Parts Express’s Dayton Audio operation is a major supplier of speaker components as well as audio testing and measurement tools, and has recently expanded its offerings of home audio products, many of them at exceptional prices. Their latest offering is the TT-1 manual turntable, which comes with a factory-mounted Audio-Technica AT-VM95E cartridge.

Sometimes, I like to approach a new review product as if I had encountered it in the wild, unawares, even if I know exactly what I’m getting ahead of time. And when I look at the packaging for Yamaha’s R-N1000A streaming stereo receiver ($1799.95, in USD) in that frame of mind, I have to admit that my first thought is to wonder whether this is a piece designed with the A/V market or the hi-fi crowd in mind.

As some of you know, I await the publication of my own hardware reviews like a kid anticipates Christmas—not because I want to re-read my own words, but because that’s when I finally get to see our measurement specialist Diego Estan’s objective data for the first time. I see those measurements when you do, dear reader, and not a minute before.

Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.

Going into a product review knowing exactly what you’re in for can be simultaneously comforting and a bit boring. Going into a review feeling confident that you know exactly what you’re in for and being thrown for a bit of a loop, on the other hand, can be thrilling and embarrassing in equal measure. That’s exactly what happened to me during my time with PSB’s new Imagine B50 loudspeakers ($699/pair, all prices USD).

Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.

For readers who aren’t familiar with Living Sounds Audio (LSA), the brand is owned by Underwood HiFi, a Hawaii-based, internet-only provider of home audio equipment. Its owner, Walter Liederman, was a longtime executive with HiFi Buys, an Atlanta-based audio chain. When HiFi Buys was sold in the late 1990s, Liederman struck out on his own, working as a consultant for brands such as Infinity and Acoustic Research. Later, he began selling closeouts, B-stock, and discontinued audio gear for companies that did not want to market such products through their normal distribution systems.

It’s getting a little difficult these days to sort out a piece of Marantz gear’s place in the overall product family by designation alone, but that’s where my complaints with the company’s current lineup begin and end. Its latest integrated amplifier, for example, is simply called the Model 50 ($1800, all prices USD). Is there anything in that title that indicates a sort of little sibling to the Model 30 ($2999) released in 2020?

It seems that I’ve been misunderstood. That’s always a danger when you’re monologuing, but thankfully the SoundStage! Network is more of a slow, ongoing dialog between an incredibly motley crew. To wit: the most recent volley in my ongoing parley with SoundStage! Ultra editor Jason Thorpe is a piece titled “I’m Not an Oligarch!”—which is a response to my January editorial, “The Needs of the Many versus the Needs of the Reviewer.”

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

It’s a funny old thing, seeing legitimate buzz about any piece of hi-fi gear these days, but in the past year we’ve seen oodles of noise about not one, but two very different stereo integrated amplifiers—and for very different reasons. The NAD C 3050 ($1399, all prices in USD) I’ve discussed to death already, and I’m going to be discussing it more soon since I’m buying one and plan on doing a comparison with the LE version I reviewed last year. The other, as you’ve likely already guessed from the headline, is Dayton Audio’s HTA200 ($349.98), which—along with its little sibling, the HTA100—is garnering a lot of noise for its hybrid tube design, its ample power, its connectivity, and its ridiculously low price.

Back in July 2017, I reviewed the Fluance RT81 turntable, which I thought was a really good choice for its price ($249.99, all prices in USD). Amazingly, in 2024, it still sells for the same amount. Recently, Fluance introduced a tricked-out version of the RT81 called the RT-81+, which retails for $299.99.

Kicking off a relationship with openness and honesty is always a good policy, so I love it when manufacturers don’t try to hide (often economically necessary) offshore manufacturing with “Designed in _____” badging. And to be sure, there is a “Designed and Engineered in Canada” label on the packaging for PSB’s new Imagine B50 bookshelf speakers ($699/pair, all prices USD). But that’s just as quickly followed by a transparent and prominent “Made in China.”

