Articles
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Focal Elegia closed‑back headphones
|Since Focal began making headphones their roster of offerings has grown precipitously. Currently you can find Focal earphones such as the Spark Wired models for as little as £59/$69 or you can go big with ...read more -
Empire Ears Phantom custom‑fit in-ear monitors
|At a certain point in nearly every headphone enthusiast’s lifetime they begin to contemplate purchasing a pair of custom-fit in-ear monitors (CIEMs) rather than universal-fit earphones. The primary reason for making the switch is fit. ...read more -
Astell&Kern ACTIVO CT10 portable digital audio player
|When my review of the Astell&Kern A&Futura SE100 appeared on the website of our sister magazine The Absolute Sound, the first reader comment was, “Yet another DAP from A&K? Whoopee.” Snide, but I get it. ...read more -
Campfire Audio Equinox custom-fit in-ear monitors
|One driver… While many custom-fit in-ear monitors use two, three, four, or more balanced armature drivers, Campfire Audio has forged a different path, choosing to refine and perfect a single full-range dynamic driver design. The ...read more -
Sony DMP-Z1 Signature Series Digital Music Player with headphone amp and DAC
|When Sony unveiled the DMP-Z1 it drew the attention of the audiophile press like a perfectly cooked steak in a room full of starved Paleo dieters. But it was not so much its looks or ...read more -
Brainwavz B400 earphone
|For the past couple of years, the Brainwavz B200 universal in-ear monitors have been one of my go‑to earphones for the gym due to their compact footprint, excellent fit, and good all-around sound. When Brainwavz ...read more -
Westone WX1 universal‑fit earphone with Bluetooth dongle
|I know one audio industry pundit who is convinced that wireless Bluetooth earphones will become so pervasive that you will be hard-pressed to find wired models in a few years. That could well be. Even ...read more -
Ultimate Ears Live custom-fit in-ear monitor
|Ultimate Ears has a new top-of the-line custom-fit in-ear monitor dubbed Ultimate Ears Live, which was created for both serious personal listening and live on-stage performances. UE Live delivers several technical and ergonomic improvements over ...read more -
Astell&Kern A&futura SE100 digital audio player
|Astell&Kern almost singlehandedly created the market for high-end portable music players. Currently they have players priced from less than £600 (for the AK70 MkII) to more than £3,000 (for the SP1000). The SE100, which is ...read more -
LH Labs Geek Out V2 USB headphone DAC/amplifier
|Many people think that the first big audio crowd-funding success story was Neil Young’s PONO launch, but that’s not the case. LH Labs Geek Out USB DAC brought in $303,000 and its Geek Pulse and ...read more -
ADL X1 Portable DAC and Headphone Amplifier
|Someday in the future we will be able to carry round and play our entire musical collection, on a device smaller than credit card. And while the hardware isn’t that miniaturised yet, the £395 ADL ...read more -
JansZen zA2.1 Speaker Review
|The JansZen zA2.1 attempts to deliver the advantages of a full-range electrostatic speaker, but in a small-footprint suitable for medium-sized rooms. Unlike planar speakers, which almost all require a large room to really work their ...read more -
Shure SRH1440 Headphones (Playback)
|Shure was founded in 1925. They began as a radio parts company and published their first catalog in 1926. Shure introduced their first microphone, the model 33N, in 1932, their first headset in 1942, and ...read more -
Urbanears Bagis Earphone (Playback)
|When I was a lad Swedish design was all the rage. Design Research, who specialized in Scandinavian modernism, had a large four-story Cambridge showroom that rivaled the Harvard Coop as the largest retail establishment in ...read more -
Beyerdynamic DTX 101 iE Earphones (Playback)
|If you do a search in Amazon for headphones you will see 236,565 choices. At least 1/3 are priced under $100. That’s a lot of options. Beyerdynamic has one more pair of earphones to add ...read more