Clik here to view.
Kalista DreamPlay One CD player
Some of my reviewer colleagues would have you believe that negative reviews are the most difficult of all to write, and that positive reviews fairly write themselves. What nonsense! As I write this, my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ATC CDA2 Mk2 CD player-preamplifier
In the early 1990s, the Compact Disc was all the rage, and vinyl records were being executed en masse. Thirty years later, and oh, how our tables have turned. Mint first pressings of tenor saxophonist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
dCS Rossini Transport SACD/CD transport
The good-sounding products that pass through a reviewer's system fall into three categories: those he liked but felt little sense of loss about when they were sent back to the manufacturer or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Exposure CD Player
Exposure owner/designer John Farlowe graduated from the UK's University of Sussex at the end of the swinging '60s. He put his B.Sc in electronic engineering to use at HiWatt, manufacturers of tube...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Mod Squad Prism CD player
While it can't exactly be said that the folks from The Mod Squad invented the game of audiophile modifications of existing, current-production hardware, they certainly have grown to be one of the major...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Four 3rd-Generation CD players: Adcom, Magnavox, Onkyo, Yamaha
I once told Stereophile publisher Larry Archibald it might be worth, say, a 10% loss in sound quality with CD not to have to jump up and turn over the damned record. Sometimes a CD saves you from...
View ArticleSumo Axiom CD transport & Theorem II D/A processor
Making digital audio sound good appears to be a much more difficult job than its developers first realized. When digital audio was in its infancy, there was a tendency to think that digital either...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gryphon Ethos CD player-D/A processor
What kind of creature is this? Gryphon Audio Designs' new Ethos ($39,000)—pronounced EE-toss by its Danish manufacturers—is marketed as a CD player and digital-to-analog converter. It's decidedly au...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tandberg 3015A CD player
Tandberg of Norway has a rather ambiguous corporate image among audio perfectionists. Long considered to make some of the best tape-recording equipment around, the firm has never been seen as a leader...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Métronome Technologie AQWO SACD/CD transport and D/A processor
In an era when polar opposites compete as absolutes, it can be a challenge to acknowledge the different and equally valid ways in which audiophiles approach musical truth. But the reality is that our...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Quad Artera Solus integrated amplifier/CD player
The Quad Electroacoustics Ltd. Artera Solus is a multifunction audio component that was designed to look smart on top of a bureau in a living room or office. It comes with a thick, removable...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Denon DCD-2560 CD player
My first CD player was a Denon DCD-1800, the grandpappy of 'em all. It was big, clunky, and sounded like, well, you can read back issues to find out what it sounded like. But I was living in a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Luxman D-105u CD player
The $1200 D-105u, the top of Luxman's CD-player line, is novel in its twin-triode vacuum-tube amplification in the analog output stage. This configuration is said to provide high linearity with low...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bow Technologies ZZ-Eight CD player
"Something's coming, I don't know what it is, but it is gonna be great!"—Tony, West Side Story While the Sharks and the Jets rumble in the consumer electronics playground, knife-fighting for supremacy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
California Audio Labs Tercet Mk.III CD player
At $1295, the Tercet Mk.III represents a step up from CAL's $750 Icon, which I enthusiastically recommended back in April 1990 (Vol.13 No 4, footnote 1). Externally, with the exception of a wider and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Three December 2020 FollowUps
Three products are the subjects of lengthy followup reviews in the December issue of Stereophile: MBL's Noble Line N31 CD player-D/A processor, the GoldenEar BRX loudspeaker, and Alta Audio's Alyssa...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ATC CDA2 Mk2 CD player-preamplifier
In the early 1990s, the Compact Disc was all the rage, and vinyl records were being executed en masse. Thirty years later, and oh, how our tables have turned. Mint first pressings of tenor saxophonist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
dCS Rossini Transport SACD/CD transport
The good-sounding products that pass through a reviewer's system fall into three categories: those he liked but felt little sense of loss about when they were sent back to the manufacturer or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Exposure CD Player
Exposure owner/designer John Farlowe graduated from the UK's University of Sussex at the end of the swinging '60s. He put his B.Sc in electronic engineering to use at HiWatt, manufacturers of tube...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Mod Squad Prism CD player
While it can't exactly be said that the folks from The Mod Squad invented the game of audiophile modifications of existing, current-production hardware, they certainly have grown to be one of the major...
View Article