Jonathan Valin

Cincinnati

Executive Editor at The Absolute Sound

Featured in: Favicon

theabsolutesound.com Favicon

citybeat.com Favicon

enjoythemusic.com

Articles

AXPONA 2025: Loudspeakers $50,000 and Up

1 week ago | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Happily, this year that somebody was me. Fifty grand may seem like a high floor for a show report, but if you’ve been to AXPONA (or bother to read this article), you’ll know that the number of very expensive loudspeakers on display in Schaumburg is beginning to approach High End Munich levels. There are a lot of pricey transducers out there—and some of them showed extremely well.
2025 TAS Super Tape List

2 weeks ago | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

Those of you who’ve been following my reviews in TAS already know that I’m a huge fan of reel-to-reel tape players. But tape decks are no good unless you can find first-rate tapes to play back on them. So, in keeping with the tradition of our Super LP List, I’ve compiled a selection of recommended tapes, which you’ll find printed below. Of course, I haven’t been able to come close to auditioning all the many 15ips reel-to-reel issues and reissues that have been marketed over the past few years.
United Home Audio Apollo Open-Reel Tape Machine

2 months ago | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

As you may recall, I gave Greg Beron’s superb UHA Ultima5 tape deck a Product of the Year Award in 2023. After that, you might have thought Mr. B would rest on his laurels—at least, for a while. However, if that’s what you were thinking, you don’t know Greg. This is a guy who’s been smitten with the sound of reel-to-reel tape from his early teenage years and who, since then, has spent a great deal of his time and money developing better and better means of R2R playback.
Pablo Redivivus - The Absolute Sound

Nov 8, 2024 | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

I’ve long been a fan of Pablo Records—named, BTW, after the most famous Pablo of them all, Pablo Picasso—but then I’m an audiophile and not a jazz maven. For the latter, the recordings of Norman Ganz’s second major company, founded in 1972–73 (10 years after Ganz sold the celebrated catalogue of his first enterprise, Verve Records, to MGM), are the quintessence of Old Hat.
Magico S3 2023 Loudspeaker

Sep 9, 2024 | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

I’ve been listening to and reviewing Magico loudspeakers since the firm marketed its first product, the remarkable two-way Mini, back in 2004, and they’ve certainly made a lasting impression on me (and a lot of other music lovers). As I wrote in our “Most Significant Loudspeakers of All Time” feature from 2010: “Certain speaker companies don’t just change the way the game is played; they change the playing field.
JMF Audio HQS 7001 Monoblock Amplifier and PRS 1.5 Linestage

Jul 2, 2024 | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

Over the years I’ve heard and reviewed many fine solid-state amplifiers from the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands, Scandinavia, various Eastern European countries, and Japan. What I haven’t yet heard or reviewed is a solid-state amplifier from France. That is about to change.
In Memoriam: Anthony H. Cordesman

May 10, 2024 | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

In this month of tribulations, it is my sad duty to report that Tony Cordesman, our friend and longtime contributor to (and many other publications), passed away after a short illness on January 29, 2024. I don’t have to tell you that Tony was a mainstay of our magazine, a scrupulous listener with a deep, abiding interest in classical music and its realistic reproduction.
DS Audio DS-W3 Optical Cartridge

May 10, 2024 | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

If it seems as if I’ve been reviewing a lot of DS Audio cartridges lately, that’s because the Japanese company has been introducing superb new models at a lively clip, all of them incorporating the third-generation technology DS introduced in its $15k Grand Master. That cartridge and its $45k equalizer were, at the time I reviewed them about a year ago, the most advanced examples of the analog playback device that the Japanese company has more or less reinvented—the optical cartridge (oc).
2023 Golden Ear: United Home Audio Ultima5 OPS-DC Tape Deck

May 3, 2024 | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

While current analog technology (particularly DS Audio’s near-massless Grand Master optical cartridges and ES-001 centering device and Acoustic Signatures Invictus Neo turntable and tonearm) has brought LP playback considerably closer to the sound of tape, there is still a gap, which Greg Beron’s latest iteration of his Ultima series of tape decks, the Ultima5 OPS-DC, consistently reveals and exploits. Of course, much depends on the quality of the tape transfer.
2023 TAS Super LP List

Apr 30, 2024 | theabsolutesound.com | Jonathan Valin

Of the many articles and reviews that Harry Pearson wrote for The Absolute Sound, his annual Super LP List (aka SuperDisc List) may have been the most eagerly anticipated. The issue in which it was published was the one that everyone had to buy, borrow, or copy. Why? Because whether you were rich or poor, active in the high-end audio market or just kicking tires, it was the one issue of TAS you could make daily practical use of—it was your road map to the absolute sound.