Page Text: THE HiFi OG™ part one: I still love streaming
February 5, 2022
The recent skirmish with Neil Young and his bandmates has brought a new round of discussion about ethics surrounding streaming and streaming services. I’m not interested in re-kindling that argument.
I respect Young, CSN, and Joni Mitchell for all taking a stand. They were some of the original musical protesters, and their songs still ring true today.
However, this is just about the act of streaming. And why I enjoy it so much. If you’ve been reading our pages for a long time, you know we jumped on board with this concept when the original Sooloos music server was a $15k buy in. To stream your own discs and files. Crazy, but the Sooloos, now Roon interface is still the gold standard for my world.
I miss the interaction
As much fun as it used to be spending a day at the record store, combing through all the new and used records, how many times did you go to your favorite record store(s), and not find what you were looking for? Not that you probably didn’t still buy twice as many records as you planned on – way guilty as charged here.
For those of you lucky enough to frequent incredibly friendly and financially viable record stores, you might have gotten turned on to new artists by the staff, or by in-store performances. Sure I miss concerts, but I really miss going to Music Millennium here in Portland and seeing a new band up close do four or five songs right in the store. It’s gonna be a long time before that’s happening again, if ever.
How much is convenience worth?
The fun yet frustrating part of record shopping is being enough in the know to buy records you want to keep. Back when new records were under $10, and used records well below that, a few bad choices were merely absorbed in the ever growing record collection.
I wish I was at a point in time where I could just spend endless hours in the record store crate digging. Nah. I don’t. I’ve always had too much on my plate to spend a whole day to find a couple of albums. I don’t like camping either. And so it goes.
Once ROON came along, and then integrated itself with Qobuz, Tidal, and whatever other streaming service you might use, finding more music became interesting again. ROON remains the key to musical enjoyment, especially if your musical enjoyment is heavily weighted by musical exploration. I don’t care how old or young you are, once a few thousand albums (regardless of format) pile up, it gets harder to keep them all straight.
The video and radio stars are both long dead
Some of us of a certain age discovered new music via FM radio, and still others with MTV. Often, you had to stay up late with either format, but that’s where the treasure was buried. But now with ROON, it’s an absolute blast to select one track, no matter what the genre or artist and let ROON go from there. Their random playback algorithm beats everyone else when it comes to staying close to the original groove you started with. It’s eerie at how the machine reads my mind at times.
You may enjoy music for different reasons than I do – it’s all good. But if you share my love for musical exploration, and reminiscing, you really should consider making ROON, Tidal, and/or Qobuz part of your world. Much like the way the original Sooloos found tracks in your collection that you hadn’t heard in ages, combining this with the entire catalog at Qobuz and Tidal is wonderful. I enjoy nothing more than working away and hearing a track that was off my radar for some time. Which can often lead to digging through the virtual crates and adding another 30 or 50 albums to my library. Some will make it to physical media, others will be like movies – experiencing them once or twice will be enough.
I truly hope vinyl will always be with us. But that’s another movie and a different script. And I can say without question, with the last two years being fairly discouraging of close social interaction, the ability to easily explore a ton of new music has truly saved my sanity.
Why High-End Audio Gear and Luxury Goods Are Strange Bedfellows
December 16, 2021
To the segment of the high-end audio industry trying to reposition components as luxury goods, I have a message: you’re barking up the wrong tree. To the new entrants trying to create “curated luxury goods experiences,” I submit that you’re wasting your time. No, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m actually trying to help.
As someone who’s spent an incredibly disproportionate amount of my income on audio gear since I turned 14 and who has been writing about said equipment for more than two decades, I have gotten to know many audio enthusiasts around the globe. My love of automobiles has also introduced me to another segment of affluent consumers. In addition, my first wife’s parents were incredibly wealthy and put me in touch with people in their network. While I may not be a total expert, I have relevant data points to share from four decades of experience. And, being the human equivalent of a fox terrier, I always ask questions. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Many of our industry’s best companies possess a level of passion for visual and electronic design that matches the intensity of any of the world’s finest automobile manufacturers. They also have the same density of thought. But a difference occurs downstream. Almost no one thinks you’re awesome because you bought a $100k DAC. (Guilty as charged.) In our influencer-driven, ADD world, hi-fi doesn’t have the same cache of a new Porsche GT3 or a Patek Phillipe watch. Sorry, but it’s true.
Don’t believe me? Tell 100 non-audio people you just bought a pair of Sonus faber speakers. (Again, guilty.) I’ll bet a healthy sum that nobody will even know what you’re talking about, other than you got a pair of speakers. Tell the same 100 people you just bought a new Rolex and they will all be impressed or possibly start a conversation with you about watches or jewelry. Tell 100 people you just bought a new Harley, Ducati, or Porsche 911, and you’ll probably have at least a dozen new friends that want to hang with you.
Why? One reason is because hi-fi isn’t transportable. You can’t take it to lunch and show it off or attend a cars-and-coffee event, casually trotting over to the pack after getting out of your new toy. Like it or not, part of the appeal of owning luxury goods is getting to brag about them and being included in a community. Hi-fi doesn’t work that way. For example, telling 100 Porsche owners you just bought a new GT3 might start a minor argument about whether you bought the right one with a manual gearbox or Porsche’s excellent PDK automatic. No matter which option you chose, you’re still a god in that universe. Tell 100 audiophiles you just bought a $50k turntable, or even better, upgraded your system with $50k of premium wire, and 97 of them will tell you why you’re an idiot and why their $4,000 system is far better than your mega system. The issues run deeper.
Because they are often experience-driven and time-challenged, high-income earners don’t spend major cash on high-end audio systems. On rare occasions, I’ve met a few people with means that love to hang out with friends, relax, and listen to music. Some are members of the Greater Toronto Area Audiophile Club. I know there are more, and I’ve seen a few groups on Facebook that I’d love to meet when travel eases again. But assuming that someone who owns a nice car or a collection of nice cars (or watches, cameras, wine, etc.) will automatically want to buy a mega audio system, even if it is branded a “luxury good,” is just wrong.
Maybe it’s because music is a deeply personal thing. It might also relate to high-end audio’s exclusionary nature. In order to derive the most pleasure from a system, you must sit in the sweet spot. Alone. In silence. That’s not something everyone wants to do. Most people would rather go to a concert. Or go on vacation. Granted, the recent COVID lockdowns and limits on mobility have contributed to a couple of terrific years in the industry. Still, I’m curious how many will upgrade their systems with equal enthusiasm when it’s relatively safe to travel again.
Where does that leave us?
