silver circle

Capital Audiofest 2016: Because Tidal, enough said

August 9, 2016

I was told, years ago, that there were certain expectations that were completely legitimate to cling to. Horns have a certain sound to them, for example. As do triodes. And panel speakers. And ceramic drivers. The problem, perhaps obvious giving the [...]

AXPONA 2016: Bricasti Design dials it to 12

April 19, 2016

Brian Zolner has been a fellow TIDAL Audio fan for several years, and I’m pretty sure he still owns the very first pair of Contriva Diacera SE loudspeakers — speakers that he’s used to help voice his fantastic line of audio [...]

RMAF 2015: Bricasti takes the gold

October 23, 2015

I had a good time chuckling over the audacity of the Goldilocks M1 at Capital Audiofest this year. I suppose it had never occurred to me that anyone would be that dissatisfied by the aesthetic of the already-fine Bricasti Design that they’d [...]

AXPONA 2015: The Voice That Is, with TIDAL, Bricasti, Aurender, Purist Audio Design, Silver Circle

May 16, 2015

Doug White of The Voice That Is built a gorgeous system around the TIDAL Contriva GS speakers ($69,690 as shown), easily the best looking speakers at the show. Note that this speaker is also a complete reworking of the Contriva Diacera SE [...]

CES 2015: High Water Sound brings a Flood the City of Sin

January 16, 2015

Okay, I’ll confess. I might have gone a bit bananas in the High Water Sound room, shooting the new Ortofon A95 cartridge. Whoops. The A90, which was discontinued some years ago, was an incredible feat of both engineering and general sound [...]

RMAF 2014: Bricasti Design and TIDAL Audio

November 14, 2014

If you follow The Audio Traveler, you’ll note that the Bricasti and TIDAL Audio system on display this year at RMAF mirrored the system that Scot had opportunity to hear at AXPONA earlier this year. So much the better, as far as I’m [...]

RMAF 2014: Hitting The Wall, with High Water Sound

October 21, 2014

We were 600 miles out, and the road lay as flat and straight as a dropped spear, stabbing into heart of mountains far too distant to yet see. With the windows down, the wind was howling through the cab like an angry ghost, pulling at us, snapping [...]

RMAF 2014: DSA leads with TAD, VPI, Wells and Silver Circle

October 19, 2014

The Dynamic Sounds Associates (usually just DSA) were here at RMAF to show off their new line stage preamplifier, the Pre 1 ($16,500). This new preamp is cosmetically matched to the Phono II ($12,000). With six inputs (three balanced), the Pre I [...]

CAF 2014: Bricasti Design brings catapults, hurls insults at poor quality audio

July 31, 2014

Brian Zolner of Bricasti Design has a good reason to be smiling. His new under $30k/pair (est.) 200wpc M28 mono amplifiers are simply outstanding. His M1 DAC has been sitting on top of the A+ Recommended Components List at Stereophile since its [...]

Newport 2014: High Marks for High Water Sound

June 7, 2014

This time, I wasn’t screwing around. After the fiasco at AXPONA, I wasn’t going to wait till the very end to visit Jeff Catalano of High Water Sound. Nope. Nuh uh. This time, it was bright and early Saturday that I showed up and I stayed [...]