stereophile

Where are the under-30 audiophiles? I don't know a single one here in New York City. Sure, high-end audio gear can be expensive, but that's no excuse. A pair of Audioengine 2 speakers ($199) and an iPod can sound pretty sweet. Maybe an older relative would be happy to give you a hi-fi or speakers they don't use anymore. There's no shortage of dirt-cheap, decent-sounding gear at yard sales, and there are lots of awesome deals on used hi-fi classics at Audiogon. So high prices can't be the only reason why young people aren't … Read more

As I said a few days ago, bona fide audio breakthroughs are rare, but there was no shortage of interesting gear at this year's CES shindig in Las Vegas.

Stereophile's Tyll Hertsens spotted Furutech's GT-40 combination USB digital-to-analog converter/phono preamp/headphone amp. The device can rip your vinyl or play computer files at up to 24-bit/96-kHz resolution with USB convenience, and includes a high-quality headphone amp. It looks great!

CNET's Natali Morris' report on Sculpted Eers' custom-molded in-ear headphones looked really interesting. Every other custom molded in-ear on the market requires the buyer to first go to an audiologist to make "ear impressions" of your ear canals, which are sent to the headphone manufacturer; you get your headphones a couple of weeks later. With these Sculpted Eers headphones, you go to a store that sells Sculpted Eers and they make your headphones on the spot. Prices start around $149, which is $250 less than any custom-molded in-ears I've tested to date. How good are they? We'll see.

Over at Audio Review, Adam LaBarge was bowled over by Zu Audio's new $40,000 flagship speaker, the Dominance. LaBarge called it "a well-tamed beast that is just waiting to explode." Zu founder Sean Casey told me about this speaker a few weeks ago, and he sounded pretty excited about it. Zu has made its name selling affordable (by high-end standards) American-designed and -built speakers. For example, the $1,000-a-pair Zu Omen is getting great word of mouth, so I'm super-curious about this mega-buck Zu. … Read more

I've heard most of the world's very best speakers and amplifiers, and while they can sound pretty amazing at times, they never sound like live music. The reasons for the shortfall are many, but heading the list are recordings, there's way too much signal processing and manipulation imposed on the sound of instruments and vocals, so even if you had a perfect hi-fi, the recordings wouldn't sound realistic. Analog or digital? Sorry, neither has a real advantage here; state-of-the-art recording technology still loses too much information to achieve total fidelity.

I covered this subject in a … Read more

Phiaton dubbed the PS 210 headphones a "half in-ear" design, which is a catchy way of saying they don't reach as far into your ear canals as Monster, Etymotic, or Shure's in-ear models do, but they protrude a little more into the ear than earbuds do.

Before we go any further I'd like to tell you a little bit about Phiaton, which may be new to the U.S. headphone market, but looks like it's set to become a major player here. Phiaton is a division of Cresyn, a large South Korean electronics company founded in 1959. It started manufacturing OEM headphones in the 1980s for other companies, and now produces 15 million headphones a month! Phiaton is better-known in Asia and Europe than in the U.S.

Cresyn also manufacturers camera modules for cell phones and has factories in Indonesia and China; Phiaton's U.S. headquarters are based in Irvine, Calif.

The look of PS 210's lightweight aluminum earpieces is distinctive. The headphones come with four sizes of soft black silicon tips to help ensure a comfortable fit.

They're definitely more comfortable and less intrusive than in-ear designs. The PS 210's ear tips rest gently in your outer ear, but that also means the fit is less secure, and the earpieces can fall out, though I'm getting better at keeping them in. The real upside to the half in-ear design approach is that they don't block external sound, so you can still hear the world around you; the downside is you still hear the world around you. … Read more

I have to admit up front that I'm pretty clueless about computers and computer audio. I use a pair of Audioengine A2 speakers hooked up to my Mac Mini, and the combination sounds fine to me. For "serious" listening I have a pair of Magnepan 3.6 speakers hooked up to my hi-fi system on the other side of my loft apartment. Computer audio is a low priority.