The future of audio isn’t bleak. There are more and better choices than ever before. The point of entry for serious sound is far less expensive than any other time in history, and the proliferation of online retailers and used-gear vendors has made it easier to acquire last year’s toys. I’ve always said well-loved, pre-owned gear is a great way to start an audiophile journey.
A good friend who has been an audio retailer for as long as I’ve been buying gear once said: “My average customer is like you, a person that makes a decent living, that spends way too much of it on his hi-fi system. Where do I get a mailing list for that?”
While that doesn’t make for exciting social media, I suspect the world of high-end audio will still thrive the way it always has: by way of enthusiasts and enthusiast publications. Keep passing the word around. -Jeff Dorgay
September 1, 2021
Here’s a note to all you Millennials, Gen X, Y, and Z’ers.
For as long as I can remember, the generations have been arguing about why we hate each others’ music, why your music sucks and my music is awesome, and why in order to appreciate high performance audio you have to like my music.
You don’t have to like my music at all. Seriously, I’m a boomer and I hate a lot of the music from “my generation.” I’d rather go to the dentist and get my teeth cleaned than listen to the Eagles again. I’m mega bored with “Kind of Blue.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sucking up to you to try and be cool, woke, or trying to get you to like me – I’m not fond of a lot of your music either, but seriously, who gives a shit?
It’s your music, it’s personal, and that’s all that matters. I hated being told what to do, what to listen to, and what was cool when I was your age, and I still hate it.
Best of all, with so much music to stream these days, if you feel so inclined, you can dabble in the music of my generation if you feel like it, without having to commit to buying physical product. You know what sucked in a major way in my day? Getting pulled in by a great “hit single,” or great video clip, only to buy the entire album and find out it was the only good song on the album. Adjusting for inflation, $6 in my day was about (you guessed it) about $40 in todays money. We couldn’t return records we didn’t like and that’s why so many boomers brag about their massive record collections. Most of it sucks.
This is what killed the music industry. All the suits signing mediocre acts that had no business making records in the first place. How long did anyone think that business model was going to last?
There are always exceptions to the rule, on both sides of the fence, so don’t bother sending me nastygrams trying to impress me with your cool record collection and prove me wrong. Again, it’s all about you. It’s not about me at all. However, I do love K-Pop. So shoot me.
At the end of the day, if you need some help with a phono cartridge or a pair of speakers and we can be of help, always happy to pitch in. But when it comes to us agreeing on music, are you kidding?
But it’s really ok.
Judge, Jury, and Executioner
July 14, 2021
It’s interesting lately that there are a number of people in the hifi industry complaining about what things cost. My experience has always been that those that can’t afford to play usually make a bigger noise by trying to discredit things out of their reach. For some odd reason, this seems to take place more in the hifi industry than any other place.
No one loses their shit over a $500,000 watch, a luxury yacht, or a condo in Monaco. It is what it is, and it costs what it costs. Some people have always wondered why I compare audio equipment to automobiles. There are a number of reasons, but a parallel that I hope makes sense is the price of obsession with details. To a lesser extent, an obsession by some with measured specs.
Just as measurements will tell me how quickly a car will stop from 100 mph to zero, they won’t tell me how the brakes will feel. Do they bite hard initially and then let up? Will pedal pressure applied to braking effort exerted be linear? Will they fade after three hard stops or not at all? At that point, I either need to read comments from a few reviewers I know that have drawn the same conclusions I have, and then take a test drive to verify.
I’m not saying measurements don’t matter, they just don’t tell the whole story, and for the most part, they don’t tell me what I need to know to make a purchase decision. Not with hifi, cars, or a number of other things I enjoy. Measurements for me, are just additional data points. Nothing wrong with that.
I think high performance audio by nature, is an obsessive pursuit, and getting past a certain point of diminishing returns costs exponentially more, because it has an exponentially higher cost to get there. Honda can make reliable 250 hp engines all day long for minimal cost because there is a scale of engineering and manufacturing that makes sense. Getting 8 more horsepower out of Max Verstappen’s 950 hp F1 engine for the next GP might cost millions of dollars – for basically two engines. (His and his teammate’s) Is that worth it?
To the person who an automobile is nothing more than “something to get between point a and point b,” probably not. To the people trying to win a Formula 1 Constructor’s Championship, every one of those 8 horsepower is priceless.
We can even take something as benign as a chair. You can buy a reasonably good knockoff of a $9,000 Knoll Barcelona chair, for about a grand. Can you tell the difference? Can your friends? Will you tell them you bought the less expensive chair if everyone’s together at a party complimenting your good taste? 20 feet apart, it’s tough to tell, but when you get up close, the differences are fairly easy to spot. But again, is it worth the difference to you? Are you a bad Smurf for buying the knockoff if you appreciate the style but just don’t have the dough? No shame in that, nearly all of us have to make compromises in our life, no matter what our income.
And so it goes for high end audio. Do we need beautiful speakers like the top Estelons, Wilsons, Magicos, Sonus fabers, etc, etc, etc.? (And I’m not singling these speakers out for any other reason than they are some of the finest speakers on today’s market that offer an extremely high level of execution)
A number of people have sniped about the $850,000 Wilsons and “why they cost so much money.” Years ago, I had a pair of $179,000 Gamut S9s. They were lovely. Then Gamut principal Lars Goller told me that for the 20 pairs of S9s they would probably sell, they would never recover the amount of time and resources committed to the S9 project. I also used to own a pair of MartinLogan CLX speakers, and again the folks at ML told me that they made over 30 prototypes (that all ended up in the dumpster) before they finalized the CLX, and probably spent as much engineering time on the shipping cartons as they did the speakers. (Anyone who had a pair of ML’s past flagship knows why this is so.)
So the major questions remain? Is this stuff worth it? Is a reviewer – any reviewer really qualified to make that call? It always takes a minute to criticize what’s cost millions of dollars and thousands of hours to build. Just because I can’t afford something, doesn’t make it invalid.
In nearly 20 years of reviewing gear, and over twice that buying the stuff, we’ve found a groove here that pretty much coincides with what we own in our own systems, with the occasional deviation when something mega makes itself available. And we’ve found that most of our readers have systems in the $5,000 to about $200,000 range, so we try to keep it within the reach of our readership, and our level of experience and comfort.
Do I think 500-thousand-dollar turntables are crazy? Sure, in the context of my system, my record collection and my income, without a doubt. However, the people buying 500-thousand-dollar turntables (and they are out there) aren’t worrying about people like me that can’t afford the stuff they can afford to purchase. That customer is obsessed, and maybe that 500-thousand-dollar turntable doesn’t sound all that much better than your favorite $40k turntable. (but I don’t know I haven’t heard one), That’s not the point.
