preamplifiers

How to make your LPs sound better than ever

High-end audio doesn't always mean the most ridiculously expensive gear, just gear designed with sound quality as the top priority.

Mainstream audio products aren't designed that way; they're sold mostly on the basis of features like Bluetooth or AirPlay that consume an ever larger part of the design engineer's focus and budget. No, high-end audio in its purest form is all about superlative sound. Jolida's JD-9 tube phono preamplifier is such a design.

The selection of newly released LPs is growing day by day, and I loved Nick Lowe's "The Old Magic" … Read more

Viola Labs: America's 'secret' high-end audio brand

American companies dominate the worldwide high-end audio market, but those brands are known only to the most passionate audiophiles in their home country.

Like most American high-end brands, Viola Labs, based in New Haven, Conn., has just a few retail outlets in the U.S. Audiophiles in Asia and Europe have made up the majority of Viola's customers since 2001.

So chances are most of my readers are in the dark about Viola. That's why I made the trek to New Haven to learn more about the brand. Viola's two original founders, Tom Colangelo and Paul Jayson, … Read more

Old-school technology and the sweet sound of LPs

By the late 1960s everyone assumed solid-state gear would soon replace tube electronics, but here we are in 2011 and tubes are still here. Rock and blues guitar players still crave the sound of tube guitar amplifiers, and a significant number of audiophiles are die-hard tube fans.

While tube amps don't measure as well as their solid-state counterparts, some people feel tubes more faithfully reproduce the sound of voices and real instruments. As always, opinions about sound quality don't necessarily correlate with by-the-numbers assessments. We like what we like.

I was curious to hear one of Eddie Current's … Read more

NBS brings hi-fi extravagance in solid copper

To be perfectly honest, I'm more of a home theater enthusiast than an audiophile. But the latest NBS universal phono preamplifier really caught my attention with its extravagant finishing.

You see, this is one of the rare hi-fi components cast out of solid copper right down to the knobs for a combined weight of 66 pounds. While I'm not exactly convinced by the $30,000 price tag, this is what NBS has to say about the unique choice of material: "The solid copper chassis provides exceptional shielding and grounding. A generous grounding post is provided adjacent to … Read more