Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i Stereophile

At 1am on September 17, 2025, Adam Wexler’s phone broke through his snores. He silenced the call and rolled over. Four hours later, an insistent ring jolted him awake. “When Ray, an amazing man who oversees the pier and runs everything around here, called me at 1am, I ignored it,” Wexler recalled, “though fire did cross my mind, because this space is entirely timber. Then my employee Robert Kapszewicz called, and I went to the warehouse at 5:30am.” Starting in the early morning, a five-alarm inferno tore through the historic 19th century Beard Street Warehouses at 421–499 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, home to dozens of artists’ studios and Wexler’s 7500ft2 hi-fi store, Resolution Audio/Video (RAV). Two hundred fifty FDNY firefighters battled the flames. What Wexler found on…

“None of the amps I build are better than the others,” Justin Weber of Ampsandsound told me not long after we met. “They are just different.” I may have smirked inwardly. According to his company’s website, Weber makes no fewer than 23 amplifier models, many capable of driving both headphones and speakers, ranging from the $2700 Kenzie OG to the $38,000 Arch Monos. Are they really all equally good?, I wondered. Surely this was just a clever Buddhist ploy to distract us from some of his amps’ high prices. Doesn't the extra $35k spent on the Arch Monos buy you something more desirable than the performance offered by the little Kenzie? Writing for an audio magazine means I hear a lot of marketing claims, some more risible than others, and…

There’s no need to consult my notes. The memory of the sound of the Audio Research 330M monoblock amplifiers ($90,000/pair) at AXPONA 2025 is so vivid I can still recall what I heard and felt. I sat front and center in a room sponsored by Quintessence Audio, before a system featuring Kubala-Sosna Realization cables, Critical Mass Maxxum-Ultra equipment racks and isolation, dCS Vivaldi APEX streaming DAC/Master Clock/Upsampler, Sonus faber Stradivari speakers, an Audio Research Ref 10 preamplifier, and the Audio Research Reference 330M monoblock amplifiers. The sound was so colorful, rich, and effortless—the images so convincing in size, weight, and timbre—that I felt my eyes open wide in amazement. I’m still astonished—not just by the sound I heard but also by the fact that this huge, dynamic, airy presentation was…

I measured one of the Arendal 1528 Tower 8 loudspeakers, serial number 1521BA251552, with DRA Labs’ MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone for the farfield frequency behavior and dispersion, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. I measured the 1528 Tower 8’s impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle with Dayton Audio’s DATS V2 system. Arendal specifies the 1528 Tower 8’s anechoic sensitivity as 89.5dB/2.83V/1m. My B-weighted estimate was within experimental error of the specification, at 89dB(B)/2.83V/1m. Fig.1 shows the impedance magnitude (solid trace) and electrical phase angle (dashed trace), taken with the downward-facing port open and the HF and Mid level adjustment jumpers on the speaker’s rear panel plugged into the central, Reference positions. The nominal impedance is specified as 4 ohms; the magnitude is close to 4…

The Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 600.2 is the latest component in what Heinz Lichtenegger, CEO of Audio Tuning Vertriebs GmbH, parent company of Musical Fidelity, Pro-Ject, and other brands, describes as a complete range of Nu-Vista products dubbed “Nu-Vista by Musical Fidelity.” His 45 years in the hi-fi industry have shown him, he told Stereophile, the benefits of launching complete series, with options at different price points. The series started off with the flagship PRE preamp and the partnering PAS stereo amplifier, each with a power supply in a separate chassis. There’s also the PAM, the monoblock version of the PAS. And then there are the source components: the Nu-Vista Vinyl 2 phono stage, Nu-Vista DAC, and Nu-Vista CD player/digital hub. “A key concept for the Nu-Vista range is our use…

Shortly after the Berlin wall came down and the Japanese stock market crashed, my day job was to demonstrate expensive audio products at hi-fi shows all over Europe and America. That entailed surviving on espresso and Toblerone while driving a vintage Mercedes at high speeds 12 hours per day. After four hours of sleep, I was doing 12-hour days of DJ work that entailed choosing the next perfect recording to keep the audience facing forward, mesmerized—a borderline impossible task. To avoid shame and rejection, I always kept a few 7" 45s by groups like The Chambers Brothers or Booker T. and the M.G.’s to play when the vibe was sagging. I believed then as I do now that the finest sound system is the one that lets each record sound…