The point is it’s awesome, and someone not only wants that awesomeness (and exclusiveness) and is willing and able to pay for it. That’s why the people that produce those things do what they do. Having met more than my share of people that make incredible hifi over the years, I can say with 100% conviction that they don’t get out of bed thinking “how can I make a valueless thing for crazy money and fleece the public today?”
Can I afford to play at that level? Nope. But I think it’s incredible that people go to work every day figuring out how to make amazing things better. Defining things (and someone else’s hard work) in terms of your limited reality is insulting to everyone. It’s disrespectful to the people that have put their soul into building these things, it’s discouraging to the people that aspire to have these things, and it’s insulting to the people that have purchased them.
And even to answer the question on whether that more expensive thing is worth it, some people enjoy things for the art and execution of it. A geeked out Subaru STi can be tuned to 500 hp fairly easily and inexpensively. If all you want to do is win a stoplight Grand Prix, victory can be yours. Would I rather have a Porsche GT3RSR? You bet. Sometimes, it is about execution and if you can afford it, who am I to tell you it sucks?
Yet, this is a trend I’m seeing in the hifi industry more often than not, and I think it’s disturbing. I just can’t get behind discouraging the pinnacle of anything. There is more great gear at incredibly affordable prices today than ever, so why discourage what’s happening out on the fringe? Some people want more than just getting back and forth from point a to b. Even though I can’t afford a lot of this gear, I will continue to celebrate it.
June 29, 2021
I’m always amazed at how many products out there are claimed to be “the best.”
What does that even mean? Best for what? Best for who? Whenever this word is used (and I’ve used it REALLY sparingly in the last 17 years) it draws a mental line in the sand meaning nothing is better than this, because well, it’s the best.
My travels to Europe and Asia, interacting with others around the world leaves me thinking that other cultures aren’t quite as fixated on being the best, and having the best. I think we Americans have more of a propensity for needing to have the best. Laurie Anderson did a great tune called “0 and 1,” from her Home of the Brave soundtrack. As she says in her computer enhanced voice, “everyone wants to be number one, nobody wants to be 0, a loser.” Yet in this analog world that we all seem to worship, there are precious few shades of grey.
I have a hard time believing that all the people that design and build hifi gear want to build products that are less than. And on the flip side of that maxi single, there are so many claiming to be the best. How can there be that many bests. The New York Times recently claimed that a very popular $600 turntable is “the best turntable.” As Hall and Oates say in “Possession Obsession,” so why would you want more?
Well, why would you?
I fear that in today’s influencer laden society, no one wants to be caught with having any less than the best, yet there are so many great products available. There have never been more variations on the theme, regardless of what shape your hifi system needs to take.
This is something I’ve agonized over since I started writing about hifi. Trying to have enough insight to put things into perspective. To try and help you make intelligent purchase decisions that will help you. It’s not about me/us at all. We’ve all drawn our lines in the sand as to what we like, and what helps us achieve our music reproduction goals.
Back when I worked at The Absolute Sound, and used to chat with the late, great Harry Pearson on a semi-regular basis he always used to say: “Kid, don’t use the B-word. Resist the urge. The minute you do, you’ve painted yourself in a corner you can’t get out of.”
And while attaching those four letters to one of our reviews would certainly get us a lot more web traffic, and perhaps a better ranking on Google searches, it doesn’t help you one bit. What happens when you bring that best turntable or those best speakers home and they aren’t the best? Hmmmm. How likely are you going to be to listen to what we have to say in the future?
For all but the few people that can build an awesome system out of the chute and have the fortitude to stay there, the pursuit of building an audio system is usually a journey, an evolving thing. As cool as it is to say “I’ve got the best..” you probably don’t, because it doesn’t exist.
Here’s to hoping you’ll continue to enjoy your journey, wherever you are on that path, and that you can have the courage to enjoy the gear you’ve spent your hard earned money on, whether it’s the best or not.
-Jeff Dorgay
Vinyl Madness
February 1, 2021
I have a confession to make. There are multiple records in my record collection that I have bought but still haven’t listened to.
And there are records in my collection that I no longer love. As part of the ongoing new year’s resolution to de-clutter, The LP collection here is getting another round of sort and dispose. This may sound heretical to some of you but about four years ago, Pam helped me go through my collection of about 11,000 LPs and see what I didn’t listen to anymore. So we’re all clear, this was not my wife on my case about having too many records, it was me pondering someday having to move all that vinyl.
It took us a week to go through, sort, re-catalog, and decide what would go and what would stay. A few days later, I had about 3500 LPs in my collection. Erik at Gig Harbor Audio was kind enough to take them all off my hands and give me a fair price for them. (If you bought some cool records at GHA in the last few years, chances are high, there’s a little bit of me in your record collection!)
However, with promos coming in, purchasing some records over the last two pre-COVID years and general entropy, the force is telling me that another round of cleanup needs to happen. Years ago, we picked up the WaxRax RC-2 record cart , and it remains a fantastic tool in the listening room.
So, here’s how it’s breaking down:
The RC-2′s 300 record capacity will hold the top 300 records I hold dear. This will make it easy to roll those records between rooms 1 and 2 for easy equipment evaluation. As I’ve been collecting vinyl from MoFi since day one, an entire bank of shelves will be devoted to MoFi. Everything else will be in alphabetical order for somewhat easy access, and I’m removing the shrink wrap from anything that’s gotten away.
A pair of road cases make the perfect storage space for all of the 45rpm maxi singles in my collection, placed conveniently next to the Technics SL-1200 Mk. 5 with Shure M44 cartridge. But there will be no scratching. Sorry, I just can’t go there.
Finally a new pile of “records that haven’t been listened to” in one crate will be placed front and center to get on top of immediately.
Next, it’s time to get all the CD’s and SACD’s in order.
So far I haven’t found anything that has to go. :).
December 6, 2020
We’re going on about 10 months of this now…
As we put the finishing touches on our yearly “Awards” issue, and everyone in the audio industry is deciding which great audio products are the best of the best for whatever reason, I’d like to spotlight some genuine human kindness. I’ve had the privilege to get to know a lot of people in the high end, but I admit to a soft spot for the people at Cardas Audio, for a number of reasons.
I really appreciate the consistent positivity of Angela Cardas, and her husband Josh.
The saying goes, that actions speak louder than words, and this certainly applies here. Very early in March, the Cardases sent a bunch of goody boxes out with a big red tag (If you know Angela Cardas, you know that beyond the signature blue that covers nearly all of their cables, her favorite color is bright red) that said in big, bold letters, “Keep calm and carry on.”
