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Audio-Technica AT-VM95ML Phono Cartridge

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 January 2026

In April 2025, I reviewed the Technics SL‑100C turntable, which came factory-equipped with the Audio‑Technica AT‑VM95E moving-magnet cartridge—a cartridge that features an elliptical stylus. However, by the time I purchased my own SL‑100C a few months later, Technics had downgraded the bundled cartridge to an AT‑VM95C, which has a conical stylus. I felt like that was akin to putting the engine of a Fiat 600 into a Ferrari: it might work, but it won’t exploit the full capabilities of the host. I promptly swapped out the AT‑VM95C in favor of my Goldring E4 cartridge with its elliptical nude-diamond stylus.

First Look: iFi Audio Zen DAC 3

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 15 January 2026

If you’re of the opinion that looks don’t matter when it comes to hi-fi gear, it should go without saying that I very much disagree. If you lean toward thinking that looks do matter but only differentiate pricier audiophile components, I’ve also got a bit of a bone to pick with you. And I sort of feel like I can simply point to any of iFi Audio’s Zen components—the Zen DAC 3 digital-to-analog converter and headphone amp (US$229, CA$279, £229, €229), for example—and rest my case.

A Complete Contrarian’s All-Time Favorite Records (Part Two)

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 January 2026

Y’all, I lied. In Part One of my list of favorite albums list, I indicated that only the record in the top spot was immovable, and everything else was arbitrary—that anything from the first list could swap places with anything on the second (at the time unpublished) list, and it wouldn’t really matter. And in my defense, I believed that at the time I wrote it. But as I stepped back to re-read the first article in preparation for writing this follow-up, I realized there was, indeed, a bimodal distribution of the albums contained in these two lists.

DALI Kupid Loudspeaker

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 January 2026

Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada’s National Research Council can be found through this link.

Reviewers' Choice As I’ve said on any number of occasions lately, my barometer for value has become completely uncalibrated. Every trip to the grocery store involves sticker shock. Homeowners’ insurance deductibles have climbed so high that I may as well not have said insurance, if not for the fact that total devastation is becoming increasingly likely due to an increasingly angry climate. Panera Bread—long my favorite cheap fast-food restaurant—now seems like a bougie indulgence.

First Look: DALI Kupid Bookshelf Loudspeakers

Details: Written by: Super User; Created: 15 December 2025

Here’s something for you young ’uns in the audience to look forward to. As I was preparing to unbox the new DALI Kupid bookshelf speakers (US$600, CA$600, £299, €339 per pair), I thought to myself that it’s been months since my last DALI review. Maybe even over a year? Could that be possible?

A Complete Contrarian’s All-Time Favorite Records (Part One)

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 December 2025

Of all the phrases to enter the common parlance in the past few decades, perhaps none has been so misused and misunderstood as “meme.” In the internet age, it has come to mean intertextual images or GIFs posted on social media mostly for the lulz.

Kaleidescape Strato E Movie Player

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 December 2025

Of all the companies that I’ve tracked over the course of my career in A/V, perhaps none has evolved and changed more than Kaleidescape. As I said in my blog post covering the unboxing of the company’s Strato E movie player (US$2995, CA$4495, £3399), the first Kaleidescape system I reviewed was a massive, $32,000, 100-pound, multi-component system that shipped in a road case with an integrated rack and also came with a preprogrammed Crestron control system and touchscreen. Its RAID array was there to store DVDs that you ripped yourself, using the included disc transport, and they were massive spinning things, not the smaller 2.5″ SATA drives and M.2 NVMe drives we’re used to these days.

Electrohome Montrose RR36 Wireless Turntable and McKinley 2.0 Powered Speaker System

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 November 2025

Do you have any family members or friends who are wrecking their hearing with earbuds constantly on meltdown volumes, who listen to miserable-sounding Bluetooth speakers, or who just want to get into vinyl? Perhaps this review will point them in the right direction.

First Look: Kaleidescape Strato E

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 15 November 2025

Content warning: this unboxing blog post is going to sound like some Boomer B.S. right from the get-go, but I can’t help devolving into back-in-my-day reminiscence every time a new piece of Kaleidescape gear crosses my threshold. If you’re not familiar with the company, it makes movie servers and players—like the new Strato E (US$2995, CA$4495, £3399)—although what that means has changed quite a bit over the decades.

Kayfabe in the Audiophile Community

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 November 2025

Let me just warn you right from the giddy‑up: I’m going to be throwing some weird-sounding vocabulary at you here. But the concepts are simple, and I promise it’ll all make sense in the end. At least I hope it will.

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