stereophile

Audiophiles are on a quest; we're always lusting after the perfect fill-in-the-blank (speaker, amplifier, turntable, CD player, etc).

Catch is, perfect gear wouldn't automatically make every recording sound life-like. At that point the gear wouldn't have a sound per-se; the recordings' sound would be laid bare.

I wrote "How high do you want your fi?" for the April 2009 issue of Stereophile magazine, and I'm still getting a wide range of feedback about that piece from readers and friends.

I'm defining a "perfect" hi-fi as one that's indistinguishable from the sound of live instruments. No hi-fi has ever fully recreated the sound of a symphony orchestra, jazz group, or rock 'n' roll band. Solo instruments fare better, i.e. guitars, flutes, and vocals; you can almost get a glimpse of their sounds over the best high-end systems. But a drum kit? Piano? No way!

Audio components are far from perfect, so it's no surprise their sounds aren't 100 percent convincing. As imperfect as the gear is, the recordings themselves are even further away from documenting the sound of vocals and instruments.

The age-old analog/digital divide is the least of it. The musicians do their thing, and then the microphones, their positions relative to the instruments, the skill and imagination of the engineer/producer/mastering team's use of equalization, compression, processing, etc., create the sound we hear.

Pop or rock music is rarely played by the complete band, with vocals, live in the studio. Out-of-tune singers and players are pitch-corrected, drummers' off-kilter rhythms are tweaked, there's not a lot of there there to reproduce. Most recordings are so heavily processed they could never sound real.… Read more

You'll get no argument from me that $107,000 seems like a lot of money for a pair of speakers.

But the YG Acoustics Anat Reference II Professional is a lot of speaker. Stereophile magazine's Wes Phillips delved deep into the flagship speaker's build and sound quality in his review. It was a tough assignment, but somebody had to do it.

While $107,000 is definitely out of my price range, that doesn't mean there's not a market, albeit a very small market, for products that advance the state of the art. Great, but who buys these things?

Answer: rich people. You probably know some of their names. Rock icon Bruce Springsteen just signed a new $110,000,000 contract. The Boss could and should buy these things (maybe he'd make better-sounding records). And the last time I checked, Tom Cruise is still getting upward of $20 million to appear in a movie. A pair of YG Acoustics Anat Reference II Professionals would be a nice start for his home theater.

In addition, sports superstars are still signing megamillion contracts, and big-business CEOs are still eating at fancy restaurants. Even now, the rich aren't hurting; luxury markets are holding steady.

The Anat Reference II Professional is a three-piece modular loudspeaker. It is, shall we say, on the statuesque side of large; the Reference Main Module sits atop the Studio passive subwoofer, which, in turn, rests upon the Professional powered subwoofer. Each three-module array weighs 440 pounds.

Most of each module is made of aircraft-grade aluminum; the front baffles are a machined "ballistic grade" alloy of aluminum and titanium. The speakers are shipped in six custom aluminum flight cases.… Read more

Times are tough, and even high-end speaker manufacturers are feeling the pinch.

Take Magico, for instance. Its soon to be released V2 speaker is $9,000 less expensive than the current entry-level model, the V3. The brand's probably most famous for its Mini II monitors that go for $29,600. The top of the range Ultimates run, gulp, $329,000! Don't worry, all prices are per pair.

The V2 is certainly built like a Magico; its got the solid aircraft grade aluminum front baffle attached to a 17-ply, vertically stacked Baltic Birch wood cabinet. The entire cabinet is … Read more

Stereophile magazine editor John Atkinson's recent article, "Getting the best from your loudspeakers," provides gobs of useful information.

Atkinson's observation that "inexpensive speakers, optimally set up, may well outperform more expensive models just plonked down willy-nilly" is absolutely true. Proper speaker placement is crucial to getting the best sound out of your speakers.

The article explains how room acoustics affect the sound of speakers, and it's definitely a complex relationship. You won't need a microphone or any technical skill to get the job done, but an Atkinson-produced Stereophile test CD can be a big help when fine-tuning speaker placement.

Perhaps his most important bit of advice comes early on: "Entire books have been written about the relationship between loudspeakers and room acoustics, but the starting point for any successful setup is to position the two speakers and your listening chair as the pieces of an equilateral triangle; that is, the speakers are each as far away from you as they are from each other."… Read more

Stereophile magazine writer Wes Phillips is a friend of mine and we occasionally trade mix CDs. A few months ago, we were sitting around listening to our mixes over Wes Bender's tweaked out hi-fi--and this shot perfectly captured the vibe. I Photoshopped this image, shot by Bender.

The end is near, another war seems imminent, oil prices continue to rise, the dollar is in free fall, and now audiophiles have abandoned the CD.

Don't get the wrong idea: they haven't all dumped their CD players for turntables (I wish). Instead, they've bought music servers of some kind or another. How can this be happening?

I read the sad news on the Stereophile July 6 voting feature (scroll down to see results).

That week's question: how do you listen to digital music? The poll says 34 percent still use CD players as their primary … Read more

Stereophile magazine sponsored the Festival Son & Image show in Montreal, Canada, that ran from April 3 through the 6th. The show was the largest ever, with over 120 brands represented. True, most are unknown outside of audiophile circles, but that's part of the appeal. These small companies aren't trying to dumb down their products to reach a mainstream market, no, they just build the best sounding speakers, amplifiers, CD players and turntables they can. Many are hand crafted, lavishly designed products. Point is, in a world where true quality, as opposed to marketing hype, is the rarest … Read more

Got a chuckle out of Wes Phillips Stereophile blog yesterday. His take on Alberto Frias' $16,000 Transport perceptual pod bed caught my eye. The Transport comes equipped with a set of Anthony Gallo Acoustics' Nucleus Micro speakers and subwoofer, so it probably sounds pretty decent. The pod also offers a sensual environment with a temperature-controlled waterbed and LED light show. The hand-made Transport Pod Bed is available in two sizes -- six and eight feet in diameter. Standard exterior colors are white or black high gloss gel coat finishes. The Transport can be experienced and ordered at Twentieth, a … Read more

Stereophile magazine's excellent coverage of the high-end audio scene at CES '08 at the Venetian Hotel has kept me on the edge of my seat since Monday. So many great new products, from old and new companies say a lot about the thriving, worldwide audiophile market. I've picked five products to show you, but Stereophile's site has dozens of really cool sightings.