Listener

Listener


  • Best audio systems for $10,000: A Musical Odyssey at The Source AV with Sonus Faber, Audio Research, and Denon

    Prices listed in US$. $10,000 is a lot of money to spend. Or not. It depends on what you get for your 10K. By the same token, what if that 10K is for an audio system? And when I say a system, I mean it has everything you need to listen to music: a pair…

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  • Totem Acoustic introduces the KIN Play Tower

    KIN is all about providing audio solutions that are convenient, simple, versatile and technically up-to-date. The KIN Play Tower follows this tradition with more power, more connectivity and more functionality by providing more of the highly coveted qualities from the remarkable award-winning KIN Play. Multiple analog and digital sources can be physically connected, as well…

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  • “No, I have the best system in the world!” #4: The Intersection of Science and Sound in an Audiophileโ€™s World

    After PMA Magazine posted its inaugural โ€œNo, I have the best system in the world!โ€, a few willing participants answered our call to talk about their own audio journeys and โ€œBestโ€ system,ย i.e. a system they felt had reached a certain level of performance they could live with for the long term. To do the series,…

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  • Putting an end to the audio cable debate! Part 3

    Blind comparison tests use short-term memory, not long-term memory.ย Short-term memory can memorize at most seven different pieces of information simultaneously for a maximum duration of 30 seconds. No wonder this is the test of choice of cable deniers!

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  • “No, I have the best system in the world!” #1: The unique synergy of Karim’s system

    The point behind our new โ€œNo, I have the best system in the world!โ€ series is not to have people brag about their system. Okay, it is, a bit, but itโ€™s a bragging that I think we can all get behind. Itโ€™s a brag without braggadocio or pretention or saying that you need to spend…

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  • Denafrips Pontus II DACโ€”why I bought it and kept it

    During the pandemic, like many music lovers between the ages of 7 and 77 who searched for new ways to entertain themselves at home, I bought a turntable. In the process, I succumbed to its musical charms […]

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  • Jazz isnโ€™t noise. Itโ€™s special. Hereโ€™s why.

    I have a friend who listened only to classical music. One day I had him listen to the music of John Coltrane, a jazz giant. And in honor of the saxophonistโ€™s Giant status, the track I had my friend listen to was โ€œGiant Stepsโ€. As he was listening, I was trying to decide what I…

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  • Pimping your system (on the cheap)

    Whoever said โ€œthe best things in life are freeโ€ obviously never dabbled in high end audio. Thatโ€™s not to say you canโ€™t improve the sound of the system you already have with some judicious tweaking.

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  • The listener โ€” creative artist?

    The High-Fidelity Scene Recording technology revolutionized how music is produced, played, and experienced. From the perspective of experiencing it, to the old model of attending a live concert was added the option of listening to a recorded performance. In this new model, the listenerโ€™s role and situation were profoundly transformed; with recordings, listening has been…

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  • Measurements can suck

    ย ย ย ย  As a youngster in the late sixties, I was keenly interested in music. Virtually every day, I came home from school, and after doing my homework, spent my afternoons hanging out at the familyโ€™s Philco stereo console spinning LPs. My familyโ€™s relatively meager collection of albums consisted mainly of Momโ€™s selection of easy listening…

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