tube audio

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

I've reviewed and auditioned a lot of headphone amplifiers over the years, but Red Wine Audio's Isabellina HPA LFP-V Edition stood out from the pack. The amp improved the sound of almost every headphone I used with it.

Priced at $2,500 the Isabellina is very much a high-end audio product. Designed and built in Vinnie Rossi's small factory in Durham, Conn., the headphone amp's elegant functionality belies its technical sophistication. Rossi started Red Wine Audio in 2005, and before that he worked on high-speed laser transmitters for Bell Labs.

The Isabellina is more than just a headphone amp; it features a spectacularly good digital-to-analog converter and a hybrid transistor/vacuum tube audio section. While the Isabellina can be run off an AC power outlet, it sounds best powered by high-current lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. Rossi claims "The batteries use organic, phosphate-based material, providing an ideal combination of performance, safety, reliability and environmental friendliness...in fact, more so than any other rechargeable battery technology."

The amp's digital connectivity options include USB, Coax, and Toslink/optical inputs; there are no analog inputs. The Isabellina has analog outputs, so it can be used as a stereo preamplifier, with a separate power amp to drive speakers, or a digital-to-analog converter in a hi-fi system.

The Isabellina features old tech 16-bit, non-oversampling digital-to-analog converters. Rossi acknowledges the latest chips' specifications look more impressive on paper, but he thinks most of them (even some really expensive ones) sound "quite sterile and artificial" in comparison. The Isabellina will work with digital sample rates up to 192kHz, but it will only playback with 16-bit resolution. … Read more

My pal Dave Clark, editor at Positive Feedback Online, took a lot of great pictures at CES 2010. After the jump, see but a brief sampling from his Web site.… Read more

Update: CNET's full review of the Zoom Q3 is now available.

As the audiophile's answer to the Flip camcorder craze, the Zoom Q3 ($249) takes a basic pocket video camera and bestows it with a high-quality stereo microphone and advanced audio-recording options. After a weekend playing with the Q3 and testing its audio and video capabilities against the Flip Ultra HD, I have a few initial observations to share.… Read more

It used to be all about getting your band's music on the radio, but these days, it's all about YouTube. Producing the ultimate viral music video isn't easy, though. Video cameras like the Flip Mino HD, RCA Small Wonder, and Creative Vado have lowered the cost of entry when it comes to recording high-quality video, but the built-in mics leave plenty to be desired.

To answer the call for a musician-friendly video recorder, the folks at Zoom have unveiled the Zoom Q3--a $249 handheld camcorder with a built-in pair of high-quality stereo condenser mics. The Q3 … Read more

In the audiophile world, iPods aren't exactly highly regarded. And that sentiment often extends beyond iPods, to all portable music players. The very name "MP3 player" is, to the audio elitist, synonymous with poor audio quality, lossy encoding, and discarded fidelity.

It's sad that, for the most part, they're right. For those of us who want more, however, there are solutions. Fatman's iTube 452 is one such product, and we've been given one to play with. It's a 1,500-pound ($2,992) valve amp, with no less than nine heat-pumping valves to … Read more

YouTube has added a new feature to its TestTube section as of last night, called Active Sharing. With this feature enabled, YouTube will keep track of videos you watch, for both archiving and real-time interaction with other users. If you're watching a video with other Active Sharing-enabled users, you'll be able to see their names with a little green dot next to it to signify they're watching too. Clicking on someone's profile name will show you the last five shows they've watched using the service.

Active Sharing joins the other TestTube projects, Audio Swap [hands-on] … Read more

It's a common problem: your point-and-shoot camera's microphone picked up nothing but wind while you were at the park shooting a video of people flying kites. The solution? Wipe over the track with music. But putting licensed music over the videos not only requires video editing software, but also the digital rights to publish. YouTube has rolled out a new service called AudioSwap which hopes to quell both of those problems.

To use AudioSwap, just pick a video you've uploaded and browse the provided audio list. You'll get a preview right away, and with the click … Read more