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Reviews of Attainable Hi-Fi & Home-Theater Equipment

Most Popular Equipment

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 June 2024

Yamaha’s R-N1000A Network Receiver ($1799.95, all prices USD), as I said in my unboxing blog post, represents a trend in audio that I absolutely adore. It is, in a sense, a two-channel A/V receiver, what with its HDMI ARC connection, YPAO room correction, and subwoofer output with legitimate bass management, but it doesn’t compromise on pure two-channel performance to make such accommodations (well, for the most part—more on that in a bit).

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 May 2024

Vera-Fi Audio isn’t well known to most audiophiles, but the company sells an interesting range of products, some of them designed in-house, others sourced from outside vendors. A few of these products border on the bizarre. For example, there’s the Meow ($165, all prices in USD) from Tombo Audio in Thailand. The Meow looks like a cartoonish sculpture of a cat. Put a Meow on top of a component, and it “will omni-directionally reflect the sound in good order,” Vera-Fi says on its website. “After the noise is cleared, the frequency bandwidth is easily separated. The micro-detail and harmonic could be instantly perceived.”

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 May 2024

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

Reviewers' Choice I promise I’m here to review Marantz’s latest integrated amplifier, the Model 50, and not to relitigate a previous review. Before I get into the specifics of this evaluation, though, let me paint you a picture of what went through my head as I sat down to start writing it. A few years back, when my review of Marantz’s Model 40n network integrated amplifier–DAC went live, someone posted a link to it on Reddit, prompting a response from a Redditor named /u/mourning_wood_again, who thought he caught me slipping:

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 April 2024

Reviewers' Choice Parts Express’s Dayton Audio operation is a major supplier of speaker components as well as audio testing and measurement tools, and has recently expanded its offerings of home audio products, many of them at exceptional prices. Their latest offering is the TT-1 manual turntable, which comes with a factory-mounted Audio-Technica AT-VM95E cartridge.

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 April 2024

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

Reviewers' Choice Going into a product review knowing exactly what you’re in for can be simultaneously comforting and a bit boring. Going into a review feeling confident that you know exactly what you’re in for and being thrown for a bit of a loop, on the other hand, can be thrilling and embarrassing in equal measure. That’s exactly what happened to me during my time with PSB’s new Imagine B50 loudspeakers ($699/pair, all prices USD).

Read more: PSB Imagine B50 Loudspeaker

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 March 2024

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

For readers who aren’t familiar with Living Sounds Audio (LSA), the brand is owned by Underwood HiFi, a Hawaii-based, internet-only provider of home audio equipment. Its owner, Walter Liederman, was a longtime executive with HiFi Buys, an Atlanta-based audio chain. When HiFi Buys was sold in the late 1990s, Liederman struck out on his own, working as a consultant for brands such as Infinity and Acoustic Research. Later, he began selling closeouts, B-stock, and discontinued audio gear for companies that did not want to market such products through their normal distribution systems.

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 March 2024

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

Reviewers' Choice It’s a funny old thing, seeing legitimate buzz about any piece of hi-fi gear these days, but in the past year we’ve seen oodles of noise about not one, but two very different stereo integrated amplifiers—and for very different reasons. The NAD C 3050 ($1399, all prices in USD) I’ve discussed to death already, and I’m going to be discussing it more soon since I’m buying one and plan on doing a comparison with the LE version I reviewed last year. The other, as you’ve likely already guessed from the headline, is Dayton Audio’s HTA200 ($349.98), which—along with its little sibling, the HTA100—is garnering a lot of noise for its hybrid tube design, its ample power, its connectivity, and its ridiculously low price.

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 February 2024

Back in July 2017, I reviewed the Fluance RT81 turntable, which I thought was a really good choice for its price ($249.99, all prices in USD). Amazingly, in 2024, it still sells for the same amount. Recently, Fluance introduced a tricked-out version of the RT81 called the RT-81+, which retails for $299.99.

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 February 2024

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

First impressions carry a lot of weight, but they’re not everything. And thank goodness for that, because I didn’t get off on the right foot with Technics’ new Grand Class SU-GX70—an amp I now positively adore. To be fair, most of my quibbles could be filed under the category of “vibes.” As I mentioned in my unboxing blog post, I want a Technics integrated amp to look like a swanky retro throwback, and the SU-GX70 ($1999.95, all prices USD) just evokes any number of nondescript black boxes that have cycled through my system over the years. Worse still, one of my first tactile interactions with the unit was when I gave the volume control a twist only to find that it felt like dragging a wooden spoon through half-crystalized honey.

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 January 2024

My introduction to the Fluance brand occurred over ten years ago, when I reviewed their XL7F tower, a three-way speaker with an 8″ woofer, two 6.5″ midrange drivers, and a 1″ silk-dome tweeter. At $469.95 per pair (all prices USD), I thought it was an incredible bargain.