astell&kern

CES 2017: Products and Places, a Tour

January 30, 2017

by Brian Hunter While studying photography post grad, I came across a photographer who had been at it since nearly the inception of the medium. To her, black and white was the color of photography. I don’t disagree. Without the wow of 4-color [...]

Review: Cayin HA-1A MK2 tube headphone amp

January 29, 2017

By John Grandberg More audiophiles these days are embracing the pleasures of headphone listening. There’s an ever-growing selection to choose from, but enthusiasts soon learn that a key factor in achieving the ultimate sound quality from their [...]

CES 2017: 12 hour Tour – Technics, DEG, Mytek, Sony, ELAC, Nagra, MSB, SweetVinyl, dCS, AudioQuest, Musical Surroundings

January 24, 2017

This year, I decided to do the accelerated CES 2017 tour. With some loss of good judgement, I created a flight plan in and out of Vegas from Seattle in a single day with just enough time to literally rip my way through CES. The trip [...]

RMAF 2016: CanJam Photo/Video Tour

November 29, 2016

At CanJam this year, Brian at Audio Head pulled out the toys and took us all along for a multimedia tour. You’re welcome to the ride-along. Many thanks to Brian — and to the many vendors that allowed us to visit, chat up, and [...]

Focal Launches Flagship Headphone at The Source A/V

June 22, 2016

By Brian Hunter This weekend was a steamy one for residents of southern California. Temperatures rose above 100 degrees in certain parts of the sunny city of angels, but many audiophiles were keeping cool within the confines of The Source A/V [...]

Newport 2016: Sugarcube SweetVinyl

June 18, 2016

I recall being 9 years old, breaking the seal on my dad’s fresh LPs, giving them a clean and accidentally spilling LAST cleaning fluid everywhere with that darn dropper, then copying them to audio cassettes for portability. Even at the young age, [...]

CanJam SoCal 2016: Astell&Kern Copper, 320, and more

March 22, 2016

I am sad to report that Astell&Kern still has not launched their $10,000 portable ultra-player, the fabled AK960. And this is despite all of those April 1st announcements! I am completely at a loss. Instead, they’ve launched the AK320. [...]

Best of 2015 and Product of the Year

December 30, 2015

2015 is over, much to my shock and chagrin. Honestly, I’m not quite sure how it happened. No. Seriously. I kinda feel like I’m Rick Grimes; I just woke up, everyone is gone, and WTF is the deal with all the freakin’ zombies?!? Oh. [...]

RMAF 2015: CanJam round up

November 6, 2015

Hitting the CanJam at RMAF is a highlight for me, and an instant reminder of the health and vibrancy of (at least one corner) of the high-end audio industry. This year, there were too many vendors for me to cover to even a remote level of accuracy [...]

RMAF 2015: Astell and Kern, with Beyerdynamic, crushes portable expectations

October 8, 2015

Astell&Kern, that fabulous company with the fabulous digital audio players, were here at CanJam and “at it”, again. This time, they were showing off the ultra-fab AK380 ($3500), a new DAP that has the latest thinking about portable [...]