If you find yourself in Monaco on a Sunday night, make your way to La Note Bleue, a cozy restaurant and music bar on the beach by the Avenue Princesse Grace. There, you’re likely to find a legendary world/fusion guitarist sitting in with a group of young jazz musicians eager to cut heads with the acknowledged maestro of inner awareness and otherworldly spirits. Forever known to some as “Mahavishnu,” you can call him by his birth name, John McLaughlin. “Yes, I have a little group here at my local jazz restaurant,” McLaughlin said during a recent Zoom call from his homebase overseas. “For the anglophones, we’re known as the Blue Note Band. I’ve been doing it for about a year now, and what I do is, I invite graduate musicians…

HiFi Rose RA280 MoFi Distribution would like to thank both Ken Micallef and John Atkinson for their time and effort reviewing the HiFi Rose RA280 integrated amplifier (November 2025, p.93). The RA280 is an example of trickle-down technology creating a value proposition while also advancing technology—in this case, the GaNFET-based class-AD amplifier circuit. There are very few robustly built integrated amplifiers that can outperform the RA280 anywhere near its price. Today’s class-D (and-class-AD) amplifiers employing GaNFET output devices are more than capable of creating the sonic illusion of-class-A thanks to their ultrahigh speed and low-distortion switching characteristics. Let’s acknowledge that class-D is here to stay and will continue to improve; the RA280 exemplifies this reality. The HiFi Rose RA280 strives for accuracy, both spatially and tonally, while also being highly…

Simaudio has introduced a network streamer–integrated amplifier, the Moon 371, the first product in a new, more affordable series called Compass. Why Compass? The name evokes the name of the higher-end North series, introduced in 2023. “Compass guides you North,” a Simaudio rep said at a press event in Boucherville, across the river from Montreal. The 371, which carries a price tag of $6500, gives you everything you need to make music except a streaming subscription, speakers, and speaker cables. During a presentation at the Boucherville press event, Simaudio execs described the philosophy of the new Compass series and Simaudio broadly. Compass is intended to broaden the brand’s appeal. “We don’t want to stay just another audiophile brand,” a Simaudio staffer told the assembled audio journalists. Simaudio aims to do…

While I was coming to grips with this month’s review subject, the idler drive Garrard 301 Advanced, I began to think about the various methods that have been used to spin turntable platters over the years. Since the transition a century ago from wind-up clockwork to electric motors, there have basically been three ways to spin a turntable platter: idler drive, belt drive, and direct drive. True, there have also been a few designs that go their own unique ways, such as the rare, water-driven Oasis made by David Gillespie of Saturn Audio in the late 1970s and the gear-driven H.H. Scott 710 I once owned and foolishly sold. But almost everything made since the 1950s uses one of the three main drive systems. Even the Omega Drive system, which…

I performed a complete set of measurements on one of the Audio Research Reference 330M amplifiers (serial number 056438) with my Audio Precision SYS2722.1 The amplifier preserved absolute polarity, ie, was noninverting, with the balanced input and the 8 ohm and 4 ohm output transformer binding posts. However, the 330M inverted polarity with the single-ended input. The gain is specified as 26.3dB with the balanced input and 34dB with the single-ended input, both into 8 ohms. I measured 26.5dB and 32.5dB, respectively, into 8 ohms from the 8 ohm output tap. The gains from the 4 ohm output tap were 2.6dB lower. The balanced input impedance is specified as a very high 168.5k ohms; I measured 167.3k ohms at 20Hz, 179k ohms at 1kHz, and 143k ohms at 20kHz. The unbalanced…

In 1991, when Heinz Lichtenegger founded Pro-Ject, part of the Audio Tuning group of companies, he went against the advancing digital onslaught, demonstrating absolute confidence in analog record players, which at the time were in steep decline. He and his team made a remarkable success selling devices to play vinyl discs under the Pro-Ject brand and providing OEM product to other manufacturers. In the decades since, Pro-Ject has expanded to include a wide range of electronics, both digital and analog. One piece of Audio Tuning is Musical Fidelity, which was founded in the UK in 1982 by Anthony Michaelson. Michaelson sold Musical Fidelity to Audio Tuning in 2018, continuing with the company in “a design capacity.” The very first Nu-Vista product was a preamp dubbed the Nu-Vista PRE. Launched in…

