It is good to reflect back on a year and consider all that has happened in one's life, both to appreciate the good things that have happened, as well as to gain insights from one's dumbo moves. I feel extremely fortunate, for my 2019 was truly an amazing year in music, audio, and life generally.... Read More »

2019 has been an outstanding audio and music year for me, and I thought a retrospective of its high points would be fun to reflect back upon and share with you, as 2020 is already knocking on the door and demanding attention. In 2019 there were all those little adventures and discoveries I wrote about... Read More »

One of the favorite pastimes of many original Leben CS-600 integrated amplifier owners has been trying different combinations of vacuum tubes in their CS-600 to tailor its sound to what best matches their personal taste. The Leben CS-600 tube complement is four twin-triode 6CS7 vacuum tubes used in the first-stage of amplification, a single slow... Read More »

It's been about three weeks since my last update on the Audio Note UK Oto Phono SE Signature Integrated Amplifier (HERE), and it has undergone some rather serious transformation in musicality & sonics over those three weeks of additional run-in time, as I have alluded to briefly in some other posts. So tonight I thought I'd... Read More »

Today's Fresh Catch is the Sophia Electric 12AU7 and EL34-ST vacuum tubes! I had mentioned to Sue at Sophia Electric about my long term update of the Sophia Electric EL34-ST vacuum tubes in my Leben CS600 integrated amplifier (HERE), and that I would be reviewing the new Leben CS600X.  Sue suggested I give the Leben... Read More »

I got a heads up from Frederik at Duelund Coherent Audio today that the new 'Dual' Duelund DCA16GA tinned-copper wire will be available at Hi-fi Collective (UK) and Parts Connexion (North America) starting tomorrow.  The new 'Dual' DCA16GA tinned-copper wire has two of the regular baked oil-soaked cotton dielectric DCA16GA wires wrapped in an additional... Read More »

The new Leben CS600X vacuum tube integrated amplifier that is in for review has been getting run-in time in my vintage Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers based audio-visual system in the place normally occupied by my gracefully aging original Leben CS600. I was impressed with what I was hearing from the new Leben... Read More »

I've been running the Sophia Electric EL34-ST vacuum tubes in my Leben CS-600 integrated amplifier ever since I reviewed them for Positive Feedback back in August of 2017, and I've put a ton of hours on them since then. In my "Summary and Conclusions" for them, I said: "I'm noticing a pattern here with both the Sophia... Read More »

If you read my "Today's Fresh Catch: The Great Plains Audio 802-16G Series II & 416-16B Drivers" post (HERE), you know I am pretty excited about the Great Plains Audio and Troy Audio commitment to keeping the vintage Altec tradition vibrant. I asked our Great Plains Audio and Troy Audio friends if they would tell... Read More »

My buddy Chad borrowed my Almarro A205A over the weekend so he could give it a listen in his cabin system up on Lake Chelan (Chad's already got the Almarro A205A MkII in his main system).  I've been using the Almarro A205A Mk1 integrated amplifier to power my vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeakers in my... Read More »

I got a chance to do a little A-B listening evaluation of Yazaki-san's Ultimate Ruby Mica capacitor mod for the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier, with the added bonus of a group of friends weighing in on the results. As you might remember from Part 1, Yazaki-san had sent me a pair of his... Read More »