Inside the box were assorted snack treats, a great bottle of gin, sourced locally, and some Cardas swag. And why not?
But the thing that I thought was the coolest, especially in a time where there was no hand sanitizer on the store shelves, and you couldn’t get a roll of toilet paper to save your life, they enclosed a small bottle of hand sanitizer that you could attach to your key ring. As someone who constantly loses their keys, wallet and phone on a regular, I’ve taken to wearing the most important keys in my life around my neck. My wife Pam jokes that I should have a “don’t feed sugar, and don’t medicate” tag on that key ring, but that’s another story for another time.
Needless to say, I’ve worn that Cardas hand sanitizer bottle around my neck every day of my life, since the day it arrived, and I can’t tell you how many times it’s been refilled. Though it’s looking a little bit worse for the wear and tear, I can’t help but think perhaps that one small act of kindness may have saved my life this year. I’m 60, had asthma as a kid, and could stand to lose 20 pounds, thanks to the lack of activity over the last year. In short, I’m probably a prime candidate for Covid complications.
As much as I’ve minimized interaction with the outside world in the last 10 months, there have been a number of times that I went to the gas station, or FedEx, or whatever, that I forgot to take a pair of latex gloves. That squirt of hand sanitizer may have been just the thing that’s kept me out of the ER.
Looking back on a recent scare this week, fearing that despite my efforts to self quarantine, I may have contracted this damn virus anyway, my test results came back negative yesterday, and I exhaled a major sigh of relief. So, for now, you’re still stuck with me.
So, I say to all of our readers, and friends in this industry, this is a great time to reflect on everyone that’s gone just a little bit out of their way to make sure we’re all still standing. More than ever, I really look forward to when we can all hang out in person, at a show or a dealer event, have a beer and a few good laughs. Who knows? Maybe we won’t even take some of the arguments so seriously…
Again a big thanks to Angela Cardas for the thoughtful gift.
December 1, 2020
Note I used the word “buy.”
You might think that even though I do this every day, I’m over the thrill of finding great hifi. Nothing could be further than the truth. In the last week, I’ve put down a deposit on my own pair of Dirty Weekend speakers from ZU Audio, purchased the review pair of Lumina 1 speakers from Sonus faber, ( you can read the full review here ) and bought a vintage Sansui AU-717 integrated amp.
This is still fun, and it’s still exciting to not only find bargains in high end audio, but to re-discover classic pieces from your history that you miss. (and possibly regret selling)
I’m truly looking forward to the last few weeks of this year. We’ve got issue 105 with awards coming up, and quite a few reviews that we’ve just finished that need to be posted on the TONE website. Issue 106 is already in progress for a Feb.1 launch, and we’ve got our heads down on a new, optimized for mobile, version of TONE.
Crazy as 2020 has been, we are looking forward to the months to come, and hope that maybe by summer or fall, we’ll get to see some of you in person again.
Stay safe, and happy holidays to you and yours.
RIP, Eddie VanHalen
October 6, 2020
Can’t believe I just heard the news that Eddie VanHalen, co-founder of legendary heavy rock band, VanHalen is gone.
Where were you when you heard “Eruption” for the first time? I was working at Southridge Mall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a little record store called Galaxy of Sound. We were hanging out at the counter, price guns in hand when the rep from Warner Brothers walked through the door with one white promo album in his hands. He walked up to the stereo, and took the record that was playing off and looked at us with a slightly drug-induced smile (it was the 70s you know), put the record down on the platter, and just before he dropped the needle, said: “You little fuckers will never hear anything like this, again. This is coming out on Friday and I’m giving you a glimpse of history.”
We heard “Eruption” and freaked out. The next 30 minutes flew by, and though we begged him to leave the record with us, he would not. It was Wednesday, February 8th, and true to his word, the world of rock was changed forever two days later.
It was cool to be there first. Many have been influenced by EVH, and though he had his demons, there’s never been another Eddie VanHalen on the scene.
Rest In Peace.
Fake News and Audio Reviews
April 27, 2020
Now that we are well into our 16th year of publication, it seems apparent that there are still some in the audience that don’t fully understand what we do, why we do it, and what sets us somewhat apart. Now is as good a time to clarify as ever, eh? Many of you have been reading us since the early days, so I’m guessing you like our approach enough to stay. And for that, I thank you very much.
However, there is still the occasional snarkiness lurking, and just as in today’s world situation, claims get made, no matter how unfounded they might be. You might even go as far as to call it “fake news.” Without trying to offend anyone, I’ve never bought into the concept of fake news, I’ve always seen every news outlet as having somewhat of a slant or bias. We’re human beings, and no matter how much we might try to be 100% objective, it creeps in because for better or for worse, we nearly always put things into context-based upon our experience.
Filtering
So, when I read about world events, I try to digest multiple sources, perform a mental Venn diagram, see where the overlap is, and draw the best conclusion I can. If possible, thanks to the large group of people I’ve managed to get to know here, I get on the phone and call someone. An event in the UK (or any other place) may look one way in our news, yet to people that live there often have a completely different spin. Boots on the ground get the message across.
I feel that audio reviews are the same. No one review will give you a complete insight into a product, because we are all coming from a different place, with different hot buttons, and of course, different biases. Or shall we say, priorities? Most audio reviewers are just like you – audio enthusiasts, mega audio enthusiasts. Often the difference between you and us is that we’ve spent more time listening to a broader range of products than you have, and the hope is that our additional experience will add insight. At least that’s my hope.
When I was on the other side of the desk, I was a very avid consumer of high-end audio products, as any of my long time friends will attest. But that was a different time when dealers could afford to let you take a lot of things home for the weekend to test drive. Still, that was nothing compared to the gear I’ve had the privilege to listen to in my tenure at TONE. We can argue that aural memory is fleeting. I think that if you pull most of the veteran reviewers aside, they will all agree that most manufacturers have a unique enough voice to their products that they have a general knowledge bank in their heads. Quads sound different than MartinLogan, though they are both ESL speakers, and they both sound different than a pair of Magnepans, though they are all dipole radiating panel speakers. And so on.
Need the info
I’m guessing you probably have similar biases, which is why you prefer tubes over solid-state, mini-monitors over floorstanders, metal dome tweeters over soft dome tweeters, etc., etc., etc. That kind of thing. That’s what makes this pursuit of assembling a satisfying music system so exciting and frustrating at the same time. You can’t be everywhere, you can’t go to all the HiFi shows, and you can’t take everything home for the weekend.
