About a decade ago, The Wall Street Journal posted a short video about Itsushi Hamasaki, a diffident and rather nondescript man living in Tokyo. To free up money for his loudspeakers—a pair of hulking ...

Allen Perkins's Spiral Groove SG1.1 turntable ($25,000) is a remarkably dense, compact, belt-driven design that weighs a surprising 75lb. With the motor isolated inside its 18.5" wide by 15" deep ...

Since you're reading Stereophile, it's likely that you and music have an intense and (hopefully) steadfast relationship. Perhaps it dates from your formative years, or perhaps you and music found each ...

Since you're reading Stereophile, it's likely that you and music have an intense and (hopefully) steadfast relationship. Perhaps it dates from your formative years, or perhaps you and music found each ...

Since you're reading Stereophile, it's likely that you and music have an intense and (hopefully) steadfast relationship. Perhaps it dates from your formative years, or perhaps you and music found each ...

Description: Remote-controlled, upsampling, stereo D/A processor with volume control. Digital inputs: 1 AES/EBU on XLR, 2 S/PDIF on coax, 1 S/PDIF on TosLink, 1 USB 2.0 on USB type B connector. Analog ...

I performed a full set of measurements on two samples of the Benchmark AHB2 (serial nos. 14440108-0 and 14440111-0), using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"), and ...

In 1979, I visited Philips Electronics' renowned Research Center in Eindhoven, Holland, to examine a prototype of what would eventually be called a compact disc player. In 1989, I returned to the ...

KEF's LS50 loudspeaker was introduced in 2012 to celebrate the English manufacturer's 50th anniversary. Usually, anniversary models are large, floorstanding "statement" designs with a price to match, ...

Description: Three-way vented-box loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) diamond-dome tweeter, 6" (150mm) Continuum-cone FST midrange driver, two 8" (200mm) Aerofoil-cone woofers. Crossover frequencies: ...

When a loudspeaker is measured, the underlying assumption is that the distance from the speaker to the microphone is significantly greater than the largest dimension of the speaker's drive-unit array.

I first saw Benchmark's AHB2 stereo power amplifier at the 2013 Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, in New York City. On silent display in Benchmark's booth on the convention floor, its ...