In his introduction to this review, Martin Colloms describes nuvistors as “small, metal-clad vacuum tubes introduced in 1959 to compete with bipolar-junction transistors.” Martin’s description is perfectly accurate, but there is more to be said. The nuvistor was created to overcome the shortcomings inherent in run-of-the-mill vacuum tubes: size, reliability, microphony, and so on. If you’ve heard of vacuum tubes on fighter jets, they were probably nuvistors. The Russian MiG-25, which was famously flown to Japan by a defecting pilot in 1976, used nuvistors. In hi-fi, the first use of a nuvistor was probably 1988’s Premier Seven preamplifier. After that it was all Musical Fidelity. Anthony Michaelson, the company’s original owner, deployed nuvistors in the first Nu-Vista component, Nu-Vista Preamplifier, in 1998. The 7586, the nuvistor used in the 600.2,…

I performed a full set of measurements on the LAiV Harmony µDAC using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system.1 The coaxial S/PDIF and optical TosLink inputs both accepted data sampled at rates up to 192kHz. Apple’s Audio-MIDI utility revealed that the USB port accepted 32-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 44.1kHz to 1536kHz! The USB Prober app identified the Harmony µDAC as “LAIV Harmony DAC” from “LAIV Audio” and indicated that the USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. I used optical S/PDIF data for the testing as well as USB data sourced from my MacBook Pro. The Harmony µDAC’s chassis became warm during the testing. The top panel’s temperature stabilized at 102.2°F (39°C). The LAiV DAC’s maximum output level with a 1kHz signal at 0dBFS was 4.013V,…

EDITOR’S PICK RECORDING OF THE MONTH FRANK SINATRA In the Wee Small Hours Capitol Records/Blue Note W581 (LP). 2025. Voyle Gilmore, Joe Harley, prods.; John Palladino, Kevin Gray, engs. PERFORMANCE SONICS Francis Albert Sinatra’s milestone album In the Wee Small Hours was recorded and released in 1955 by Capitol Records. Now, in 2025, this never-out-of-print record has been remastered by Blue Note Records as part of their Tone Poet audiophile vinyl series. November 14 marks the 70th anniversary of the album’s release on 12" LP. The new Tone Poet vinyl edition is produced by Joe Harley and was cut all-analog by Kevin Gray. The important news is that for the first time, alternate original “master” tapes were located and used. Joe Harley explained. “Larry Walsh, retired longtime Capitol engineer, said…

German speaker and electronics manufacturer MBL Akustikgeräte has been acquired by MBL International GmbH, a new subsidiary of China’s Chow Tai Seng. MBL says the deal secures the company’s long-term future and is a step toward resolving ongoing insolvency proceedings. Chow Tai Seng, whose core business is fine jewelry designed, manufactured, and sold under its own brand, ranks among the world’s top 100 luxury-goods companies, with some 4200 employees and more than 4700 stores across China, according to the announcement. The group also owns United Audio, a distributor of high-end audio brands (including several German manufacturers) for the Chinese market. With MBL, the group adds its first in-house audio manufacturer. “MBL is in excellent hands with MBL International GmbH, backed by Chow Tai Seng,” CEO Christian Hermeling said, adding that…

My mother Lily Mae was a Lutheran from Norway. She sent me to Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran School so that I’d become a well-mannered, tea-with-her-friends choirboy, with starched white shirts and a secret penchant for wildness that was nurtured by those free-thinking Catholic girls at the elementary school next to ours. I always think of Mom when I install an Ortofon cartridge because their sound character strikes me as so Scandinavian—like my mother: smart, tall, well-tailored, well-mannered, neat, understated. Everyone knows I think audio components tend to sound like how they look, what they’re made of, the place they were made, and the people who make them. Transducers from the North are tailored differently and show the music differently than transducers from the South. And then there’s Japan. Fashionably dressed audiophiles…