So, you probably lean on a mixture of reviews, FB groups, internet boards, and such. What I see as the problem with the latter two, is that it usually devolves into a pissing match with people looking for validation on what they own. The Magnepan person tells you that Magnepans are the best because that’s what they own. And to them, they are. Just as the person who has a pair of single-driver speakers and a 2A3 amplifier will tell you that their approach is the one correct route to nirvana. Finally, it all just turns into a shouting contest, with gnashing of teeth and everyone going away mad. Even more today amid our current crisis, when tempers flare, and nerves are pretty raw to begin with.
Exploring audio gear was supposed to be what made audio fun. Again I hope that you can gain some insight from all of us. The overlap is where it’s at. The other reviewers all have their unique perspective to offer, but you have to dig a little deeper to find out where their biases lie. Sometimes they will even tell you, which helps, but if you read any reviewer long enough, you get a feel for what excites them, as well as what the limitations of their systems and rooms are. You even find out what their musical tastes are – which may help or may lead you further off the track.
Lew Johnson of Conrad-Johnson once told me to “pick 25 tracks you hate to evaluate gear because when you’re done, you’ll hate them.” For those of you that know what I’m talking about, there is a secret society of audio professionals that absolutely HATE that damn Jennifer Warnes song about the horse. But it’s a tool. It’s hard to get excited about an audio component, or put it in perspective if the tracks described throughout the copy have no meaning to you. Thankfully, streaming music now makes it much easier to listen to whatever a particular reviewer is using to evaluate a component.
But at the end of the day, it’s genuinely about the overlap. While I do not suggest buying a component strictly on a review (mine or anyone else’s), it helps to read as much as you can. I think it’s a safe bet that when a product gets a concise review here and elsewhere, it’s worth your time to investigate. Again, the current world situation has increased the degree of difficulty in this case.
Our approach
While we are occasionally criticized for not writing “negative reviews,” whenever I’ve suggested to a manufacturer at a HiFi show that we should start that trend with their product, they always back down. Interesting.
In today’s market, I don’t feel that any of the major companies, or for that matter, even the second-string companies are making rubbish anymore. With the advent of the internet and death by audio forum, bad news travels faster than ever, and if you are a company that builds inferior products, offers dreadful customer service, or both, your days are numbered. And your death will come much faster than me or anyone else writing a negative review. This is where the forums and FB pages can come in handy when researching a purchase. If a disproportionate number of end-users are reporting similar failures or consistent bad service, this may be a product to avoid. A reviewer has no way of knowing the answer to that question.
I like to joke that everyone can usually have a great time on vacation. Everyone is happy with their HiFi purchase until something breaks. How a dealer or manufacturer handles things when it all goes pear-shaped is another matter entirely. Sooner or later, nearly everything breaks. That said, I have worked with manufacturers that I have never had a failure with, but that’s an article for another day. When a manufacturer or their supporting dealer gets you sorted out and back to listening to music quickly and painlessly, that’s a big plus – and you can’t get that from a review.
Where a number of the automotive magazines do “long term tests,” keeping a car for a year to see how maintenance is performed, what breaks, and how much it cost to repair, most audio gear does not fail in the short period it is here for review. We have had a few things that have either arrived destroyed (no fault of the mfr) or have failed repeatedly during the review period, but those products have not made it to the completion of the review process. And to be fair, this has only happened a few times in nearly 1700 product reviews.
You’re super busy, and I get it
This leads to the core of our approach. My goal from the beginning with TONE was to be like a great concierge in a great hotel. Not to be “Mr. Know It-All of Hi?Fi.” I’ll let you in on a little secret, no one is. There are thousands of you and a few of us. Collectively, you will always know more. A great concierge listens to their guests, building their knowledge base on feedback received. More than once, our readers have led us to products we didn’t know about.
So, I’ve always felt our job is to help you make a shortlist. When you get into a hotel at 7 pm, tired from traveling all day, and you just want a good steak – now, and you want your clothes pressed in time for your 8:30 meeting tomorrow morning, that person behind the desk handles it. You don’t want to be bothered with 20 Yelp reviews (with at least three of them negative) you want to be taken care of.
That’s how I see my personal responsibility to both you and the audio industry. Need a great tube preamp with balanced inputs in the $5k-$8k range? We’ll help you find it. Need a pair of tube friendly monitor speakers that will work great in a 13 x 15 room, custom color a bonus? Got you covered.
In the context of TONE, writing a disparaging review, wastes everyone’s time, and that means in addition to finding great products for you to put on your list, I have to seek out crappy products to bash. Is that helping anyone?
What makes our process a little different
Nearly all TONE reviews begin with us vetting the products we’re interested in, rather than getting random products and being surprised. We don’t have enough hours in the day. If that’s truly the approach you want, we are not your HiFi magazine.
I’ve always felt our job is to describe a product thoroughly enough, that YOU can decide to put it on your shortlist. Many times our reviews lack the “conclusion” paragraph in most other reviews. That’s on purpose, and it’s a tribute to your intelligence. If we’ve done our job correctly, you will draw the conclusion yourself. Isn’t that the best conclusion?
This is why we always have a clear photo of the rear panel. How many inputs are there? Balanced, RCA, or? Usually a shot of the remote control too. It’s those little things. We always try to use a pair of speakers with a wide range of amplifiers, from low power SET to high power solid state. The other way around for amplifiers. The Magnepan or ESL owner is always going to want to know if it will drive “their speakers.” So we keep a pair of each on hand, specifically for this purpose.
Once the overall sound character of a component is identified and agreed upon (somewhere on the scale of warm, through neutral, to somewhat bright/forward) and put in the context of speakers, cables, and associated components, our focus turns to functionality. We feel how something will integrate into your environment and system can often be the deciding factor. We once reviewed an incredible, $60,000 phonostage that only had one input and no gain/loading adjustments. This isn’t a fit for everyone, but for the handful of people that are looking for just that, it’s a perfect choice.
A nine-watt SET amplifier, no matter how glorious it sounds, isn’t going to drive a lot of speakers. A mini-monitor with flawless midrange, won’t play techno music, a luscious moving coil cartridge with only .15mv output won’t work with all phono preamplifiers. And so on. This is why we take the shortlist approach.
We also try our best to determine if said review components are easy or tough to set up because you all have different skill (and patience) levels. I feel this is often overlooked in product reviews of all types, and can often lead to hifi frustration. I’ve heard many systems not give their all because of lack of setup, not component shortcomings.
See where I’m going with this? It’s neither my job nor my responsibility to make the ultimate decision for you. My job is to help you weed through the jungle of the myriad of products out there. No matter what you buy, there will always be something different, or perhaps that reveals more music than the component you just purchased. That’s why you rarely see the B-word (“the best”) in our pages. Someone always has infinity plus one.
