Articles by Panagiotis Karavitis

High End 2017: Soundsmith hits the nail on the head

June 23, 2017

Down the hall there was a cosy booth with all things Soundsmith, including Peter Ledermann and his trusted director Chris Sommovigo. They invited us in for a listen, the lure was the 7th generation of the notorious strain gauge cartridge, which is [...]

High End 2017: TechDAS impresses in the Vivid – CH room

June 22, 2017

The TechDAS demo was among the salient moments of the entire show. You were in Munich but you’ve skipped it? You can turn off your browser now, you won’t enjoy finding out what you missed. Center stage belonged to Hideaki [...]

High End 2017: Stenheim, VTL and Wadax

June 20, 2017

Bumped into Luke Manley of VTL while walking down one of too many Munich corridors. Hey Luke, what’s up? Have you listened to our room Yeah, the VTL – Albedo one? You’ve got to listen to the other one too, the Stenheim one. He was [...]

High End 2017: Esoteric goes Grandioso all the way

June 18, 2017

A complete stack of Esoteric’s Grandiodo line of supreme products stimulates my salivary glands like few other pieces of gear. Long time fan of the Tokyo based brand launched by TEAC thirty years ago, Esoteric has been a leader in [...]

High End 2017: Audeze introduces the fab LCDi4 in ear headphones

June 17, 2017

Audeze keeps pushing the limits of personal fidelity and after the successful launch of the iSine series it was time for a similar form factor but flagship model. Enter the LCDi4, what Audeze considers as a scaled down version of their [...]

High End 2017: Kharma! (finally)

June 15, 2017

Kharma has never been on my radar. Besides being wayyyy out of my league I have always considered the company to be more of a luxury proposition than a true high end audio manufacturer. I’m in this hobby because I enjoy music and [...]

High End 2017: Reaching for the Abyss

June 14, 2017

Going deep, abyss deep has been a trademark for JPS Lab’s/ Abyss Joe Skubinski, designer of the absolute flagship headphone for years. The AB-1266 has been among our favorites here at Part Time and I could not possibly lose the opportunity of [...]

High End 2017: Nordost introduces the QKORE ground units

June 3, 2017

There is a reason why so many companies are launching virtual ground boxes, these units simply work. As always it depends on the system, if you have a very simple one with no ground loops and no EMI/RFI noise you might not need one, but then again I [...]

High End 2017: Von Schweikert Audio goes ultra

June 2, 2017

I can tell when I get to speak to smart people and Damon Von Schweikert with Leif Swanson gave me that impression, of knowing what they are doing and better yet, knowing that brute force is not the answer to everything. But they brought in a [...]

High End 2017: True high end from Gobel, CH Precision and Kronos

May 28, 2017

True high end stands for silly prices, feel free to move along if you have issues with that. For those who care this was a rather interesting and must admit well sounding room. I have never been a huge fan of Göbel, not only because of the steep [...]