Revox A77 and B77
Along with the boom in killer headphones and headphone amps, the past few years have turned up another unexpected revival. It was clear to all – upon hearing the insultingly poor ear-buds supplied with iPods – that there was an opportunity to revitalize a moribund audio sub-genre.
Harman Kardon Rabco ST-7 Linear-Tracking Turntable
Welcome to Kludgeville, aka the H/K Rabco ST-7 linear-tracking turntable. Introduced in the mid 1970s and selling in fairly high numbers, the ST-7 was a brilliant product, which eventually crashed and burned because of reliability issues and a changing marketplace.
Pass Labs Aleph 5
The Aleph 5 amplifier probably won’t win any beauty contests. It’s a basic black cube surrounded by heat sinks, and the only indication that it’s operating (aside from its temperature after it’s been on for a while) is a single blue LED.
Sennheiser HD 414 and 424
With headphones now regularly tipping the scale with four-figure price tags, it’s always interesting to revisit the (then) $29.95 Sennheiser HD 414. Introduced in 1968, the HD 414 was exciting, not only for its open-air design, which was a first, but also for its bright yellow foam ear pads.
Quad ESL Loudspeakers
Expectations have changed over the decades. In the 21st century, we demand amplifiers that deliver copious amounts of power with ease. Loudspeakers? We insist on dynamic range unimagined in the 1950s—beyond even what the horns of the day could deliver.
Klyne SK-5A Preamplifier
TONEAudio publisher Jeff Dorgay handed me this handsome preamplifier from the 80s with a sly look on his face. I vividly remember Klyne from the late 80s and early 90s.
NAD 3020 Integrated Amplifier
I recently bought an original NAD 3020 integrated stereo amplifier for $66 on eBay. As soon as I hooked it up to my Dynaudio Contour 1.1 speakers, I remembered why the little amp took the audio world by storm in the late 1970s.
Headphones under $100: Grado SR80i & Pioneer SE-A1000
In the world of high-end audio, Benjamin Franklin generally doesn’t get you too far—no wonder his lips look pursed in his portrait on the $100 bill. There are some exceptions, including the Grado SR80i and the Pioneer SE-A1000 headphones.
Tosca – j.a.c.
Richard Dorfmeister of Kruder & Dorfmeister is half of Tosca, and his influence on this record is clearly obvious, given its ethereal rhythms, heavy yet lazy bass lines, and a soundstage full of ambient effects that stretch way beyond speaker boundaries.
Snoop Lion – Reincarcerated
You can take the boy out of hip-hop, but you can’t take the hip-hop out of the boy. Snoop’s current record has more of a reggae flavor, but there are plenty of hard-hitting grooves here to keep loyal fans satiated.
NWA – Straight Outta Compton, 20th Anniversary Edition
Ground zero for gangster rap, Straight Outta Compton set the tone and style for everything else that followed, with explosive dynamics and lyrics that stand the test of time 20 years later.
De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising
Sounding like they were taped via a cassette recorder placed in front of an AM radio, the original digital and LP copies of this hip-hop classic sound positively dreadful, with not much useful information above about 5khz.
Please note that all TONE and TONE related text and images are copyright © 2005–2026 TONE Magazine and The Audiophile Apartment. The RSS feed provided is for personal, non-commercial use only.
If you are not reading this content in your news aggregator, RSS reader, or direct, then the site you are looking at may be guilty of copyright infringement. If you locate this anywhere, please contact [email protected] so we can take action immediately.