You may or may not know that I photograph every component that graces the pages of TONE. I spent my last life as an advertising photographer and then as a fine art photographer creating high-quality images in the automotive world for years. I enjoy photographing the gear almost as much as I do listening to it.
The bigger picture is that I listen to every single component that has been in this magazine. It has helped to give me a broader knowledge base, but it has also helped add that “additional listening” section that you often see in our reviews. Not everyone on the staff has ten phono cartridges at their disposal, or a range of amplifiers, cables, etc. Knowing how a component sounds when it leaves to head to one of our reviewers makes it that much easier to read their copy, and fill in those blanks at the end if they’ve missed something due to lack of additional associated components.
The last link in the chain
Our job would be so much easier if we could visit your house, size up your room, system and music collection – making suggestions that we think could help you build a system, or get to the next level of audio performance. In a pandemic free world, that would be your dealers’ job, and this is why we’ve been running the “dealers that mean business” section at the back of the magazine. This part of TONE is a free service to you and those dealers listed. There are a few dealer ads in the magazine, but the DMB section is no cost to those dealers. They are all establishments that we have visited personally, have attended events at, and talked to their customers about the level of service received. Some of these dealers I have even purchased components from over the years. In short, these are dealers I would spend my money with, and get my endorsement.
A final bit of clarity
If you’ve read this far, thank you. This has been a long “blog” post, but I hope it helps clarify how we operate. We’ve received a lot of wonderful emails and phone calls, along with some great in-person chats with you over the years, and precious few nastygrams. If we’ve helped make the path a little less confusing, and helped lead you to a satisfying audio experience, then we’ve done our job. That’s always been our goal.
And throughout this wacky time, I hope we can continue to be a useful resource for those of you that read our pages.
April 22, 2020
Almost two months into this, the local and global landscape has certainly changed.
I’m guessing that all of you have been touched by this now, one way or another. We’ve lost a couple of friends here, and have had a number of others go through the current virus and come out the other end in one piece. We’ve been talking to a lot of you, so keep the cards and letters coming.
We’re staying isolated, except for the occasional grocery store run. We’re midway through issue 102, which will concentrate on approachable speakers, and one of our favorite speakers, the new JBL L-100 Classics, just received a new set of blue grills, to change the mood up a bit.
Social media is rife with pictures of how you are all coping, and equally rife with hostility. Tempers are starting to fray. So, I’m hoping you can spend the weeks to come more on the “share ten records you love” side of the fence than the “quick angry mob” side of the fence.
While incendiary nasty-grams continue from the usual sources, the outpouring of email and FB messages, just to check up on us and see how we are doing, is truly appreciated. It’s been nice to hear from so many of you. Keep the cards and letters coming!
Farewell, Art Dudley
April 14, 2020
In case you haven’t heard the news, we lost one of the industry’s finest writers today.
Unfortunately, Stereophile’s Art Dudley is no more. When I heard the news just a few days ago that he was having problems with cancer that had returned, I had hoped he was going to be ok and had no idea that he was having issues with cancer in the first place. But that was Art, never one to trouble you with that kind of thing. No Go Fund Me page, no posts on social media, looking for sympathy – he just carried on.
While I would love to wax poetic about what great friends Art and I were, we weren’t. We always chatted at the various shows he attended – which wasn’t many because Art hated to fly. A few years ago, I was shocked to see him at the Munich show, but he just laughed and said he had mustered up the courage to go.
That really sums up Art Dudley on one level. He was always understated and always a perfect gentleman. Along with Jonathan Halpern (of TONE Imports, no relation to us), Art and I had put on a seminar about the “Virtues of Vintage Audio” at the New York show eight or nine years ago and had a blast doing it. The room was standing room only, with attendees spilling out into the hall. If you are a Stereophile reader, you know how much Art loved Quads, SET amps, tubes, and his beloved Thorens TD-124 turntables.
After that, we had even chatted about doing a book together, but alas, we were both too damn busy. I sincerely regret not following up on that, because I’m sure I would have learned so much from him. But we always joked about it in the halls.
What made Art such a great writer – one of the best, if not the best in the world of audio reporting, was that his motivation was pure. He lived and breathed this stuff. It was in his soul. And this is what made his articles so enjoyable, whether you agreed with him or not. It always felt like you were right there in the room living it with him – a goal that all of us that write about audio should aspire to. His articles were always a near perfect balance of reporting and telling a story without making it all about him. A good friend of mine compared him to another favorite journalist from the automotive world – Peter Egan. An excellent and worthy comparison.
Even though we were never great friends, I will miss Art tremendously, and always remember him fondly. My sincere regret is that we never did get to be good friends. I think we would have had a lot of laughs together.
Lockdown: Day 15
March 26, 2020
As somewhat of a self-imposed hermit anyway, I’m keeping my head down, staying out of the traffic pattern, and staying busy.
There’s plenty of work to do here, and we will continue to produce content at TONE as if things were back to what we used to consider normal. Our hope is to produce a bit more, in the hope that we can at least provide a minute of distraction here and there.
For those that are interested, we’ll be posting weekly to let you know what’s up and what we’re working on. I truly hope that you are all safe, sound, and out of harms way. Here’s to all the strength that you can muster right now. If we provide a little bit of distraction, that’s great. If you need to be alone and not think of music or hifi right now, we understand.
The new APL-10 preamplifier and AFM-25 monoblocks from Rivera Audio Labs continue to amaze. The ultimate in simplicity, this all tube preamp and hybrid (tube input stage, solid state, Class-A output stage) monoblocks are an excellent match with the 94db/1 watt Focal Stella Utopia Ems. Rounding out the system is the PSAudio Perfect Wave DAC , a Torus TOT line conditioner , and all cable from Cardas Audio.
The overall sound is very natural and open. As a big fan of Class-A amplifiers from Pass, Luxman (along with vintage Krell and Levinson) the Rivera amps have all of that in spades, yet the tube/hybrid design offers a bit more magic. 25 watts per channel won’t be enough for everyone, the other two Rivera amplifiers offer 50 wpc and 100, effectively. We’ll have a full review soon, but these are a true joy.
And, their North American importer, TONE Imports (not affiliated with us, but it has a nice ring to it, eh?)
PS: I understand that most of you probably have way bigger fish to fry right now, than worry about what your next hifi purchase is going to be, and that to just tell you to “Just take it easy and listen to music for the next few weeks” may not be much solace. So you won’t be getting that one from me.
So, take good care, and stay safe my friends.
February 9, 2020
Just say yes to streaming music at your favorite hifi show. Seriously.
