In Barn for Review

I first heard about Sonnet Audio from my dear friend Alex Halberstadt who wrote about their Morpheus DAC for Stereophile. Careful readers will have spotted a mini theme.

Lejonklou, the hifi company, is named after its founder Fredrik Lejonklou and I know a bit about both because my dear friend Alex Halberstadt wrote about them in Stereophile.

The late sorely missed legendary Tim De Paravicini of EAR fame had a hand in the circuit design of the MoFi StudioPhono Phonostage and it costs $349.

The Ortofon 2M (Moving Magnet) Black cartridge sports a Shibata diamond stylus, nude, to better ride the grooves, a low viscosity, halogen free polycarbonate (PC) resin Hopelex body, and a special upgraded engine, featuring split pole pins with a silver plated copper wire.

I’ve been a fan, albeit from afar, of Manley Labs for years. There’s something no-nonsense about the company, a refreshing directness and attitude that strikes me as a bit fresh, in the best sense(s) of the word.

Welcome back!

“Phono Equalizer Amplifier” is written on the front of the Aurorasound VIDA Prima Phono Preamp cause that’s what it does and is.

When Hegel’s founder Bent Holter decided to build a phono preamp, about 30-years after the company was founded, he started from the ground up.

And so it begins.

A clean stream.

Power, precision, control. A Parasound stack.

The Meitner MA3 Integrated D/A Converter also houses a Roon Ready network player and volume control making it a plug & play streaming Preamp/DAC solution.

The DA2 V2 Reference Stereo DAC is EMM Labs’ flagship DAC. When the opportunity arose for me to hang onto the review sample from the BIG system for closer inspection, I took it (not literally, mind you).

Sleek & sexy works for me.

Silent Angel recently signed up with US Distributor Specialty Sound & Vision who asked if I’d be interested in reviewing a stack, albeit kinda mini, of their digital gear. And here we are.