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Monday, August 25, 2025

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: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 01 February 2024

Audionet’s Humboldt integrated amplifier ($58,750, all prices USD) is one of the most imposing amplifiers I’ve ever reviewed. For starters, it’s the most expensive product that’s taken up residence in my listening room by quite some margin. The Humboldt is also physically imposing, weighing in at just over 134 pounds and measuring 12.6″H × 17.8″W × 19.9″D. To put it mildly, it’s a brute.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Created: 15 January 2024

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (see what I did there?), I’d like to tell you about a new optical cartridge from DS Audio—the DS-W3. As some of you may know, I’ve spent the last year or so listening to the DS 003 optical cartridge, which is mounted on my VPI Prime Signature turntable. I’ve written extensively about this technology, which, while it isn’t exactly new, has recently surfaced as the Next Big Thing in analog playback. I’ll lay my cards on the table right now—I’ve been smitten by these cartridges.

: Written by: Jonathan Gorse; Created: 01 January 2024

Reviewers' Choice Design and technology

Wales isn’t well known for its audio manufacturers, but Leema Acoustics and subwoofer specialist REL Acoustics are doing their best to change all that. Leema can trace its origins back to 1998, when its two founders, ex-BBC engineers Lee Taylor and Mallory Nicholls, came together to design their first loudspeaker, the Xen. This project took four years of intensive and innovative development, resulting in a small loudspeaker that—the company claims—can outperform speaker systems many times its size. The Xen was squarely aimed at the professional audio market for mixing and related applications, but the firm soon realized it had a product that hi-fi enthusiasts desired, too.

: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 01 December 2023

Reviewers' Choice Tokyo-based Technical Audio Devices Laboratories (a.k.a. TAD) is a company I’ve long admired. My first exposure to the brand occurred over a decade ago at CES in Las Vegas, Nevada—the first electronics show I ever covered. TAD’s room in the Venetian Hotel, where the high-end audio exhibits were housed, featured their Reference One mk2 flagship loudspeaker, finished in gorgeous Beryl Red. I was gobsmacked by the outstanding clarity of its beryllium tweeter, which was nestled in the middle of a beryllium midrange in a coaxial configuration. Because I was mainly covering budget gear back then, the notion of reviewing a pair of TAD speakers seemed as remote as Pluto. But the seed had been planted. This year, when TAD demoed their new Compact Evolution One TX ($32,500 per pair, all prices in USD) at the Florida International Audio Expo in February, I got to meet the TAD team, including CEO Shinji Tarutani. Several months later, a pair landed on my doorstep. Game on.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Created: 15 November 2023

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

Marcia likes to wake up earlier than I do. On weekdays she gets up around 5:30 a.m. and writes in her journal for about 45 minutes. She sits in our darkened living room, and she lights about a half-dozen candles, including one thick beeswax job that ends up with a giant wick.

: Written by: Jonathan Gorse; Created: 01 November 2023

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reviewing Chord Electronics’ new Ultima Pre 3 preamplifier. Along with the Ultima preamp, Chord shipped me the subject of this review: the matching Ultima 6 power amplifier ($9925, all prices in USD). My first encounter with these components was in February this year at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show. I was impressed enough with what I heard to request review samples.

: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 15 October 2023

Reviewers' Choice You’d be forgiven for looking at Vivid Audio’s Giya G3 Series 2 loudspeaker ($43,000 per pair, $45,500 per pair as reviewed; all prices USD) and thinking it seems more like an exercise straight out of a design student’s sketchbook than a serious attempt at creating a state-of-the-art loudspeaker. But lead designer Laurence Dickie—the brains behind former employer Bowers & Wilkins’s Matrix cabinet-bracing system and the English firm’s iconic Nautilus loudspeaker—wouldn’t have it any other way. “It’s always easy to draw parallels between the automotive and audio sectors, and if that’s fair, I like to compare Vivid Audio with Citroën of the 1950s and 1960s,” Dickie told me. “The Citroën DS was a very curvaceous, aerodynamic design with an awful lot of engineering innovation, and its shape really did divide people. There are those who dismissed it as a frog on wheels, but I like to think we’re [like Citroën]. We’re not afraid of sticking our necks out.”

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Created: 01 October 2023

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

In this strange time of instant gratification, instant retrieval of information, same-day delivery of purchased goods, and honest-to-god artificial intelligences, it’s good to slow down and return to a simpler age. I’m not suggesting that you start to churn your own butter, but sometimes it’s good to turn off all that stuff and subtract a century from your lifestyle, if only for a few hours.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Created: 15 September 2023

My friend Rich visits often. He’s got a smoking system at home, loves music and gear, and is always looking for ways to improve the sound in his listening room. Just recently he came over for a listen with his brother-in-law, who’s far more grounded, down to earth, and money conscious than Rich, me, or likely anyone else who’s reading this review.

: Written by: Jonathan Gorse; Created: 01 September 2023

History, development, and technology

As an aviator and audio reviewer, it never ceases to amaze me how many luminaries in hi-fi have an aviation background. SME’s CEO, Stuart McNeilis, spent decades as a senior aeronautical engineer at British Aerospace; and for many years, SME has supplied components for the Martin-Baker ejector seats used by air forces worldwide. John Franks, founder and chief design engineer at Chord Electronics, previously worked on aircraft electronics for Marconi Avionics. John’s specialty was ultra-high-frequency power supplies, and he used his expertise in this area to develop the concept of dynamic coupling: linking an amplifier’s power supply rails together in a specialized high-frequency transformer. The strong magnetic flux in this arrangement prevents the short-term distortions associated with high currents feeding back into the ground loop of an amplifier. The result is a fast and agile amplifier with a transparent sound. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised to find so many aerospace engineers in audio, given that aviation demands the very highest standards—such skills transfer very well into designing and building high-end audio equipment.