Welcome to the revolution: the Larsen 4.2 Most speakers today are wooden boxes with one or more drivers mounted on the front firing straight ahead. They can sound wonderful or not and there’s a plethora of speakers to choose from. From small plasticky desktop speakers to giant monoliths; from active studio monitors to passive […]
The Russell K Red 100 (£1950) were released back in 2014. Remember those simple happy days? We’ve all aged more than a little since then. I’ve been drawn to the Red 100 since they came out basically. First, I love how they look. Albeit not the weird red and grey version, but the one now […]
The Moonriver 404 (€3000) is an integrated amplifier. Made in Sweden. With a modular design structure that lets us upgrade the modules instead of the entire amp as technology progresses. Modules let us pick the functionality we want instead of cramming superfluous stuff down our throats: why pay for a phono stage if we don’t […]
No speaker is perfect, but I’ll tell you what I love about a speaker that can go up against the wall: placement versatility. We don’t all have the option of placing our speakers one or two meters into the room. Often the optimal placement for a speaker is suboptimal for how the rest of our […]
There’s a longer review of the MOON 390 here. Below is a distilled version for those in a hurry: Functionality The MOON 390 by Simaudio is like a Mytek Brooklyn Bridge in steroids. It’s also double the money and eight times the size. What doesn’t this preamp do? Nothing, basically. But let’s start from the […]
When I fired up the MOON 390 (£4950) and 330A (£3700) by Simaudio nothing stood out or drew attention to itself. Except this: density. Sometimes that overt lack of identifying markers is the sign of a supremely controlled and composed component. Two, in this case. Not surprisingly, the MOON 390 preamplifier and the MOON 330A […]
I enjoy Schiit. The last couple of months I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing both the Asgard 3 and two versions of the Gungnir. The Gungnir is a fluid sounding DAC, organic and I hold it in very high regard. The Asgard 3 is a $200 miracle worker. To these ears it performs way beyond […]
I’ve been looking for a reference headphone to review other headphones, headphone amps, and source components. Well, with the LCD-X, I’ve found them… Memory Lane Aural memory is a fickle thing. For me at least. The LCD-2 Classic ($799) left the building a couple of weeks ago and I will risk a rudimentary comparison to the LCD-X […]
This is a review of the Audeze LCD-2 Classic. They’re a lot of money; they look cool and they play the part. Aesthetics are important and I’ve wanted a pair of Audeze headphones since I saw the first LCD-2. Never mind the sound. The look was enough. That they sounded good was almost trivial. I […]
This review/comparison of the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 and the Sony WH-1000XM3 almost reads like a piece of self-help literature. But, as the images illustrate, that’s what you get when you combine scenic landscapes and superb wireless headphones. Wireless active noise cancelling headphones do two things that normal headphones don’t: they ditch the cable and […]