SoundStageXtreme.com | UltraAudio.com

What I'd Buy: Power Amplifiers

Along with loudspeakers, power amplifiers have always represented the largest financial investments I’ve made in my audio system. It’s been my experience that I shouldn’t skimp on amplification, and that once I find a great power amp, it’s easy to stick with it over the long term. (Though whether any audiophile, including myself, actually does so is another subject altogether.) A great amp today will still be a great amp ten years from now.

I believe this is so because so much of an amplifier’s cost has to do with hardware. Huge power supplies and massive heatsinks have always been relatively expensive, and unlike digital source components, the technologies involved in the design and manufacture of tubed or solid-state amps don’t change rapidly, the advent of class-D designs notwithstanding.

This series of articles is titled “What I’d Buy” -- these lists I compile are, by definition, limited to the types of products I like enough to pay for with my own money. Therefore, entire swaths of the marketplace will be left undiscussed simply because I have no knowledge of or interest in them. This month, that means you’ll find no tube amps here. Through the years, I’ve admired many tube amps at shows and dealers and while visiting manufacturers, but I’ve always been more drawn to really good solid-state gear; that’s where I’ve spent my money, and that’s the area in which I’ve built my expertise. We have other writers who can advise you about tubes.

Read more: What I'd Buy: Power Amplifiers

What I'd Buy: Integrated Amplifiers

Many, if not most, recent reviews of integrated amplifiers in the audiophile press begin by telling you two things: 1) that the integrated was once looked down on by multibox-craving audiophiles, but is now accepted as a real high-end component; and 2) the integrated’s single-chassis design has some advantages over separates -- e.g., at least one fewer pair of interconnects, and shorter internal signal paths.

The latest fact in the evolution of the integrated amplifier is that many models also include a digital section, typically a USB digital-to-analog converter, which either comes standard or as an option. These built-in DACs make for a greatly simplified system: add a pair of speakers and a computer-based source such a laptop or Mac Mini, wire it all up, and off you go.

Read more: What I'd Buy: Integrated Amplifiers

What I’d Buy: Digital Source Components

Not a week goes by that I don’t hear an audiophile complain about the “audio dealer situation” in his or her area. The story is always the same: There’s nowhere to hear a particular model, or the ones that compete against it. More and more, audiophiles face an hours-long road trip -- or, more likely, two or three such trips -- or even air travel, for what amounts to a three-day investment of time. Who has time and money for all that? This is a hobby.

What I see more and more of are e-mails asking what I would buy if I were in the e-mailer’s shoes. I happily give my advice, often with the disclaimer “Go hear it for yourself” -- even though I know full well that if they could go hear it for themselves, they probably wouldn’t be contacting me!

Read more: What I’d Buy: Digital Source Components

The Eight Things You Need to Know from CES 2013

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show seemed a tad subdued. Most people blamed the new Tuesday-through-Thursday schedule, which replaced the traditional long weekend -- after all, many industry professionals have retail jobs. Nonetheless, there were a hardy number of new products at CES 2013, and we covered them in detail in our SoundStage! Global show report.

CES 2013 revealed some things that transcend any single product introduction. Here are the eight you must know about -- not only if you plan to shop for a component any time soon, but even if you just enjoy keeping up with industry doings.

Read more: The Eight Things You Need to Know from CES 2013