisite build quality and eye-catching designs are essential for market success.

With that in mind I put together a nice assortment of some of the more dazzling high-end components currently on the scene.

Magico's speakers are built with solid, massively inert structures designed to ensure the only sound you hear comes from the speaker's tweeter, midrange, and woofer drivers. No other speaker I've heard approaches Magico's resolution and precision. The company's latest designs upped the ante and now feature even more extensive frames designed to quell structure borne resonance to produce the highest-resolution sound possible.

Founded in 1991 by legendary audio designer Nelson Pass, Pass Laboratories, sells its unique amplifiers, preamplifiers and speakers throughout the world. The company has been based in Foresthill, California, since its beginning, and is widely regarded as one of the most innovative audio brands in the world. Many Pass Labs amplifiers, like my XA100.5 are pure Class A designs, and deliver breathtakingly beautiful sound.

The Ayre MX-R mono amplifier (you need two for stereo) is a looker, but pardon me for a second while I get tweaky and gush over the MX-R's zero-feedback and fully-balanced circuitry. Ayre's founder and chief engineer Charles Hansen invests vast amounts of time fussing over the tiniest circuit details, listening obsessively to eke out a sound that gets his designs ever closer to perfection. Some of the MX-R's resistors and capacitors are built to his specifications.

The Krell Modulari Duo Reference is a blatantly original, thoroughly masculine design, but at 44 inches tall, 11 inches wide, and 29 inches deep, it can still fit in average size rooms. Each speaker weighs 345 pounds, it's fair to assume the bulk of the weight can be attributed to its thick-walled aluminum construction. If the goal was to make an absolutely dead cabinet, I'd say Krell has done it. The speaker's design shows a clear aesthetic kinship with Krell electronics.… Read more