I’ve been listening to the Audeze Deckard for months on my desktop, and I’ve taken it for granted. It was just there, doing its job so well that I didn’t really think about how it sounded, but when I started paying attention to write this review I really came to appreciate what the Deckard does. …

It’s true, most audiophiles are older, 40-plus-year-old people, but that’s not to say there aren’t a lot of young audiophiles. A couple of years ago I met a 10-year-old audiophile at a hi-fi show when he walked right up to me and declared himself a loyal Audiophiliac reader. He peppered me with questions for a few minutes before his father …

Scott Reynolds founded Tavish Design in 2011 to follow his bliss. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, works for IBM, and authored over 30 patents. He may be a whiz with digital tech, but when it comes to listening to music Reynolds prefers the sound of tube electronics over solid-state and LPs over digital. That’s why he designed a …

I still own and enjoy LPs I bought decades ago, and even ones I’ve played hundreds of times still sound perfectly fine. I’ll go further back, to original pressings of 50-plus-year-old Beatles and Rolling Stones LPs that have survived many hundreds of plays, and they also still sound great. I’m not claiming they’re 100 percent noise-free, but they weren’t dead …

While Cowon’s Plenue series of portable high-res music players may not be as well known as Astell & Kern’s or FiiO’s, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the two previous Plenue models I’ve tested on this blog. This new Plenue D is smaller and more affordable than its siblings, and first impressions of its build and sound quality were extremely positive. I love …

I get a lot of headphones in for review from brands I’ve never heard of. Most of them are nothing special and some are outright stinkers, but then there are the ones I want to know better. 1More’s Triple Driver in-ear headphone was in the last category, not least because the packaging was elegantly presented and easy to sort out. …

If you’re still listening to music with the free earbuds that came with your smartphone, I have news for you: just about any decent headphone will sound a whole lot better. Face it, with those ‘buds dangling from your ears you’ve never heard solid bass, natural midrange or clear highs. Your music is “funneled” through the aural equivalent of pinholes, …

I first became aware of the photographer/audiophile connection when I was a high-end audio salesman in the 1980s. I couldn’t help but notice a significant percentage of my customers were professional photographers. At first I had no idea why, but both groups share a fascination with capturing reality — images for photographers, and sound for audiophiles — as accurately as …

Hifiman was one of the first companies to feature planar magnetic drivers, and I remember just how much their sound stood out from the pack when I reviewed the Hifiman HE-5 headphone back in 2009. The sound was a revelation, and over the years Abyss, Audeze, MrSpeakers and Oppo followed Hifiman’s lead and now also make planar magnetic headphones. The …

The LP is the oldest surviving consumer audio format. It was introduced in 1948, and it’s still going strong with double-digit sales increases over the last few years. The LP is no longer just a nostalgia trip for baby boomers and Gen Xers; today’s high schoolers are discovering vinyl’s appeal. The 78 rpm record preceded the LP, and the 45 …