I'd been curious about Phiaton's headphones ever since Wes Phillips's positive review of the radical-looking, leather-clad <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/phiaton_moderna_ms_400_headphones… MS 400</a> appeared in our pages earlier this year, so when I learned that a couple of Phiaton's executives would be in New York City to introduce their new noise-cancelling 'phones, I was eager to check them out.
Clad in red leather and light as a feather, the frigging luscious <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/phiaton_moderna_ms_400_headphones… Moderna MS 400</a> headphones have a way of caressing your silly skull.
The Phiaton PS 300 NC headphones ($299) use Valves of the Heart Sound Technology (VHST) to control airflow into and out of the headphone speakers.
The Phiaton PS 200 sound-isolating earphones cost $249 and are designed to resemble jet engines! John Atkinson is working on a review.
Your sweet shadow still hangs on my cold walls, rests on my dusty shelves, smiles at me from old photos. She and I danced all night long to Marvin Gaye's <i>Let's Get It On.</i>
The music begins before he arrives. There are horns and hollers and hand claps. Then comes the MC: "Right now, ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to introduce the star of our show, the young man you've all been waiting for, Mister Soul! So, what d'you say? Let's all get together and welcome him to the stage with a great, big hand! How 'bout it?! How 'bout it?!"
In the March 2008 <I>Stereophile</I> (Vol.31 No.3), I <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/308cay">wrote favorably</A> about the A-50T integrated amplifier from the Chinese company Cayin Audio. I was very impressed with its sound, appearance, and construction quality for the price: $1295. This positive experience led me to look into what other products Cayin's importer, VAS Industries, distributes here. More often than not, when a keen ear imports an interesting product into the US, that ear has also heard the good sounds of other products, as attested by the diverse product lines of distributors such as Music Hall and Sumiko. It turns out that VAS distributes Chinese loudspeakers made by Aurum Cantus, including seven two-channel models. I chose the entry-level design, the two-way V2M bookshelf speaker ($1890/pair), which combines a ribbon tweeter with a dynamic mid-woofer cone.
The vinyl boom is one thing, but do analog-loving audiophiles actually buy new records? How about you? Do you buy new LP records?
I was having breakfast in my hotel room on December 13, 2008, finally getting down to preparing the presentation I was to give at the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society scant hours later (footnote 1). I procrastinated a little more by checking my e-mail one more time. The message from Ivor Humphreys, once my deputy editor at the UK's <I>Hi-Fi News & Record Review</I> magazine (now just plain <I>Hi-Fi News</I>), and for many years technical editor at <I>Gramophone</I> magazine, was typically terse: "John Crabbe has died. He had a fall on the wintry ice a few days ago and broke an arm. He died at home yesterday. He was 79."
You've seen the ads from YG Acoustics: "The best loudspeaker on Earth. Period." It sounds arrogant. But come on—high-end audio has never been a field of shrinking violets. When <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1101ivor">Ivor Tiefenbrun</A> of Linn announced that the turntable, not the cartridge or loudspeakers, dictated the sound quality of an audio system, that was a man convinced that he was right and taking on the world. And was Krell's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1203dagostino">Dan D'Agostino</A> any less arrogant when, in 1980, he introduced the KSA-100 power amplifier? In a world where small size and high wattage were the norms, didn't it take a pair of big brass 'uns to bring out a honkin' huge slab of metal that put out only 100Wpc?