News

Friday, February 1, 2–5pm, and Saturday, February 2, 1–5pm, Big Kids Toys AV (1413 Garland Drive, Greensboro, NC 27408) is holding listening sessions. Products being showcased will include Luxman's L-505uXii integrated amplifier and new PD-151 turntable, as well as loudspeakers from Triangle, including the Magellan Cello, and the Esprit Australe EZ and Esprit Titus EZ.

Roon, one of the major brands of audiophile-quality high-resolution music playback software, has just released its v.1.6 upgrade. Roon 1.6 finally includes a portal for hi-rez streaming Qobuz, whose US launch is rumored for sometime next month. In addition to pairing Roon's rich metadata with the entire Qobuz and Tidal catalogs, the upgrade also offers major new features.

Saturday, January 26, 5–9pm, The Audio Guy (1590 E. Business 121, Building 2, Suite 500, Lewisville, TX 75056) is having an open house with VPI Industries president Mat Weisfeld, who be giving a sneak peek at the new limited-edition HW40 turntable. Michael Vamos will be on hand to demo the GamuT RS5i speakers and other vendor reps will also demonstrate some of their latest offerings. And singer/songwriter Robynn Shayne will be performing some of her latest music!

Hitting newsstands, mailboxes, and tablets today, the February Stereophile features its renowned "Records2Die4" feature, now in its 28th year! The magazine's editors and writers each recommend two recordings that they couldn't live without—the 46 albums reviewed this month would be the basis of a great audiophile music collection. Ayre's EX-8 "Integrated Hub" amplifier is featured on the cover and also reviewed in this issue are speakers from Revel and Audio Physic; amplifiers from Air Tight, CH Precision, and First Watt; and tonearms from Swedish Analog Technologies and Sorane. And don't miss Herb Reichert's account of his visit last fall to amplifier maven Nelson Pass.

Saturday,January 5, 1:30–4:30pm, the Pacific Northwest Audio Society (Congregational Church, 4545 Island Crest Way, Mercer Island, WA 98040) is holding a J-Corder Technics event. The free analog source workshop will showcase the Reference Series 2018 products from Technics, including the SL-1000R Reference Class turntable and modified RS-1500 legacy open-reel tape recorder.

Friday December 14, at 3pm and 6pm, Fidelis (460 Amherst Street, Nashua, NH 03063) are presenting "An Afternoon with Michael Fremer" (above). Saturday, December 15, 11am–3pm, House of Stereo (8780 Perimeter Park Ct #100, Jacksonville, FL 32216) are hosting their 2019 KEF Product Launch event.

Yes, the January 2019 issue of Stereophile is hitting newsstands, mailboxes, and tablets this week. And to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our going from a digest-sized publication to a full-sized one, we have recreated the cover of the January 1994 issue, the "musicality vs accuracy" debate as strong today as it was a quarter-century ago. The 25th anniversary edition of the same Cary tube amplifier is featured on the cover and in this issue's review section, but instead of the solid-state Krell we had on the 1994 cover, we have the solid-state Cambridge Edge A integrated amplifier which is also reviewed in this issue.