Jim Austin

DeVore Fidelity Gibbon X loudspeaker

Jim Austin Feb 12, 2019

In 2008, a pair of DeVore Fidelity's Gibbon Nine loudspeakers arrived at my home for a Follow-Up review. Within weeks, I wrote a check for them. That put me in good company: Several other reviewers who reviewed the Nines also bought their review pairs.

Ten years later, the Gibbon Nines are still my main speakers. That's the longest I've ever kept a pair of speakers in my main system, not counting the Polk Audio 7Bs I bought in 1980, when I was 16.

Features Think Pieces

Snake Oil: A Short History

Jim Austin Dec 04, 2018

If there's one thing audiophiles agree on, it's that snake oil is badeven if they can't agree about what snake oil actually is.

In audio, snake oil means fake science or fake technologyanything that's claimed to improve the sound of a system but that looks like an obvious rip-off. For some people, expensive speaker cables and interconnects are snake oil. A few objectivists consider AC power treatments snake oil: most modern audio components, after all, can correct for AC line-voltage flaws and reject "ripple" in a power supply's output. A handful of hard-core objectivists maintain that every new digital technology since the advent of the Compact Disc is snake oil.

NY Audio Show 2018

Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and the New York Audio Show

Jim Austin Nov 14, 2018

Late on Friday at the New York Audio Show, I found myself explaining to an audiophile friend, also in attendance, my reaction to the big room sponsored by ESD Acoustic, and to their huge, extravagant, ostentatious five-way horn systemthe one my colleagues Sasha Matson and Ken Micallef described in detail, and about which my colleague Herb Reichert contrasted his favorable experience here in New York with his unfavorable experience at the 2018 Munich show.

NY Audio Show 2018

Sunday at the NYAS with Jim Austin

Jim Austin Nov 12, 2018

The last time I covered the New York Audio Show it was not, frankly, a great experience. The show was really small. It seemed like everyone was playing Diana Krall or some pop-classical piece from an audiophile label. Nobody, it seemed, dared to play interesting music.

Powerline Accessory Reviews

PS Audio DirectStream Power Plant 20 AC regenerator

Jim Austin Nov 06, 2018

When I reviewed PS Audio's PerfectWave P10 Power Plant AC Regenerator,1 I found that it significantly improved the way music sounded through my system. I bought one. The main limitations I found with the P10 were its powera maximum continuous load of 1200 volt-amps (VA, footnote 1)and the number of AC outlets it provides: 10. When driving a 4 ohm load at even half its rated power, one PS Audio BHK 300 monoblock consumes 800Wand while 10 outlets sounds like a lot, I've run out more than once.

Interviews Reference

Power According to Pass

Jim Austin Nov 01, 2018

Virtually all of the active components in your systemDACs, preamplifiers, power amplifierswork by modulating the DC output of their power supplies with an AC music signal. Surely, then, the more perfect your household AC is, the more perfect your audio system's output will be. Analogies aboundto dirty water used in distilling good whiskey, to inferior thread used to weave fine fabricsand all amount to the same thing: you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Features

Noise, Resolution & Benchmark

Jim Austin Oct 02, 2018

The most notable aspect of Benchmark Media Systems' DAC3 HGC ($2195), which I favorably reviewed in the November 2017 Stereophile (footnote 1), is its low noise floor. John Atkinson's measurements corroborated Benchmark's claim that the DAC3 is capable of "at least" 21-bit performance. While significantly less than the theoretical potential of a 24-bit data format, 21 bits is still the state of the art, and corresponds to a dynamic rangethe ratio of the highest achievable digital-domain volume to the DAC's internal noiseof 128dB. That's well above the dynamic range that most power amplifiers can achieve. A good-measuring high-end solid-state amplifier is likely to have a dynamic rangethe highest attainable ratio of signal to noiseof about 100dB ref. its maximum power.

Music and Recording Features My Back Pages

What's Wrong With Classical Record Reviews

Jim Austin Sep 18, 2018

I attend at least a couple of dozen classical-music performances each year. I also read reviews of recordings and live performances, and have even dabbled in writing them. Why, then, do I find classical music reviews so frequently annoying?

It's the vocabulary. In these reviews I often see words that I rarely see used elsewhere: scintillating, irresistible, delightful. One venerable reviewer for Gramophone magazine has used the word "beguiling" 100 times in some 900 reviews. When I read such words, I envision the poor music critic writhing in his (occasionally her) listening chair, approaching an involuntary state of aesthetic ecstasy. It isn't a pretty image.

Phono Cartridge Reviews

Ortofon Xpression pickup head

Jim Austin Aug 21, 2018

I listen to music in all formats, but my most ecstatic home listening experiences have always involved vinyl. It's probably something to do with the fact that, like most people my age and older, I grew up listening to LPsin my case, played on a Technics SL-210 turntable, and through an Aiwa receiver with beautiful green tuner lights and a pair of early Polk Audio studio monitors. I'm drawn, surely, to an improved version of the sound I heard back then. It's a powerful sentimental connection.

Media Server Reviews Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Apple HomePod smart speaker

Jim Austin Jul 17, 2018

It's after 5pm on Wednesday, and I'm finishing up the listening part of my review of Apple's wireless speaker, the HomePod ($349). On a whim, I've just asked Siri to play me some drinking songs.

I mention this because the HomePod's "smart" featuresits integration with Siri and the Apple Music streaming serviceis a big part of its appeal. In its natural element, the HomePod provides a way of accessing music that, although as old as our century, to me is still new and unfamiliar: Forget your hoary music collection, your Rolling Stones and Beethoven. Decide what kind of music you want to heara genre or a moodthen leave the choice to Siri and her algorithmic minions.