Somebody on Twitter pointed out that Pioneer was blowing out my favorite affordable tower speaker of all time — the Andrew Jones designed Pioneer SP-FS52-LR towers — which are now selling for just $180 a pair. That started me thinking, if I was going to share the news of the deal why not also scour …

Rogue Audio makes great high-end components and sells them for very reasonable prices through its dealer network here in the USA, and its worldwide distributors. Rogue’s owner, designer and all-around nice guy Mark O’Brien came to audio after he was with Bell Labs working on electronics development, laser and transformer design. Don’t let his Sphinx v2 stereo-integrated amplifier’s plain looks …

Opening the Beyerdynamic DT 1350 headphone box gave me a déjà vu feeling. The headphone definitely looked similar to other Beyerdynamic on-ears I’ve tested over the years. That’s not a bad thing, I think they’re all attractive in a Euro modern way. This made in Germany ‘phone feels sturdy while weighing just 6.1 ounces (174 grams), so it’s nice and …

As the selection of cost-no-object headphones grows, I keep looking for the very best headphone amplifiers. This all-new amp from Pass Labs, the HPA-1, should satisfy all but the most devout audiophiles. The power transformer was custom designed specifically for this amplifier; the circuits are low-feedback, wide-bandwidth designs employing JFET transistor input stages and Class A direct-coupled MOSFET output stages. …

The Klipsch R-15PM is smaller than I expected it would be from the pictures. It’s a mere 12.5 inches high, but from the front it looks like a near twin of the Klipsch RP-150M monitor speaker I raved about in October. The R-15PM’s inputs and connectors make it obvious that this speaker has built-in power amplifiers. The RP-150Ms don’t, they’re …

I read the news today, oh boy. Sir George Martin, The Beatles’ record producer, passed away at age 90. I wondered, would the Beatles have accomplished so much without him? Sir Paul McCartney paid tribute to Martin, calling him a “true gentleman and like a second father to me.” Martin gave them their big break in 1962 when he signed …

Face it: most of today’s hottest products become yesterday’s news in a hurry, but when a product sticks around for 10 or more years it has to be pretty darn special. This collection of oldie-but-goodie headphones are still more than worthy contenders when compared against the best of the latest headphones. Which proves, once again, that investing in a great …

Mark is an old friend, and as I recall he was quicker than most of my audiophile pals to embrace CDs in the 1980s. He was playing LPs and CDs until 2001, when he put his turntable away. There it remained for 10 years, and Mark was happy to put all of the problems associated with LPs — noise, non …

Straight out of London, Simon McBurney’s performance piece “The Encounter” is now playing at the Barbican Theatre, but for a limited time you can stream “The Encounter” on YouTube. McBurney shares the stage with a special binaural microphone “head,” and the sound of his voice and his recordings transports us into the humid depths of the Amazon jungle. Binaural recordings …

I get a ton of emails requesting more coverage of cheap, but great, audio products. I do as many as I can, but the problem is that most cheap stuff isn’t good enough to review. Making exceptional audio products at any price isn’t easy, but the challenges escalate with budget gear, so when I get an exceptional budget component I’m …