Sitting in the airport waiting for the flight home, I’ve just spent the most fun time ever at an audio show. The Florida Audio Expo was an absolute pleasure to attend. But you can read me gush about that tomorrow or Tuesday. For now, I have an issue, I’d like to see solved – pronto.
While it’s been fantastic that the folks at Qobuz have been “the official streaming partner” of all the year’s past audio shows, it’s worthless. You can’t stream audio at an audio show – ever. How messed up is that?
Though everyone is proudly playing vinyl and even reel to reel tape at the show, with excellent result, that isn’t helping those that know nothing about our world. I love analog in every delivery method possible – but I’m obsessed with audio. It’s all intriguing. But I’m not your customer at an audio show.
After 17 years now of listening to a lot of the same people ask the same question, “how do we bring new people into our world?” We have the answer with Tidal, Qobuz and ROON. But no one fucking uses it. I’ve only been to one room in the past year that could answer yes to the “Hey, are you streaming Tidal and Qobuz here, so I can pick some music I want to hear?” question. PS Audio at last year’s Rocky Mountain Audio Fest was the only one doing it, and it’s no coincidence that they were packed to the gills. Everyone in that room was having a great time. Listening to their music.
I attend shows to interact with our readers and colleagues in the industry. I’m not terribly interested in sitting down to listen to gear at shows, because A: it’s probably in the review queue anyway and B: I don’t want to take the seat from the paying customers that want to get a listen and ask questions. It’s your show not mine.
Which brings us full circle. I think the most important way to bring people into the world of high end/high performance audio, whether you are selling a $2,500 system or a $250,000 system is to give the participants an “ah-ha” moment. To deliver an experience that is immersive enough to get them tapping their toes, digging the vibe, and asking questions. I think you’ll all agree with me that music is personal, so there’s no quicker way to get the “boring” light on my dashboard to illuminate, than to play music I’m not interested in. Again, forget about me, think about your potential customer. I guarantee they are thinking the same thing.
I strongly suggest ALL of my industry colleagues to consider this. People who have never really experienced great sound, who are listening to budget buds, phones, or powered speakers are going to be so blown away by streaming music on even a modest DAC that you’ll hook them. The key ingredient? Play THEIR music. I don’t care how much you don’t like hip hop, or whatever, get over it for five minutes. I’ve had to listen to “Keith Don’t Go” and all the other tracks we’ve all suffered through for years now. Wanna sell more hifi? Buck up. Play their music.
The only thing worse than waiting for someone in a demo room fumbling through their collection of 100 LPs to play a track I’m totally uninterested in, is the track I’m totally uninterested in. Again, I don’t care because I’m already drinking the Kool-Aid. It’s ok if you don’t have music to make me happy.
But your potential customers, that’s another story. I’ve been hearing the same thing exiting rooms now for 17 years:
“That guy’s music suuuuucked”
“I hate classical music”
“Jazz is boring”
“I think it sounded good, but it wasn’t music I like”
Not much has changed. I still heard way too much of that at this show, and this was the friendliest hifi show I’ve ever attended.
So, going forward, I’m begging you all to reconsider your position and make a streaming option available in your room for the uninitiated, so when you get the wide-eyed “wow, I’ve never seen/heard anything like this,” you can hand them the tablet and pick out a track or two that they know like the back of their hand.
I challenge every manufacturer and show presenter to find a way to make this happen. I guarantee this will bring more people into our world.
What the hell is “high end audio” anyway?
August 4, 2019
After 40 years of being an audio enthusiast, consumer (and someone covering this world for the last 17 of those years) I think we have a fundamental confusion in what we’re talking about.
To me, “high end audio” means something condescending, something unapproachable, something you can’t have. It means the secret handshake, the elite club.
I’d rather it not be that way.
In the world of cars, you have cars that get you from point a to point b reliably, like a Toyota RAV 4 or a Kia Soul, that are perfectly good cars (I’ve owned both of em) and they get the job done with no fuss. And for probably 99 percent of the population that’s just fine. If you think I’m nuts, how many of your friends, male and female, have said at one point or another, “cars don’t mean anything to me, I just need one to get from a to b and back.”
There’s no shame in that at all. Most people don’t give a shit about cars.
I’ve got news for you, most people don’t give a shit about audio either. But almost everyone loves, or at least likes music. But for so many, it’s something in the background, it’s something to listen to on the subway, or when friends are over. Or sing along with.
It’s something to get from point a to b.
But high performance audio is something completely different. High performance audio, like high performance cars, motorcycles, bicycles, cameras, concentrates on delivering more experience, no matter what the approach. It doesn’t always have to be expensive, and it doesn’t always have to be brand new. $30,000 will buy you a well-appointed Toyota camry, or it will buy you a really nice, used Audi S4. Think about it. If you love the way a car feels going around a corner, or stopping hard, you’d probably rather drive the Audi.
But even if you take the new approach, high performance audio does not have to break the bank. Many of the manufacturers that we might consider “high end,” and perhaps even out of our reach, make great products, that are very affordable. And they are all a great place to start your journey.
A perfect example of this is Vandersteen Audio. Their flagship 7s cost upwards of $60k/pair, but the current version of their model 1 is just under $1,500/pair. If that’s still crazy money in your book, look at the Paradigm Atoms. $299/pair. Both of these speakers are designed and built by the same people that build the flagship models with plenty of TLC.
I can cite plenty of examples in the realm of amplifiers, preamplifiers, DACs and turntables, but I’m guessing you know most of the players.
You can spend a little bit of money or a lot of money. That is up to you and those are your personal priorities.
But stop worrying if your system is “high end,” and where that line begins. Think “high performance,” or even “performance oriented.” Then we can all play, and we can all get on with it. Best of all, we can all get back to enjoying music, to a greater degree than what a mass market solution offers.
Who’s with me? If you’re enjoying music, and you’re having fun doing it, you’re in. It’s really that easy.
The JBL L-100 Classic
June 6, 2019
In 1982 I wanted three things: A Nikon F2 with motor drive, a BMW 320i and a pair of JBL L-100s. I got two out of three. I needed the Nikon to earn a living, and a new 3-series was about 13k, well equipped. But I did get a pair of L-100s and they rocked.
But then I became an audiophile and I was too cool to have JBLs. I bought a pair of Magnepans and got serious about hifi.
As the years passed, the L-100s kept nagging and a few pairs of vintage L-100s have come and gone. I still have a pair of originals, which have been modded to sound a bit better than I remember. I drag them out once in a while and connect them to my Nakamichi 600 wedge series components, lamenting how far hifi has come in 4 decades.
That all changed at last years Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Harman was showing the new, Classic L-100s in orange! Woo hoo, the signature foam block grilles were back! And the sound was out of this world good.
