Ken Micallef

Michael Ochs of Upstream Audio in Deerfield Beach, Florida, brought a sweet rig to FLAX that included the new Clearaudio Unity tonearm, allied with the Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable that I reviewed for Stereophile back in June 2022.

Just off covering the debut of new Fyne products at Resolution AV in New York, I sauntered into the Harmonia Distribution room, where the company’s vice president Jesse Luna held court, making great sounds from an engrossing collection of fine equipment.

Solid audiophile citizen Audio Note UK teamed with Miami dealer Soundlux Audio to produce ultra-sweet sounds. Soundlux Audio’s Eric Gould and coworker/compadre Frederico Unda calmly dealt with my early morning stress-brain syndrome, playing music through a system I know well!

Old friend Jonathan Halpern of Tone Imports and Elliot Goldman of Bending Wave are experts at show setups. While some exhibitors take perfectly good gear and set it up willy nilly, Jonathan and Elliot are old school, big eared/serious listening guys, and the sound of their room at the Florida International Audio Expo 2025 was what I expected: fantastic.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the MoFi Electronics MasterDeck turntable ($5995), as the brainchild of Allen Perkins in his role as MoFi's Chief Analog Designer, lies in the question of how his background as a jazz drummer has shaped his approach to turn table design. How does the rhythmic sensibility of a percussionist translate into the meticulous engineering of a turntable?

"It's a little complicated," Perkins wrote over email. "Being a drummer, I am sensitive to timing in music, so it makes me sensitive to problems. However, it does not provide any direction for solutions. It could be seen as an annoying awareness as a listener, like perfect pitch. In my case, it is an advantage because I love to solve problems, in general, so I persevere and have a built-in sense to assess what I've done."

In midsummer 2022, I reviewed the German-made Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable, a $30,000 vinyl virtuoso that played music with clear-headed realism, brain-opening transparency, and lifelike speed and dynamics. Its performance was nothing short of exhilarating. It was one of the top three turntables I had ever laid my ears upon.

Clearaudio's house sound, whether from the affordable to the mortgage-busting, is one of refinement, lucidity, clarity, precision, and quietness. Which brings us to the Clearaudio Signature turntable, a joint offering from Clearaudio GmbH and its US distributor, Musical Surroundings.

High-end audio product launches are often modest affairs. The unveiling, on December 5, 2024, of the Oneiros Audio loudspeaker ($650,000/pair) was an exception. A collaborative effort by Fidelis Distribution, Nexus Audio Technologies, and Sohmer Associates, the event, which occurred at the Power Station in NYC's Hell's Kitchen, apparently spared no expense.