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Robert Harley

Little Rock

Editor-in-Chief at The Absolute Sound

Articles

  • 1 week ago | theabsolutesound.com | Robert Harley

    VTL debuted the Lohengrin, the company’s new flagship power amplifier. The Lohengrin retains the driver stage of VTL’s Siegfried and combines it with a new eight-tube output stage. This new output stage, capable of 400W, has a lower output impedance that allows for a simpler and better-sounding output transformer. The design has zero global feedback, wide bandwidth (–1dB at 100kHz), and an adjustable damping factor. The visual design has also advanced, giving the Lohengrin a more modern look.

  • 3 weeks ago | theabsolutesound.com | Robert Harley

    Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of the Wadax Reference digital products. Their sound quality is unmatched in my experience, delivering a warmth, ease, dimensionality, resolution, and timbral realism that are the state of the art in digital playback. But there are two big problems with the Wadax Reference products—their size and cost.

  • 1 month ago | theabsolutesound.com | Robert Harley

    As a veteran of more than a 100 hi-fi shows, I can say that this year’s AXPONA was one of the best in terms of the number and enthusiasm of the attendees. This year attracted 10,910 attendees, a 5% increase over last year, which itself was a record. The show had 213 exhibit rooms plus the Expo Hall, with many more vendors in the headphone area. AXPONA has rapidly established itself as the premier North American hi-fi show.

  • 2 months ago | theabsolutesound.com | Robert Harley

    The Absolute Sound was founded on the premise that audio equipment should be evaluated on the basis of listening. This was not an entirely new idea. From the very beginning of recorded sound, the result has been evaluated by comparing and listening to the sound being reproduced. This is, after all, only common-sense logic: accuracy of sound reproduction should be judged by hearing the results. But the idea behind TAS was rather more specific than this general principle.

  • Feb 25, 2025 | theabsolutesound.com | Robert Harley

    A nearly quarter-million-dollar price tag for a 20W amplifier may seem like the height of audiophile excess—until you listen to how this extraordinary amplifier transcends mere “hi-fi” to bring music to vivid life. Conceptualized as the ultimate realization of David Berning’s output-transformerless “ZOTL” circuit, the four-chassis Reference SET is the culmination of six years of development between Berning, Rick Brown of Hi-Fi One, audio legend Steve McCormack, and an array of global partners.

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