Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/magico-s2-loudspeaker

After a good two months with the Magicos, I went back and forth about what I’d heard. My reference Focal Scala Utopia Evos remain superb speakers—generous, full-bodied, with intoxicating ease and power. The Estelon X Diamond Mk IIs I’ve been living with are just as compelling, delivering spectacular resolution and visceral impact. Both speakers do many things brilliantly.But the Magicos have forced a reckoning. Their sealed-enclosure approach revealed what I hadn’t fully appreciated: namely, the precision that comes from eliminating port artifacts; the clarity that emerges when group delay drops to almost nothing; the transient energy that makes music feel especially immediate.If I were forced to choose new reference speakers, and assuming the M6s (that I still quietly pine for!) are out of reach, the S2s would be serious contenders. That’s not because the Magicos do everything better than the Focals or Estelons. It’s because they reveal a different kind of truth. Provided you give the S2s serious amplifier power and place them carefully, they offer uncompromising engineering fully in service of accurate music reproduction, shunning embellishments. I could damn sure live with that.

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/riaa-reports-us-vinyl-sales-surpassed-1-billion-2025-representing-nearly-50-our-favorite

On the bigger-picture sales front, the RIAA also confirmed that U.S. wholesale annual revenue achieved a record high of $11.5 billion, which has been buttressed by record labels’ commitment to using technological innovation to (in their words) “deepen the connection between artists and fans.” The latter comment applies mainly to streaming, as the U.S. remains the world’s largest paid subscription market with 106.5 million accounts generating $6.4 billion in revenue. (Premium paid subscription revenues grew by 6.8% to $5.88 billion.)

That all said, now that I’ve just calculated how much I personally added to that 2025 U.S. vinyl sales figure (and to our GDP, for that matter) due to all the LPs I bought in 2025 — a trend that’s clearly going to increase here in 2026, based on the vinyl purchases I’ve already made in Q1 — I think it’s high time to put on some of that new wax and celebrate this news! How about you? Happy spinning, everyone. . .

Kraljić always approaches design from a unique perspective, and Nucleus’s proportions and shape were precisely calibrated from the ground up, not as a stylistic feature, but to provide an excellent foundation for harmonic energy balance, ensuring that no frequency stands out and that the music is presented as a seamless blend of harmonic and multiple frequencies.

But it does not end there. Kraljić also approached the crossover and internal wiring with his decades-proven method of equal music energy distribution, removing blockages and providing equilibrium. This creates fluid pathways and, crucially, the domain for the music to unfold fully.

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/jbl-spinner-bt-turntable

George Benson may be getting on in years, but in the 1970s, he was a strapping pop star, and his 1976 hit single “Breezin’” (the title track to that No.1 album!) barely disguising the talent that John Scofield once described to me, unprompted, as “freakishly great.” Good King Bad is a lost CTI classic from earlier that same year — a monster funk workout anchored by bassist Gary King and drummer Andy Newmark. The music courts popular tastes rather than clandestine club action, but don’t mistake accessibility for a deficit of funk. This record has got it in spades.

The Spinner BT sorted out the Good King album’s heavy ’70s overdubbing like a seasoned magician. Benson’s hollowbody electric guitar solos leapt from the speakers with the kind of bloom I normally associate with a SET amplifier. The stage spread wide, instruments layered cleanly from strings to drums, and the music pulsed with groove, propulsion, and ample energy. The Spinner BT’s strong motor drive paid real dividends in drive and punch. The top end glistened perhaps a shade too brightly, but I didn’t care — I turned it up, and got lost in the groove. Mission accomplished.

Built for those who listen beyond the ordinary. The next evolution of Montemar Audio Fidelity, high-end handcrafted horn loudspeakers designed for audiophiles seeking true musical realism, with each system carefully built to recreate the emotional impact of live music.

https://www.theaudiobeat.com/music/jennifer_warnes_famous_blue_raincoat_lp.htm

FBR’s first audiophile incarnation came in 2007 when Cisco Records put out a three-LP 45rpm set [Cypress Records/Cisco Records CLP7060-45]. In 2015, Impex released a 33rpm version [Cypress Records/Impex Records IMP6021], then released a repressing on blue vinyl in 2020. This latest version makes every effort to impress — a One Step 45rpm version using the VR-900 Supreme vinyl formulation. It is said to be the very last version from the original master tapes. FBR was a digital recording, but this set used the first-generation mix-down tapes. According to Impex, once this release, limited to 7500 numbered copies, is completed, those original mix-down tapes go into the vault forever. In addition, this boxed set includes the four outtakes included in the 20th Anniversary CD issued by Impex in 2007 [Cypress Records/Impex Records IMP8301].