Some years back, my dad and I found ourselves in a bit of a street race: our C7 Corvette versus a Ferrari F12berlinetta. $83,000 of automated-factory-line American plastic against $320,000 of hand-crafted Italian swank. V8 versus V12. Two of the finest front-engine GT cars ever developed going head-to-head. And we won. The F12berlinetta simply couldn’t keep up in the corners.

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

First impressions carry a lot of weight, but they’re not everything. And thank goodness for that, because I didn’t get off on the right foot with Technics’ new Grand Class SU-GX70—an amp I now positively adore. To be fair, most of my quibbles could be filed under the category of “vibes.” As I mentioned in my unboxing blog post, I want a Technics integrated amp to look like a swanky retro throwback, and the SU-GX70 ($1999.95, all prices USD) just evokes any number of nondescript black boxes that have cycled through my system over the years. Worse still, one of my first tactile interactions with the unit was when I gave the volume control a twist only to find that it felt like dragging a wooden spoon through half-crystalized honey.

My introduction to the Fluance brand occurred over ten years ago, when I reviewed their XL7F tower, a three-way speaker with an 8″ woofer, two 6.5″ midrange drivers, and a 1″ silk-dome tweeter. At $469.95 per pair (all prices USD), I thought it was an incredible bargain.

Remember those old commercials where two people walking down the street in opposite directions—one obliviously carrying an open jar of peanut butter; the other mindlessly nomming a whole chocolate bar—slam into each other as absentminded people will do and invent Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Swap the peanut butter for a Bob Carver tube amp and the chocolate for something like a solid-state ChiFi amp from the likes of SoundArtist, and I have to think that meet-cute collision would result in something that looks like the Dayton Audio HTA200 hybrid integrated amplifier ($349.98, all prices USD).

I love the missives I receive from readers and listeners, and I give every one of them my individual attention. But it has to be said that they tend to fall into a few distinct categories, and some I like better than others. First are the people who disagree with me or have spotted a mistake (or seeming mistake). I truly love and appreciate those.

About a year-and-a-half ago, I reviewed a loudspeaker that was, to me, the platonic ideal of everything a speaker selling for less than $3000/pair should be. It was tonally neutral, had amazing bass extension and good dispersion characteristics, and was beautifully built. And yet, in the months that followed I saw at least one user review on an online retail site describe it as a sort of jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none speaker that sounded “metallic” and failed to connect with the listener. So, while we have mountains of research describing the sound of a speaker that most people will prefer, it’s clear that not every audiophile likes what most people like. And it’s clear that not every reader is going to like what I like. So when Bowers & Wilkins offered its new 603 S3 floorstander for review ($2500 per pair, all prices USD), I leapt at the opportunity.

It’s funny how quickly certain impressions can take hold in the mind. Say the words “Technics integrated amplifier,” and immediately my mind’s eye is filled with wall-to-wall VU meters recessed behind a panoramic window of glass against a clean, white background. So, for me, the look of the company’s new SU-GX70 amplifier was somewhat surprising, as it does not follow that aesthetic, but I think a quick peek at all of the logos on its packaging gives some indications as to why. This isn’t an integrated amp with streaming capabilities onboard so much as it is a streamer with amplification built in.

As I write this, one of the most talked-about bootleg albums circulating the web is a fan-remastered version of Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version), undertaken to fix some of the odd sonic artifacts of the official release, which dropped on October 27 of this year.

How do you follow up a review of a $6499 flagship receiver with 15 channels of amplification and nearly every feature under the sun? If you’re a publication that focuses mostly on affordable hi-fi with the occasional foray into home theater, you might go to the other extreme and review one of the most affordable AVRs on the market. That was the plan, anyway. But as the great Rabbie Burns once pointed out, the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Wookiees gang aft agley, so here I am reviewing an AVR that makes the Denon A1H look like a budget alterative: the $8000 McIntosh MHT300 (all prices USD).

The name Reloop was vaguely familiar to me as a brand that caters to dance club DJs. Then one day I ran across Reloop HiFi online and decided to investigate. As it turns out, Reloop HiFi is a new division that makes turntables for home listeners. As Reloop explains on its website,