Today, I use a Nikon D800, and there’s a fairly clean 83 320i in the driveway for old times sake, but it’s more like my vintage L-100s. Not modern transportation anymore.
But these new L-100s rock. The first track played is Joni Mitchell’s “Car on a Hill” and it’s the late 70s again. Awesome.
- And a big thank you to Steve Rowell at Audio Classics for making this happen.
Why I don’t always listen to as much new music as I should
April 5, 2019
I’m a hifi reviewer, with an excellent music system at my disposal and thanks to Tidal , Qobuz and Roon , I pretty much have the world’s biggest record store available 24/7. That’s better than the flying cars they promised me when I was in high school – really, it is.
So why don’t I explore new music every minute of the day?
In all fairness, I am still sampling as much as I have time for, but at this point in my life, day to day can get in the way more than I’d like. Flipping through the updated copy of Robert Dimery’s 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, I bookmarked 8 titles that I hadn’t heard, and about 20 that I didn’t own, or have in my Roon library. Not bad.
But there’s great music being released every day. I’m not one of those crabby old men that thinks all of today’s music suuuuucks (though I do find some of it a little derivative at times), but it boils down to this:
Time.
I usually get unglued with a vengeance when people make the blanket “everybody/nobody” statements, so I’ll refrain from it here. I don’t know what everybody my age is doing or thinking, but based on my limited experience, it boils down to hours in the day.
Think about it, you’ve got that keep the bills paid app spinning all the time. Maybe you’ve got the future college fund, future wedding fund (maybe future divorce fund), retirement, vacation, health insurance, and fitness apps running all the time, along with a few special interest apps. If you’re a hifi enthusiast on top of that, you’re probably thinking about the system a bit as well.
All of these apps are eating up bandwidth. And battery power. While I’d like to think I’m pretty perky (and relatively immature) for 60, there are days I still feel like an iPhone 7 that’s had it’s performance limited because of an aging battery.
Which brings us back to the initial question.
Whenever you try something new, you are taking a 50% risk that it’s going to suck. Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want, but as a function of time, when you are on the downhill to EOL (end of life, as my perky 42-year old primary health care physician is fond of saying) there’s only so much time left.
You’ve got three hours to listen to music. How much of it do you devote to potential bad experiences? Do you play it safe and listen to Mahler V, or Led Zeppelin II, or take a risk, knowing that if you don’t get what you want, that’s 40 minutes of your remaining battery life you won’t get back. Excitement versus stability, the age old question.
Those of you that are more on the adventuresome side of the risk avoidance spectrum no doubt are still jumping off the cliff every chance you get. And I salute you. Further, you’re the ones I follow on Facebook and when you’re excited about a new album, I go to Roon and usually stream it right away. This has actually bumped the success rate with trying new things to about 80% positive, which I appreciate more than you know. As Lyle Lovett said once, “If it’s not too late, make it a cheeseburger.”
Some days I just want comfort food instead of the latest fusion cuisine. And sometimes, Van Halen II is just what the doctor ordered. But again, I encourage you to sample as much music as you can make time for, it’s never been easier. That’s one of the things that keeps me going every day. And please, keep sharing those new albums on social media. It’s always nice to be surprised.
Motorcycle Money
March 16, 2018
A recent TONE Facebook post had a number of people pissing themselves in anger over a $5,300 Louis Vuitton record case that’s not even available anymore.
They all screamed “stupidity,” because after all, who would spend $5,300 on a box that holds only 50 records? (to be fair it does have an extra compartment for some CD’s and “accessories.”
Would I buy one? Probably not at $5,300, but I might for $2,000 – it is pretty cool. For those interested, LV will still make them through their custom shop, but that’s not the point.
There’s always been a disheartening angst for things outside of our budget. So many are so easy to dismiss things that don’t make sense financially to them. As Stewie Griffin on Family Guy is fond of saying, “whatever gets you through the night, bitch.” However, by this definition, more than half of the stuff in our world is stupid because it is non-essential. Everything that is above the baseline of what we need to get by is not required and therefore open to ridicule.
Geez. Those of us that enjoy hifi live in a world of non-essential stuff. Really? You’re going to sit there straight faced and tell me your non-essential stuff is more worthy than my non-essential stuff?
Let’s put this in context. Your neighbor buys a new Ducati Panigale-V4 Speciale, tipping the scales at pretty close to $40,000. You think he or she is a God. (And I must admit I’m pretty envious too…) Said neighbor is probably only going to put a few thousand miles a year on that beauty, so it might translate into about an average use of an hour a day, spread out over the course of a year.
Yet neighbor number two that just spent $40k on a hifi system that they will probably use 4-10 times that much, is an idiot. Even more, God forbid, they spent $40k on a pair of speakers or a turntable. And it’s not like that Ducati is going to get you to the emergency room.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m a gearhead to the core. I’ll be the first one across the fence slapping my neighbor on the back when they are out in the driveway admiring their latest acquisition. But this is how I see hifi – motorcycle money. There are plenty of people driving nice cars and nice motorcycles that aren’t terribly wealthy people – they’ve just decided to spend a (perhaps) disproportionate amount of their income on something that brings them joy for whatever reason.
So, if you’re wondering why hi end audio attracts neither new people nor women to the ranks, this is why. Who wants to be part of that? Think about it. - Jeff Dorgay
McIntosh Announces MA252 Integrated…
November 1, 2017
Today McIntosh announced the release of their new MC252 integrated amplifier, to a wide range of polarizing comments around the world.
With an MSRP of $3,500, this is a pretty kick ass little package. The approximately 12 x 18 inch footprint makes it about the size of a PrimaLuna amplifier, so it’s not going to take up a ton of space wherever you end up placing it, and at only 28 pounds, nearly anyone can lift it into place – pretty cool for McIntosh.
A hybrid design, the MA252 uses four tubes in the input/driver segments and a solid state output stage, delivering 100 watts per channel into 8 ohms and 160 per channel into 4 ohms, so you’ll have enough juice to drive most any speakers. A headphone amplifier is included and an MM phono section as well.
You can see by the rear view, that there is one balanced XLR input, two unbalanced RCA inputs and the phono, along with a single, mono output for a powered subwoofer. This should make it easy to make the MA252 the anchor for a great compact system.
Visually, the 252 pays homage to past classic McIntosh tube amplifiers, adding the current aesthetic of LED’s underneath the tubes and a digital display to indicate function and volume level. You’ll love it or hate it, but it’s pure Mac, and built on the same assembly line in Binghamton, New York with all current day McIntosh components.
We look forward to a full review as soon as samples start shipping!