News

Thursday, March 3, 6:30pm–8:30pm, Adirondack Audio & Video (340 East 57th Street, Suite 1D, New York City) and Saturday, March 5, 2pm–5pm, Value Electronics (35 Popham Road, Scarsdale) will be hosting the first public demonstrations of Technics' highly-anticipated SL-1200GAE turntable.

This Thursday evening, March 3, Definitive Audio (6206 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle) celebrates its 40th anniversary with a four-hour Music Matters extravaganza filled with top-level product debuts and celebrity designers. The 5pm–9pm event, complete with rotating 20-minute presentations and lots of food and refreshments, promises the world debuts of the Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 loudspeaker, the Wilson Audio Alexx loudspeaker, and the Dan D'Agostino Progression Series electronics.

GoldenEar's president and chief designer, Sandy Gross (above) will be appearing at Electronics Expo (491 US 46 West, Wayne, New Jersey) on Saturday February 27, from 1pm–5pm. Sandy will be demonstrating new GoldenEar products, including the Triton Two+ and Triton Three+ tower speakers and the SuperSub XXL, as well as GoldenEar's flagship Triton One.

The musical and technical excellence of the 2016 Grammy Award winners makes this a great year for audiophiles. Not only are 28 of the albums / compositions that won awards in multiple categories available for download from HDTracks, virtually all in hi-rez (from 44.1/24 to 192/24), but just as many if not more are available for streaming and download in hi-rez and/or full CD quality from both ClassicsOnlineHD and Tidal.

Metronome’s CD8 S, which adds digital inputs to the French company’s well-regarded CD player, graces our March issue’s cover. As is often the case these days, we loved the sound but hated the measured performance—madness indeed! Melco’s affordable server and Merging’s expensive network-connected NADAC multichannel D/A processor get our nod of approval, as do class-D amplifiers from Theta, NAD, and Spec, while Herb Reichert finds much to enjoy with Simaudio’s Moon Neo 340i integrated amp. And on the music side of things, Robert Baird praises Acoustic Sounds’ new stereo releases of classic Beach Boys albums and John Atkinson reacts to a recent report that classical music recordings will soon disappear. That would be madness!

High-End retailer AudioVisionSF (1628 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94109) is having what it calls a "Big Free Event!!" Thursday February, 7:30–9:30pm, featuring the Devialet Limited Edition Reference LE900 Original d'Atelier 900Wpc Integrated Amp/DAC/Phonostage. Only 100 of the LE900 were produced worldwide, and the amplifier features a new 900W D-amp, class-A evolution circuit with updated transistors, a new filter board, and an enhanced power supply, The event will also feature YG Acoustics loudspeakers, Clearaudio turntables, and Nordost cables.

Meridian Audio's hotly anticipated firmware update for its MQA-ready electronics has arrived. Starting February 4, owners of Meridian's Explorer² DAC (above), Prime headphone amplifier, 808v6 Reference CD player, 818v3 Reference Audio Core, Special Edition loudspeakers and 40th Anniversary systems will be able to upgrade their products and hear the full benefits that MQA-encoded files can deliver.