Pro-Ject Audio Systems claims to be the world’s largest manufacturer of audio turntables by far, and I have no reason to doubt that claim. In addition to offering a comprehensive lineup of turntables under its own brand, Pro-Ject manufactures ’tables for other brands as well. Their products receive near-unanimous praise for their engineering, materials, and sonic performance.
Read more: Pro-Ject Audio Systems T2 Super Phono Turntable with Sumiko Oyster Rainier cartridge
Introduced back in 2022, Peachtree Audio’s Carina was a hell of an integrated amplifier that packed cutting-edge digital tech into an analog-looking wood cabinet that housed way more Hypex NCore amplification than nearly anybody needs. And it sold for a mere $1999 (all prices USD). So, in a sense, it’s somewhat surprising that the company has already introduced a successor—three of them, in fact: the $2999 Carina GaN, the $1499 Carina 150, and the bad boy we’re unboxing today, the $1999 Carina 300.
What do you do when you’re shopping for a product in a category you know nearly nothing about? It’s a question I’ve spent most of my career in hi-fi journalism attempting to answer, and it’s my hope that readers perceive me not as someone who tells them what to buy, but who helps them figure out how to decide what to buy.
Read more: A Vinyl-Apathist’s Quest for His Perfect First Turntable
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
As I’ve said any number of times, you’ll never find a completely unbiased audio reviewer. We’re human. We have our preferences. We like what we like. As such, it’s a personal policy of mine to bold, italicize, and underline any inherent bias when I sit down to write a product review. And that’s the only way I can think of to introduce a review of any piece of Arcam gear. The name “Arcam” alone gets me a bit excited, mostly because of my experiences with the company’s higher-end A/V receivers, but that excitement also spills over into two-channel products, such as the new Radia-series A25 integrated amplifier ($1499, all prices USD).
Many of today’s best-known audio manufacturers have histories that date back to the beginnings of high-fidelity reproduction. Brands such as McIntosh (1949), Marantz (1952), and Thorens (1957 for their first turntable) have had long runs. Another company that dates back to the middle of the last century is TEAC, which was founded in 1953 in Tokyo. For the first few decades of its existence, the firm was noted for its excellent reel-to-reel tape recorders, and later, some very fine cassette decks.
Read more: TEAC TN-4D-SE Turntable and Sumiko Oyster Cartridge
In recent articles here on SoundStage! Access, I’ve made a couple of references to procuring an NAD C 3050 as my new reference integrated amplifier. I’ve had more than a few people ask me about the differences between the regular production model and the Limited Edition release I reviewed a little over a year ago.
Read more: NAD C 3050 vs. C 3050 LE—What Do You Lose If You Buy the Cheaper, Non-Limited Version?
On April 20, 2024, I rolled into the parking lot behind the brand-spanking-new Village Green Records in Montgomery, AL, armed with something that should never be part of any journalist’s toolkit: an agenda.
Yamaha’s R-N1000A Network Receiver ($1799.95, all prices USD), as I said in my unboxing blog post, represents a trend in audio that I absolutely adore. It is, in a sense, a two-channel A/V receiver, what with its HDMI ARC connection, YPAO room correction, and subwoofer output with legitimate bass management, but it doesn’t compromise on pure two-channel performance to make such accommodations (well, for the most part—more on that in a bit).
Vera-Fi Audio isn’t well known to most audiophiles, but the company sells an interesting range of products, some of them designed in-house, others sourced from outside vendors. A few of these products border on the bizarre. For example, there’s the Meow ($165, all prices in USD) from Tombo Audio in Thailand. The Meow looks like a cartoonish sculpture of a cat. Put a Meow on top of a component, and it “will omni-directionally reflect the sound in good order,” Vera-Fi says on its website. “After the noise is cleared, the frequency bandwidth is easily separated. The micro-detail and harmonic could be instantly perceived.”
Read more: Vera-Fi Audio Vanguard Scout Loudspeaker and Vanguard Caldera 10 Subwoofer
There’s something coy about the way Arcam designed the packaging for its new A25 integrated amplifier ($1499, all prices in USD). It’s clean but utilitarian. Its labels are sparse but precisely informative. There are no diagrams, no claims about performance specifications, no lists of supported formats or connectivity options. There isn’t even any indication that the power stage relies on an amp topology that many people have never heard of or experienced: class G.