esoteric

LA Audio Show 2017: Nola Gold 2s play music like ringing a bell

July 23, 2017

Nola speakers don’t look like anything else. In my experience, hearing hundreds of different transducers at shows each year, they don’t sound like anything else, either. Visually, putting Nolas in your room is something like installing a pair of [...]

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 [...]

AXPONA 2017: Music From Another Room, Part 1

May 12, 2017

A photojournal by Eric Franklin Shook A truth I’ve found: the host of the room sets the mood. This cramps the monotony one might expect when attending an audio show. Let’s take a walk [...]

Newport 2016: Nola, VAC soar into the atmosphere

July 14, 2016

When I entered the Nola/Valve Amplification Co. room at T.H.E. show in Newport, a distinctive repeating pattern of delicately plucked notes began playing. As the rhythm line continued on the acoustic guitar, suddenly there was a loud burst: [...]

High End 2016: ZenSati skaking the foundations, with Stenheim and friends

May 20, 2016

Last year, this was a room that came pretty close to being theBest In Show, only it performed inside a prefabricated ground-floor Hall room, which was inadequate for any serious listening impressions. I even made half a promise, if they were to [...]

Review: B.M.C. Audio PureMedia, PureUSB1, UltraDAC

January 16, 2016

By John Grandberg Think back for a second: when was the last time you actually played music directly from a CD, DVD-A, or SACD? Some readers may still be actively spinning, but I have a hunch the number is rather small these days. Based on what [...]

RMAF 2015: AudioKinesis violates space and time

October 22, 2015

Walking into a demo room is like walking into someone else’s mind. Or, some piece of it. Some minds are ordered. Tidy. Clean and organized. Some are warm, like a heated towel. Comfortable, like an broken-in boot. And then, there are those that [...]

RMAF 2014: VAC versus the Real Thing

October 12, 2014

By John Stancavage Valve Amplification Company was spinning one great LP after another at RMAF 2014, when suddenly an attractive blond woman on the first row jumped out of her seat. “Where did you get that?” she asked, as the VAC rep placed a [...]

CAS 2014: Loggie Audio and YG Acoustics, metal-machine music

September 4, 2014

I’m always a bit suspicious of high-end speakers sporting cabinets that cost the designers a chunk of change to manufacture. You know, rare hardwoods, automobile-painted polymer resins, structural foam, even metal. The result usually is stunning [...]

CAF 2014: Rollo Audio & Sound Insight present BG Radia, Triode Wire Labs, mad dancing promptly ensues

August 3, 2014

Charles Rollo has rebranded and re-launched his business as Charles Rollo Audio, but that’s about all that’s changed (while the website is being set up, contacting him via phone seems best at this point: 718-352-2178). Charlie still [...]