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 ...

The quest to review the Pearl Acoustics Model One began at the 2025 Montreal Audiofest, which I was covering for Stereophile. It was there I crossed paths in a hallway with Galion Audio's Thomas Tan, ...

Playing Frank Sinatra on a Dual CD 529 turntable fitted with an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge through the Vienna Acoustics Schubert Grand Sonata loudspeakers in this Playback Distribution room at Audio ...

Sono Luminus DSL-92290 (CD; reviewed as 24/96). 2026. Ryan Streber, producer, editing; Dan Shores engineering, mixing, mastering. More than two years after its Brooklyn premiere, Terry Riley's ...

After Luxman's Masakazu Nagatsuma (shown above) walked me through all the company's gear in this most impressive system put together at AXPONA 2026 by Rhythm Audio, I settled in for a full demo. The ...

In the opinion of this hi-fi reviewer, the debate over the efficacy of audio-quality network switches should be over. As logic would dictate, when connections are made via a network switch, the ...

The Western Electric room at AXPONA 2026 (room 464) is one of those rooms that make you feel you have traveled in time the moment you see it. Charles Whitener, tube expert and Western Electric CEO, ...

Geez, they're big! The Arendal 1528 Tower 8, the premier model in Arendal's new 1528 loudspeaker line, reached higher than my chin and weighed roughly 200lb unpacked; you can add another 100lb or so ...

($3699.99/pair; reviewed by Kalman Rubinson & Tom Fine in Vol.48 Nos.4 & 6, April & June 2025 review) The Buckeye amplifier uses an Eigentakt 1ET9040BA output stage, the most powerful of Purifi's ...

I think I just found the perfect Herb speaker. It uses a hand-crafted 5" wide-range driver with a cone made from Japanese calligraphy paper. It rolls off around 50Hz at the bottom and 30kHz at the top ...

Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable. Occasionally we get complaints ...

Taste is a funny thing. Love cilantro? Millions swear it tastes like soap. Similarly, design cognoscenti will gush over a minimalist Scandinavian sofa that others dismiss as just a pricey plank with ...