Everyone who ever had a cheap receiver blow up—that’s what caused me to move from Kenwood to Pioneer—or heard an old Akai that made LPs sound like 128kbps MP3s, please raise your hands.
Yamaha was in a different league.1 Hence, when Jim Austin proposed that I review the brand-new, top-of-the-line Yamaha A-S3200 integrated amplifier ($7499.95), I was eager to discover just how far the company’s designs had progressed since I was in my 30s.
When I first saw the A-S3200’s retro, double-meter look and discovered that it has bass and treble tone controls and a front-panel headphone jack, l experienced a moment of time-travel déjà vu. I returned to the 21st century upon examining the multilanguage owner’s manual and noting that it was free of the kind of Japanese-to-English mistranslations that made some of Yamaha’s early manuals so much fun to read. If only some high-end companies with far more expensive products would take the same care with their product manuals. (A good start, in a few cases, would be to write one.)
Denne historien er fra September 2020-utgaven av Stereophile.
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Denne historien er fra September 2020-utgaven av Stereophile.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Louis in London
No jazz-centric visit to New York City is complete without a trek out to Queens. At 46th Street in Sunnyside stands the apartment building where famed cornetist Leon Bismark \"Bix\" Beiderbecke's alcoholism finally killed him in 1931.
Believing in bricks and mortar
North Carolina hi-fi dealer Audio Advice has been busy lately.
Musical Fidelity AI
In 1989, I bought my second pair of Rogers LS3/5a's from a guy on Staten Island who had them hooked up to a Musical Fidelity AI integrated amplifier.
Burmester 218
As much as I tinkered with a little crystal radio as a child and started reading stereo magazines in high school, it wasn't until my early 30s that I half-stumbled into the higher end of the hi-fi sphere.
Bowers & Wilkins 805 D4 Signature
The \"Bowers\" in the name of British manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) refers to founder John Bowers, whom I got to know fairly well before he passed in 1987.
Hegel H400
STREAMING INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle
How many times have you been told by parents and teachers that everything successful must be built on a strong foundation?
RECOMMENDED RC2024 COMPONENTS
Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable.
Paging Dr. Löfgren
It started one evening when I was killing time watching YouTube videos and stumbled across a 2017 talk given by Jonathan Carr, Lyra's brilliant cartridge designer.'
Music among the Fairchildren
Pull down the shades, find a comfortable seat, and come with me on an imaginary journey to the year 1956. The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket wins reelection, the United Methodist Church begins to ordain women, and a can of Campbell's tomato soup costs 10 cents.