It’s time for a confession. While I still get excited about unboxing any piece of gear that has crossed my threshold for review—I get to play with toys for a living, after all—when it comes to electronics, that excitement normally centers on ergonomics, design, vibes, that sort of thing. With speakers, though, there’s a bit of anxiety involved. Surprises can be either a good or bad thing depending on my mood, and electronics don’t have much in the way of surprises when it comes to performance. Speakers, on the other hand—well, they all sound a bit different, don’t they? Some more different than others.
Read more: Totem Acoustic Loon Monitor Unboxing and First Impressions
I really didn’t plan on writing yet another vinyl-related editorial this month. I promise, I didn’t. But as I said in my recent review of the Record Doctor X record-cleaning machine, I still have a lot to learn about the format, and I’m struggling with finding good sources of information beyond my own compatriots here on the SoundStage! Network, who—despite their knowledge and wisdom—are finite in number and experience and can’t possibly have tried it all. But so far, most advice I’ve gotten from people outside our group has turned out to be quite bad. Live and learn, right?
The original headline for this article was going to be a bit more vanilla—something along the lines of “Needs vs. Wants in Hi-Fi.” It was inspired by two conversations: one between me and SoundStage! founder Doug Schneider, another with my buddy Steven Guttenberg, the Audiophiliac, whose YouTube channel boasts an impressive 255,000 subscribers as I write this.
As I said in my August editorial, one of the most surprising things that I’ve discovered since adding vinyl playback to my reference system is that I really love the process of wet-cleaning LPs. Weird, I know. But it’s sort of half the fun of the hobby for me right now, whether I’m using my Big Fudge–branded Spin-Clean rip-off or the Record Doctor VI that will only really be mine once I’m finished making the $22/month loan payments to Affirm.
Let me make this clear from the start: I have not been caught in a sex scandal, my taxes are all paid up, and I’m not embezzling money from anybody. All of which I feel compelled to lay out, because those always seem to be the precursors to any conversion story. Which is why everyone hates such stories. But in a sense, it’s a conversion story that I’m writing here, much as I hate reading them myself.
Introduced back in 2022, Peachtree Audio’s Carina was a hell of an integrated amplifier that packed cutting-edge digital tech into an analog-looking wood cabinet that housed way more Hypex NCore amplification than nearly anybody needs. And it sold for a mere $1999 (all prices USD). So, in a sense, it’s somewhat surprising that the company has already introduced a successor—three of them, in fact: the $2999 Carina GaN, the $1499 Carina 150, and the bad boy we’re unboxing today, the $1999 Carina 300.
What do you do when you’re shopping for a product in a category you know nearly nothing about? It’s a question I’ve spent most of my career in hi-fi journalism attempting to answer, and it’s my hope that readers perceive me not as someone who tells them what to buy, but who helps them figure out how to decide what to buy.
Read more: A Vinyl-Apathist’s Quest for His Perfect First Turntable
In recent articles here on SoundStage! Access, I’ve made a couple of references to procuring an NAD C 3050 as my new reference integrated amplifier. I’ve had more than a few people ask me about the differences between the regular production model and the Limited Edition release I reviewed a little over a year ago.
Read more: NAD C 3050 vs. C 3050 LE—What Do You Lose If You Buy the Cheaper, Non-Limited Version?
On April 20, 2024, I rolled into the parking lot behind the brand-spanking-new Village Green Records in Montgomery, AL, armed with something that should never be part of any journalist’s toolkit: an agenda.
There’s something coy about the way Arcam designed the packaging for its new A25 integrated amplifier ($1499, all prices in USD). It’s clean but utilitarian. Its labels are sparse but precisely informative. There are no diagrams, no claims about performance specifications, no lists of supported formats or connectivity options. There isn’t even any indication that the power stage relies on an amp topology that many people have never heard of or experienced: class G.