Castle is an iconic UK brand of speakers, founded 1973. Veteran Castle designer Karl-Heinz Fink (KHF) is at the helm and has created two new stunning stand mount models in its top Windsor Range, which is of course, built in the UK. These new Windsor models are British to the core, which I say with admiration. Castle speakers have a gorgeous finish…

Al visited from out of town recently. He looked around the store and saw a lot of Bryston speakers. He asked with a confused look, “With all the speakers on the market, why do you sell Bryston? I know they make great amps with a 20 year warranty. But why do you sell their speakers? I didn’t even know they made speakers.”…

Family of curves

Rega P1 With Rega Carbon Cartridge, $595 (Black Or White) There’s a wide world of cheap, plastic Chinese turntables out there trying to grab your interest. If you’re jumping into record playing for the first time, or returning to the hobby, please don’t fall for a rumbling pile of bolts/plastic. Listening to records through this noisy hail storm will much diminish your…

Here’s a reminder for you, or a friend, that you can get a very impressive pair of N American built towers for only $1400 Per Pair. The Axiom M50s hit the spot for many aspiring audiophiles. Virtually all the competition in a tower of this price range comes from China. They use flimsy cabinets and drivers. Our point is, you can DO…

Atoll AM200, $2300, {120×2} There are literally thousands of power amps on the market. When you consider the law of diminishing returns, price vs performance, the Atoll AM200 is my favorite value. Some amps are built to look good on the spec sheet. Atoll amps are made to sound great. Their specs are excellent, but the performance goes far deeper than what…

Your surround sound receiver does many tasks. It’s a LOTTA things in one box. *It starts as a preamp with HDMI, digital and analog inputs *The preamp allows you to configure channel range and amplitude *There’s a built in computer to handle immense audio & Hi-res video switching *There’s a surround sound decoding system *There’s a video processing circuit *It processes HDR10,…

Atoll AM300, $3900 150×2 stereo or 500w Monoblock Atoll designs and builds its products, in its own house in France, with a 3 year warranty. They actually populate their own PCBs and do the real work of manufacturing in house. Atoll’s circuit boards are a work of art. There’s a small amount of wire from the transformers to the PCB and THAT’S…

Atoll PR300, $3100 Atoll actually designs and builds its products, in its own house in France, with a 3 year warranty. PR300 is Atoll’s new balanced preamp and can go in the best of systems. Let’s take a look. First of all, the $3100 price tag is in line stage configuration. Atoll doesn’t know if you want phono built in or not….

I’ve written about how Bryston contracted Axiom, a friendly Canadian speaker company down the road, back in 2009, to create the ground breaking Bryston Model T speakers. Model T is a full range tower of prodigious performance. Its bass is deep and defined. The midrange and top end are Steinway Smooth. There’s no bite or edge to Bryston’s sound. The combination of…

What a coincidence that all the products of this system happen to to have the 100 designation. When you put these individual products together to form “System 100” a true synergy occurs. Each product shines through when linked with ideal price/performance stable mates! Axiom M100 Speakers, $3000 Per Pair {47.5h, 9.25w, 17d, 92dB SPL, 4 ohms} Axiom’s new M100 is Bryston’s “workingman’s…

What a coincidence that all the products of this system happen to to have the 80 designation. When you put these individual products together to form “System 80” a true synergy occurs. Each product shines through when linked with ideal price/performance stable mates! Axiom M80 Speakers, $2300 Per Pair {39.5h, 9.25w, 17d, 94dB SPL, 4 ohms} Axiom’s new M80 is Bryston’s “workingman’s…

Axiom M80 Speakers $2300 Per Pair (39.5h, 9.25w, 17d, 63 lbs, 94dB SPL, 4 ohms, Walnut, Black, Boston Cherry) Bryston contracted Axiom to build its design brief of the Model T speaker in 2009. The success of that project built a fruitful relationship between the two companies and they merged. The resulting company is simply called Bryston. Bryston decided to recognize Axiom’s…

Axiom M100 Speakers, $3000 Per Pair (47.5h, 9.25w, 17d, 81 lbs, 92dB, 4 ohms, Walnut, Black, Boston Cherry) Bryston contracted Axiom to build its design brief of the Model T speaker in 2009. The success of that project built a fruitful relationship between the two companies and they merged. The resulting company is simply called Bryston. Bryston decided to honor Axiom’s contribution…

Bryston and Axiom speakers just arrived!

Atoll MS120 Streamer/DAC, $1600 (3.7h, 12.6w, 8.27d) Atoll’s new MS120 Streamer/DAC is my favorite streaming device. It’s a Swiss army knife as well. Finally we have a GREAT Streamer/DAC that is enough better than a Bluesound that I’m happy to recommend it. I’ve enjoyed Bluesound Nodes as streamers. They work well with few hiccups. They work especially well when you run digital…