Audiophilepure

https://pt.audio/2026/02/13/equitech-model-2rq-tvti-balanced-power-system-review

I realize it’s hard to discuss the importance of power management–so many audiophiles I know use nothing at all and they’re perfectly happy. But once you experience your hi-fi through a balanced power system, it’s very hard to return to the way things once were. (That goes for adequate grounding as well.) The Equi=Tech made that painfully aware once I took it out of the system. Can I survive with my normal complement of earthing devices and noise suppression and power conditioning? I can, but with one caveat: the Equi=Tech seemed to supplant many of those products in one box. I can describe that as downright economical, in fact. The comparisons between the Model 2RQ and nothing at all, however, were shockingly obvious, more than any other single power management device I’ve used in the past.

It’s rather industrial looking, downright utilitarian, especially when compared to other power management devices that are built to look like $50K power amplifiers, but that suggests the seriousness of this product and that it’s manufactured for people who know when something works and when it’s not pulling its own weight. (Besides, I still put my power management products behind the rack, so who cares.) My conclusion is that I’ve yet to try another power management product that gets the job done in such a convincing manner. Plus, it’s not ridiculously priced compared to some of the high-end competition out there.

Thanks, Doug, for introducing me to Equi=Tech. Highly recommended.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/marten-mingus-septet-statement-edition-loudspeaker

See open.qobuz.com/playlist/21395182. I listened to several tracks including “Bass at 100 M.P.H.” by Bassotronics and “Chameleon” by Trentemøller. Tom’s playlist lets you sample many different kinds of bass in different kinds of music. Musicians include The Chieftains with Sinead O’Connor, Rage Against the Machine, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Aretha Franklin, and the Rolling Stones.Footnote 4: Fun story. Akbar Kahn founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Francisco in 1967 and became an important fixture in the San Francisco cultural scene. In 1974, Zakir Hussain (the leader on Making Music, who at the time was living in Mickey Hart’s Marin County barn) met up for dinner with John McLaughlin at Ali Akbar Kahn’s San Francisco home. They brought their instruments. McLaughlin later said that after five minutes, it seemed like they’d been playing together for decades. It was the core of what would soon become the band Shakti, which fused the music of northern and southern India with Jazz.

https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2026/2/28/allnic-audio-asra-rhpa-7500-headphone-amplifier

Returning to civility, I spent some time streaming the Tatrai Quartet’s legendary Haydn cycle on Hungaroton. I focused on “The Lark” from the 1986 set Six String Quartets, Op. 64 (Hungaroton, 1986), which I also have on CD. String quartets can be a litmus test for a hi-fi system. Four string players in a room, simple recording with nowhere to hide. These Tatrai recordings sound fine with the PS Audio Stellar Strata Mk2, but came to life with the Allnic. While soundstage depth was similarly wide, depth expanded dramatically with the Allnic. The real magic was in the timbre. Closing my eyes, the realism was beyond what I’ve experienced with solid-state amplification. 

Many of my listening impressions of the RHPA-7500 were consistent for both headphone and speaker listening. One example I particularly appreciated was that turning up the volume resulted in the musical presentation becoming larger rather than just feeling louder. Not only is this phenomenon enjoyable in itself, but it is an illustration of how the Allnic is just as easy to listen to at higher levels as it is at moderate levels. And considering I was not using efficient speakers, it indicated to me modest power rating of 10-20 watts goes a long way. 

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1308-pmc-mb2-se-loudspeaker

While Rob, Ron, and I were setting up the M66, I made the mistake of fumbling with my phone as it was feeding a Rush song—I think it was “The Spirit of Radio”—to the M66 via Qobuz Connect. Somehow I made the M66 crank up to full volume. That’s 700 hard-core, solid-state watts. I almost shat myself. It was insanely loud, the loudest thing ever. Jet-engine-at-close-range, air-raid-siren loud. The right woofer bonked into its stops with a sharp crack. It only took a couple of seconds for me to fumble the volume back down, but I thought for sure I’d destroyed the MB2s.

I thought back to something Doug Schneider had told me. PMC co-founder Peter Thomas had worked in the BBC’s R&D department, and one of his duties was to evaluate all of the professional monitors on the market. This involved testing many to the point of destruction to find their limits. If indeed I had smoked the MB2s, I hoped Peter and his son Oliver Thomas, who’s co-CEO along with Tom Loader (son of PMC’s other co-founder, Adrian Loader), would cut me some slack . . .

https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2025/3/3/infigo-1

We do not have to deal with such complex issues when emailing a simple PDF document. But imagine that if, in real-time, as the PDF document file travels to you bit-by-bit, you had to read it immediately sentence by sentence; then, you would need the arriving order of the sentences/words to be correct; the order of the incoming bits would be crucial.

With that in mind, I present here a review of a unique, high-end music server: the Infigo Audio IS-1 Streamer Cryogen version (USD 8750). It is the higher end of two IS-1 models, the other is called the Signature (USD 6250) (no Roon, less functionality than the Cryo). The Cryogen model has a Roon Core, 2TB of internal SSD for a music library, and a cryogen-treated USB output port, among other things.