Stereophile’s Product of the Year Awards were first published in 1992.1 I decided at that time that, in contrast to other publications’ awards schemes, we would keep the number of categories to a minimum. That way, we would avoid what the late Art Dudley once described as the “every child in the class gets a prize” syndrome. This decision led to some interesting contests. In Loudspeakers, for example, high-value minimonitors would compete with cost-no-object floorstanders. In Analog Products, turntables would compete with tonearms, phono cartridges, and phono preamplifiers. And in Amplification, single-box integrated amplifiers would go up against separates and low-power tube designs would compete with high-power solid state behemoths. The exception would be the Budget Product of the Year, where we would recognize products from each category that offered…

In practice, the core design and performance metrics of the 600.2 integrated amplifier show closer parallels with Musical Fidelity’s four-box Nu-Vista PRE/PAS pre/power combination, itself inspired by the legacy Titan amplifier, than it does with its larger sibling, the Nu-Vista 800.2 integrated. The 600.2 may be the lower-powered model, but, with power ratings of 160W into 8 ohms and 300W into 4 ohms and practice delivering 200Wpc and 325Wpc into those loads, respectively (ref. 1kHz at <1% THD), it could never be described correctly as low-powered. Aside from scale, a key difference between the 600.2 and the 800.2 lies in the margin allowed by MF’s protection regime. The 800.2 supports 325Wpc into 8 ohms and 575Wpc into 4 ohms with a dynamic capacity of 365W, 705W, 1.3kW, and a full…

When it comes to phonography, I’m not terribly picky, but I do have preferences. I maintain my records well because I prefer to play clean records, with minimal pops, clicks, and crackle to distract me. I like a phono cartridge that tracks average platters perfectly and difficult sides at least very well. I prefer cartridge-turntable systems that keep up with the pace of the music, bring forth its beat, and don’t muff quick dynamics. I like a phono preamp that runs quiet and interfaces with my cartridges in a hum-free way. Most of all, I like to keep fuss and fiddling from between me and musical enjoyment. As such, I’ve generally preferred what I call workingman’s phono rigs: moving magnet cartridges; Technics SL-1200–series turntables that are easy to set up…

I measured one of the DeVore Fidelity Gibbon Super Nines that had been auditioned by KM; it had the serial number S915B112. I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone with an Earthworks microphone preamplifier for the farfield frequency behavior and dispersion measurements. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses and Dayton Audio’s DATS V2 system to measure the impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle. DeVore Fidelity specifies the Super Nine’s anechoic sensitivity as 91dB/W/1m. While my B-weighted estimate was slightly lower than the specified figure, at 89dB(B)/2.83V/1m, this is still higher than average.1 The Super Nine’s impedance is specified as 8 ohms, with a minimum value of 5.5 ohms. My measurement lies above 6 ohms for most of the audioband (fig.1, solid trace),…

Her life became a whirlwind. Taking the train in from Brooklyn to Manhattan to pitch songs and experience the East Village scene, she landed a song-publishing deal at age 14. In 1968, at 18, after a chance meeting in an elevator, a legendary songwriter/record producer was interested in assisting her in making her debut album. Released on Atlantic Records in 1969, Lotti Golden’s Motor-Cycle was wildly experimental and ahead of its time. Seemingly poised for success, the album and her career suddenly vanished. Often described as “Motown meets the Velvet Underground,” Motor-Cycle, which has become a rich source of samples, is a blend of the counterculture street scene in New York City with touches of psychedelia, jazz, soul, and spoken word. Even today it’s beguiling. Original tunes like “Motor-Cycle Michael”…

A hi-fi dealer’s son, Matt Alterman has been in or near the business almost all his life. His dealership, Crescendo Audio, is coming full circle as he opens a new location in Boulder, Colorado, the town where he launched his first store 13 years ago. Matt’s father, Henry Alterman, was the proprietor of Alterman Audio in their home-town of New Orleans. Henry got his start selling gear from his dorm room at Tulane University in the mid-1970s,1 before “going legit,” obtaining a resale tax certificate and other legal documents, and setting up a store on Freret Street near Tulane. Matt helped his father with custom-installation projects, sales, accounting—whatever was needed. Matt formalized employment at his father’s business after graduating from college. “I got to attend CES in its infancy, and…