Nostalgia for an Age to Come

I was surprised to see, in the window of my local charity shop in a corner of north London, a display of 1980s Melody Maker magazines featuring some of my favorite bands. Nestled alongside second-hand frocks and pieces of crockery were The Redskins, Scritti Politti, Johnny Marr, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The Redskins produced…

By JohnValbyNation January 13, 2024 0

Dan D’Agostino’s Dazzling Unveil of the New Relentless Epic and Epic 800 Monoblocks and Momentum MxV Integrated

In the extremely large, all-sonic-bets-are-off, glass-enclosed Atrium display mounted by Mansour Mamaghani’s Audio Reference Munich, Dan D’Agostino, and his indispensable sidekick (aka company President) Bill McKiegan, joined forces with Wilson, dCS, and Perlisten to blow people’s minds. When the new Relentless Epic and Relentless Epic 800 mono amplifiers got fired up, it was a case…

By JohnValbyNation January 12, 2024 0

Wadax Impresses and Satisfies in Munich

There were several reasons why I was extremely eager to hear this system. First and foremost, given the high price of Wadax digital gear, I wanted to get a sense of what the Wadax Atlantis Reference DAC ($166,420), Wadax Atlantis Reference Server ($68,800), Wadax Atlantis Reference Transport $115,000), and Wadax Atlantis Reference PSU ($52,700) might…

By JohnValbyNation January 12, 2024 0

Callas and SotM Surprise at AXPONA

As much as I was aware of the dizzying array of diminutive, Korean-made SOtM (Soul Of the Music) components, each identified by a different difficult-to-type assortment of upper and lower case letters plus numbers and dashes, I did not expect them to sound as good as they did. Allied to K Sound Lab’s Callas Nostalgia…

By JohnValbyNation January 12, 2024 0