The Emotiva Stealth DC-1 DAC Emotiva Founded in 2004, Emotiva was among the first direct-to-consumer high performance, highly affordable audio brands. I recently spoke with Emotiva President Dan Laufman about the big changes afoot. The biggest surprise was that he’s aggressively adding brick and mortar dealers in the US and abroad, while maintaining his direct …

Steve Guttenberg/CNET The Cypher Labs AlgoRhythm Trio headphone amplifier delivers more fully developed tone, body, soul or whatever you want to call it to the sound of your headphones than what you’ve heard from your smartphone. The chassis, machined from a single block of aluminum, is impeccably finished in high gloss black — the Trio is a handsome, understated beauty. …

Steve Guttenberg/CNET I was thinking about all of this when I read about Apple’s coming pay-only streaming service. What a crazy idea; I guess Tim Cook thinks Apple can seduce the faithful to pony up $10 a month for music. Apparently, Cook hasn’t heard about how things are going with Jay Z’s Tidal, a pay-only streaming service that’s going nowhere …

At first glance the Harbeth Super HL5Plus brought me way back to the time when I first fell in love with British monitor speakers in the 1970s. Some said they were too “polite” or reserved, but to my ears they were much more than that. They sounded honest and true, American speakers were more “exciting” and dynamic, and tended to …

The Met Breuer museum. Ed Lederman/Metropolitan Museum of Art Composer John Luther Adams works are frequently inspired by nature and landscape sounds, and for his new piece, “Soundwalk 9:09,” he’s taking a decidedly more urban turn. His new composition will incorporate crowdsourced sound recordings made on the streets between the Met Museum and Met Breuer museum in New York City. …

Carnegie Hall in New York City. Steve Guttenberg/CNET When it comes down to live versus recorded music, I’m definitely in the recorded camp. I’ve been to too many utterly forgettable concerts by my favorite artists. Great musicianship and performances are rare; in the studio you don’t have to sing in tune or play in time. Recorded music is massively edited, …

Naim Mu-so speaker Naim First things first: the Naim Mu-so is a brilliant work of industrial design. Build quality is solid, the massive finned heat sinks on the speaker’s rear end look awfully impressive, and the silky-smooth volume control inspires confidence. Mu-So is the real deal — it looks and feels like a high-end component. What about the sound? That’s …

The Cowon Plenue M music player Cowon You bought a new Audeze EL-8, Oppo PM-3 or high-end Sony MDR 7520 headphone, or maybe a great in-ear monitor, but you’re still listening to tunes on your smartphone? Sorry, but you’re missing out on most of the sound quality you paid for. To hear your uber headphones at their best, you need …

Abyss AB-1266 headphones (left), Wilson Audio Watt/Puppy speaker (right) Steve Guttenberg/CNET Before we get going on this, let’s think about what the “best” speaker or headphone means — is it the most exciting, realistic, accurate, musical? Or just the one you can’t stop thinking about? As a reviewer, I think about this stuff all the time, but in my writing …

ZMF Blackwood headphones ZMF I met ZMF’s Zach Mehrbach at a local Head-Fi headphone club meeting a while back, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before I’d review one of his headphones. The time has come today, and it’s his flagship, the Blackwood. The solid blackwood ear cups, actually African Blackwood, are gorgeous, and when …