Rega may have started out as an audiophile turntable company in 1973, but it now offers a full line of amplifiers, CD players, digital converters, phono cartridges, and speakers. They’re all good, but to me Rega has always set the standard for affordable turntables. Most companies venturing into that market owe a lot to Rega’s …

The classic home theater setup — with front left, center, and right, surround speakers, and a subwoofer — was the de facto sound standard. High-end home theater buyers still use multichannel systems, but the multichannel home theater-in-a-box system is almost dead. Up until recently, I reviewed 12 or more home theater-in-a-box systems every year for CNET, but now sound bars …

The Koss Pro4AA has been around for ages, and when you listen you’ll know why. Koss got the sound right the first time. And while contemporary headphones have more features and are lighter and more comfortable, they’re nowhere as ruggedly built as the Pro4AA. This headphone will shrug off more than a few mishaps that would shatter to pieces a …

I didn’t know the retail price of the newly revised Alesis M1 Active520 desktop/computer speakers when I first set them up. I assumed they ran $300 to $400 a pair. They look and feel that expensive, so imagine my surprise when the company’s representative sent an e-mail quoting a $199 minimum advertised price or MAP. “That’s each,” I asked. She …

I remember hearing the first Davone speaker, the Rithm, at a hi-fi show in 2008. The small, 31-inch tall floor standing speaker looked and sounded like nothing else. I’ve heard hundreds of speakers since then, but the Rithm stands out from the pack. The Davone models that followed — the Ray, the Mojo, and now the Grande — are all …

The Centrance Hi-Fi M8 is a rather unusual product on a number of counts, starting with the fact that it’s offered in eight different connectivity configurations that were proposed by potential buyers who responded to a crowdsourced thread on the Head-Fi Web site. I admire Centrance’s willingness to accept consumer opinions, but as it turns out most consumers opt for …

It’s easy to understand why there’s so much confusion surrounding the differences between earbud and in-ear headphones. The two designs are sometimes referred to interchangeably, but they are two very different types of headphones. Earbuds rest on the outer concha ridge of the ear, located in the center of your outer ear. In-ear or ear-canal headphones are placed inside the …

The Gigaom Web site reported on December 20 that Pono announced it won’t be showing at the CES show in Las Vegas in January. I first heard about Neil Young’s Pono music system more than a couple of years ago, and it was supposed to roll out a few months later. Rumors continued to circulate about an imminent debut, then …

Peter Ledermann is one of just a handful of highly skilled people on the planet who designs and hand-builds phono cartridges. These tiny electro-mechanical devices are usually machine made, but Ledermann builds world-class cartridges with his hands and a microscope. His company, Soundsmith, also manufactures speakers and amplifiers, and services vintage Bang & Olufsen and Tandberg products. Ledermann’s resume is …

At less than 24 inches tall, the Klipsch Heresy III is the shortest floor-standing speaker I’ve ever tested. Don’t let its diminutive stature fool you. This speaker can outrun many a tower speaker — and outlast them. In an age of disposable tech, any speaker that sticks around for five years or more is noteworthy, but Klipsch’s Heresy has been …