This Just In
Rowen Absolute MONO | Mini-Review
Who is Rowen? Every dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying, worldly audiophile knows of all the significant audio companies coming out of that highly regarded Alpine nation, right? [...]
Analog
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VPI re-imagines the turntable, and creates a new product category with the Player When I speak about record collecting with the under thirty-five crowd, initially many of them see vinyl as a low-fi medium, much like cassette tapes, and 8-tracks. This impression was created by dusty hand-me-down turntables, and record collections of which most have unkempt and dirty grooves. Along with many of the new records purchased during the “2008 vinyl resurgence” being played on these [...] -
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Cables & Power
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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the power foundation of a stereo system. Six years ago, Roy Gregory’s talk at the Nordost demos at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest intrigued me; specifically, he spoke about using better power cables and line conditioners to lower noise and using this as the “foundation” for an audio system. About three years ago, I dropped into a demo led by Synergistic Reseach’s Ted Denney and watched and listened as he steadily added his cables, power [...] -
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Components
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Who is Rowen? Every dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying, worldly audiophile knows of all the significant audio companies coming out of that highly regarded Alpine nation, right? Well, maybe not. Not only is Rowen a major player (website) in the Swiss audio market, it also boasts a 47-year unbroken heritage, successfully passing the flame from one generation to the next. Rowen is uncommon in that they manufacture high-end amps and speakers. This advantages them in knowing the demands both impose on [...] -
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Digital
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Perks of the trade Looking at the Bricasti M1 reminds me of one of the coolest perks of reviewing high-end audio equipment: I get to hear lots of different types of gear in the comfort and familiarity of my own listening room. I love mixing and matching different pieces, trying to get the best out of each component that I evaluate. Even so, there are very few “aha” moments in this game for me; much of the gear I get to review is very good, indeed, and a lot of it seems to be converging to a [...] -
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Headphones
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Nothing holds you hostage with the music like a big set of cans. You are isolated, alone, just you and the music. The music gets inside your head in more ways than one. A lifelike sound-stage isn’t usually something I usually associated with headphones, that is until I got myself into a fancy set of Audeze LCD-X headphones. Planar drivers can hold and shape the sound-stage in unprecedented ways. When I first had a run in with Acoustic Research (website) at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I laid [...] -
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Loudspeakers
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Better living through chemistry As a practicing chemist (or rather, “purveyor of chemical knowledge”), I’m quite keen on all things chemistry. My interest was piqued, therefore, several years ago when I first noticed the offerings of the Finnish company Amphion. As far as I could tell, the operation crafted speakers for both the pro audio and high-end consumer communities, and more importantly, they named their home audio products after chemical elements! Yes, lots of companies do [...] -
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Music
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If you’re a music lover who is older than 35 or 40, you’ve probably joined the Columbia House Record Club at some point in your life. I joined for the first time back in 1976, when I was barely a teen and had just purchased my very first turntable—a Soundesign all-in-one with a BSR changer that cost me a whopping $49.95. I know it was ’76 because my first “Selection of the Month” was Bowie’s Station to Station, and that’s when it was released. To this day it’s still my [...] -
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