THE REVIEWS
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ABYSS AB1266 PHI TC - REVIEW
I think that I’ve said it all. The Abyss AB1266 Phi TC is a phenomenal headphone. It brings an undying passion for musicality and a ferocity for transparency and clarity and detail retrieval, formerly the domain of the best electrostatic headphones. But this planar headphone speaks that language—electrostatic—fluently and well.
AURORA HEADA HPA - REVIEW
The Aurorasound HEADA headphone amplifier is musical from ‘Square One’, ‘Jump Street’, ‘Scratch’, or, practically, as soon as you turn it on, though it gets worlds better thereafter. It is a beautifully, carefully designed endgame component to pass down. Or perhaps to take to the other side. Solid state dynamics, resolution, detail retrieval, and spaciousness married to tube liquidity…
DENAFRIPS TERMINATOR II DAC - REVIEW
The DENAFRIPS Terminator II checks all of the required music lover and audiophile boxes easily and well and is a prodigious talent, especially when its price is taken into account. DACs within its ‘ambient’ pricing circle should take pause and perhaps never agree to a side by side comparison, lest they suffer a humiliating defeat.
ZMF ATRIUM - REVIEW
Wow! I’ve just come upon a headphone—the ZMF Atrium—that bridges three separate headphone technologies/worlds in a single form. And not in a slipshod fashion, given that it rises to TOTL status across all three worlds and at nearly half to one third the cost of the reigning TOTLs. Further, it does all of the above while being absolutely gorgeous.
BRICASTI DESIGN M1SE - REVIEW
The Bricasti Design M1SE has proven itself even beyond what the research had led me to believe. Perhaps it was the synergy conjured up by so many exceptional reference components at the time of its review. And, no doubt, the M1SE’s prodigious ability as a high fidelity DAC with a host of options—15(!)—so as to be tailored for most, if not all listening preferences, is but another star for its abilities.
GRIMM AUDIO MU1 - REVIEW
The Grimm Audio MU1 streamer is easily at the forefront of technological progress and stands as testament to the fact that high-fidelity musical reproduction is light years ahead of where it was just a few short years ago, let alone the days of my youth. But that is only half of the picture!
BLUE HAWAII SPECIAL EDITION - REVIEW
The first thing one notices about the Blue Hawaii SE is its naturalness, its ease, and its gravitas—or its ability to put flesh on the bones of real performers/performances across the frequency spectrum—its palpability. There is no thinness, nor ghost-like apparitions wafting about the stage with hollow voices. There is instead the solidity of female and male vocalists, a strummed viola-de-gamba, a plucked upright bass, a raging Steinway, etc.