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Listening #189: Luxman MQ-88uSE
For this month's column, I did something I've occasionally set out to do but never quite managed: I lived with a new power amplifier for nearly two months, used it to enjoy a variety of records, made...
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Listening #190: Experience Music
Those concerned that audio engineers on the whole are a meek lot, drawn to our hobby for its lack of physical mayhem, have clearly never met Jeffrey Jackson. The last time I saw him, he was wielding a...
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Listening #191: The Smartractor
I have flip-flopped between these points of view: that some audio products or technologies are better suited than others to specific styles of music, and that any good product or technology should be...
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Listening #192: Koetsu, Ortofon, EMT
Although my house is now home to a borrowed pair of DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 loudspeakersa loan I gratefully accepted early this year, when my 1966 Altec Flamencos proved a bit too large for my...
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Listening #193: Nordost Flatline cables
Among the many bits of audio lore that never have and probably never will be aired in public is the story of the amp that ignited the reviewer's curtains. (I assume that at least some of you hoped I...
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Listening #194: Sorane ZA-12 tonearm
Peter J. Walker (19162003), founder of Quad Electroacoustics and designer of some of the most well-regarded products in the history of domestic audio, famously believed that a properly designed...
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Listening #195: Ortofon SPU Century & Grandinote Celio
Easy pickup: Art’s Dog, Chatter, cozies up to Leif Johannsen of Ortofon A/S and Dee Hustinova of Ortofon USA. (Photo: Art Dudley) According to the 2018 edition of the UN's World Happiness Report,...
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Listening #196
The world's a place of horrorsBecause each man thinks he's rightLoudon Wainwright III As a teen, I loved spending time in musical-instrument shops. Now, with exceptions, the experience is reliably...
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Listening #197: Simon Brown & The Wand tonearm
There's a noise I make when I'm having trouble with something inanimate: a deep, growly huff that starts in my diaphragm and comes out in one or two quick, staccato bursts. I huff this huff when I drop...
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Listening #198: IsoAcoustics & Audio-Creative
It's a toss-up: The house where my family and I lived for 15 years was bigger than the one we have now, and had a much nicer view. On the other hand, we now live in a less economically depressed...
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Listening #199: Falcon & Graham LS3/5A
It all started when I moved my playback system from my 11' by 16' living room to my 12' by 17' family room: The latter has proven the better-sounding setting, and it's also sunnier and more...
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Listening #200: Tzar DST1 & Shindo Montille CV 391
Products come and go. Some impress more than others, and in our little world, the ones that impress the most wind up in Class A of our semiannual "Recommended Components" feature. After a product makes...
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Listening #201: the Buddha Bearing
This is a story about a $1375 commercial turntable accessory and a free tweakthe latter discovered while installing the former, although the two things exist quite independently of one another. Here's...
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Listening #202: Altec 604 & Audio MusiKraft Denon DL-103
Godzilla and I are precisely the same age: We were both born in 1954, Godzilla as an expression of the postwar fears of a nation uniquely aware of the horrors of nuclear armaments, I as an expression...
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Listening #203
"Let's get real, real gone for a change."Elvis I. As Plato mentioned in The Sophist and thousands of art historians have noted in the years since, Greek sculptors distorted the human figure by...
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Listening #204: the New Garrard 301
Some loss of innocence is expected with both age and experience. Because I tick both boxes, and in spite of my best efforts to the contrary, I'm often a bit blasé in the face of new review samples. I...
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Listening #205: John Fahey, Naim NAC 32-5, Naim NAP 250
During my first attempt at college, I lived in a dormitory where my next- door neighbors had an informal trade in pharmaceuticals; their most ardent customers were my neighbors across the hall. One of...
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Listening #206: Shindo Cortese amplifier
Only recently did I learn that successive generations of the Chevrolet Corvette are referred to by the cognoscenti with two-character alpha-numeric identifiers: C1, C2, C3, and so on. I learned this...
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Listening #207
The stars are matter. We are matter. But it doesn't matter.Don Van VlietOnly sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it.T.S. Eliot (writing about Djuna Barnes's Nightwood) In the 17th...
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Listening #208: Rogers LS3/5a
In my January 2020 Listening column, I wrote about a place where three things overlap: the joys (and benefits) of being a record collector, the natural tendency to grow and challenge ourselves as...
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