But computer audio is coming on strong, even among serious audiophiles. Need proof? Stereophile magazine's editor, John Atkinson, has been using and occasionally reviewing the best-sounding computer audio gear for at least 10 years. Granted, most high-end audio is expensive, so I was pleased to see Atkinson was smitten by a $200 sound card.

The Asus Xonar Essence ST/STX PCI and PCI Express review appeared in the January 2010 issue of the print version of Stereophile and is now on the magazine's Web site.

Sure, you could get computer audio over S/PDIF, USB, FireWire, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet connections, but that's not what the Asus Xonar Essence ST/STX sound cards are for; they plug into your PC's motherboard. Old school, but audiophile quality to be sure. I'm leaving out most of the nuts and bolts computer stuff; read the actual review to get the detailed rundown. … Read more

I didn't go to CES, but a lot of my friends did. I call them all the time, and they don't seem to be all that jazzed about what they're seeing. "Nothing new" is what I keep hearing, but there were a few juicy tidbits to be found.

The new 3D TVs and Blu-ray players may or may not render the AV receiver you bought way back in 2009 obsolete. I can't get a consistent answer to the question: do you need a receiver with HDMI 1.4 to pass 3D program material to your 3D TV? You may not care about 3D, but if you do please direct your anger at the consumer electronics industry that regularly leaves its client base high and dry. We'll have to see how 1.4 works out.

Ultimate AV magazine was impressed with the Manley Stingray iTube stereo integrated amplifier. Sure, we've seen vacuum tube iPod dock/amps before, but this is the first one with real audiophile appeal. The blue LED displays surrounding the input and volume knobs can be dimmed down or turned off entirely. Manley makes truly stellar tube electronics for audiophiles and the pro market. … Read more

Stereophile magazine has just published its "2010 Buyer's Guide," a tell-all "book" for audiophiles on the prowl for new gear.

Sure, you can get a lot of this information on the Internet, but it's nice to have it all neatly arranged between two covers of a magazine. Inside you'll find listings for 4,000 audio products. So if you're in the market for a hi-fi,the "2010 Buyer's Guide" will save you a lot of time.

You'll find listings of turntables, phono cartridges; CD, SACD and DVD-Audio players; … Read more

Harry Pearson, who coined the term "high end," spoke at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2009, held last week in Denver. "High end" has long since spread to cars, cameras, jewelry, real estate, boats, and a gazillion other categories, but audio is where it all started.

Pearson's magazine The Absolute Sound, The High End Journal, and J. Gordon Holt's Stereophile magazine created an audiophile community.

Starting in 1973, Pearson's flamboyant writing style and deep love of gear and music helped prod the state of the art forward through the 1980s. The Absolute Sound's tiny circulation and sporadic publishing schedule didn't hurt its prestige and importance in the industry. A rave review, especially by Pearson, could put a start-up company on the map.

Pearson made people curious about, well, the absolute sound. That is, the sound of musicians and vocalists, recorded in an appropriate acoustic space. We all wanted a hi-fi system good enough to put us in that space. That's impossible, but the goal, reproducing the absolute sound, still drives at least some audiophiles.… Read more

It's interesting. Tens of millions of homes are equipped with multichannel home theater systems, but multichannel music is a dead issue. Stereo rules the roost, for going on 50 years.

Ten years ago it looked like stereo's days were numbered--the two new multichannel formats, SACD and DVD-Audio, were on track to be the next big things. Funny, it didn't work out that way. I cover the subject in detail in my "Whatever happened to 5.1-channel music?" article that appeared in the July issue of Stereophile magazine.

Obviously, 5.1-channel sound makes sense for movies and home theater, mostly because 5.1 was an outgrowth of theatrical film-sound technologies stretching all the way back to the 1950s.

Every attempt to bring surround music into the home without video has flopped, big time. Are you old enough to remember the rise and fall of quadraphonic in the 1970s? What was needed was a surround format that didn't require music lovers to invest in new playback gear. Surely such a format would prove the viability of music surround...wouldn't it?… Read more