The U.S. Secret Service has received and is reviewing a sworn declaration from a Brazilian man who claims Rep. George Santos was “in charge of” a fraud scheme that led to the man’s arrest in 2017 for installing skimmers at a Seattle bank ATM, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News. Santos […]
Germany said Friday that mass fish deaths in the Oder River were a “man-made environmental disaster,” blaming toxic algae growth sparked by the introduction of salt into the waters. Presenting a report into the disaster that saw at least 300 tons of dead fish pulled from the river in Germany and Poland this summer, the […]
The last time I had to box up my roughly 2600 records, during a move, I cursed up a storm and drank almost an entire bottle of tequila. I struggled to keep the vinyl alphabetized and kept running out of boxes, markers, and tape. And I discovered that I had more LPs of music by […]
The hoary question of tubes vs transistors, once certain and clear, is made ambiguous by recent products from a few solid-state specialists, not the least being Ayre Acoustics—the company that endures in the wake of the passing of its founder, the widely admired Charley Hansen. In their solid-state preamplifiers and amplifiers of the past decade […]
I keep getting older. By the time you read this, I will be genuinely old. When I was genuinely young, I bellyached, “Wires are the worst part of hi-fi—there’s gotta be a way to get rid of them.” I first made that statement when audio electronics and loudspeakers both still nestled inconspicuously in proper bookcases. […]
In contrast to phono cartridges and analog tape recorders, digital audio converters distinguish themselves by the fact that they can be fashioned in an almost infinite number of ways. Therefore, the odds against two manufacturers’ DACs or ADCs sounding exactly the same are extremely large. Nevertheless, I’ve heard countless audiophiles say that “bits are bits” […]
Class-D audio amplifiers: What’s the argument for them? Class-A audio amplifiers: What’s the argument against them? Class-AB amplifiers: Why does everybody make them? Each of these amplifier output architectures has strengths and weaknesses. Each will interface more or less successfully with a given loudspeaker in a given room. Each has a distinctive sonic signature. Consequently, […]
No hi-fi is an island entire of itself; every component is a piece of the system, a part of the mains.—John Donne, from The Compleat Audiophile, 1623 Around the time I took over as Stereophile‘s editor, I bought a Peloton, the internet-enabled stationary exercise bike. It was a lifesaver during the pandemic, when gyms were […]
“JAPANESE BUY ROCKEFELLER CENTER” “JAPANESE PURCHASE PARAMOUNT PICTURES” “JAPANESE ANNEX NEW MEXICO; DECLARE ROBERT HARLEY ‘PHILOSOPHER-KING'” Newspapers are shrieking, economists are freaking, and the general level of what Ken Kessler calls “Japaranoia” is peaking; no doubt about it, the Japanese have definitely turned up their acquisitive heat these past few years, buying up nearly everything […]
A Chinese girl has been pictured defiantly standing up to baton-wielding police as people protest against the zero-Covid strategy and repression. She has now been dubbed the “tank lady” in reference to the iconic images of the Chinese man who stood in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square holding bags in each […]