Vibratron, Gravitron, Magnetron, and Bass Station: the sci-fi names alone are enough to raise eyebrows. But when you add in the fantastic appearance of the resonating bowls, and the claims that they can tune your listening room and ameliorate most commonly encountered speaker-room interactions, it’s hard not to think that someone is either toying with you or daring you to entertain a new paradigm of acoustic science.

Tags: Magnets | Room Treatment

Cambridge Audio has come up with a product that has wowed everyone: the DacMagic. For $479, you get a DAC that is fully differential (a stereo DAC on each of the two channels), upsampling to 24/192, very low specified distortion, and selectable output filters. Does it perform as claimed? Read our review to see for yourself.

Tags: 24 bit 192 kHz | 24 Bit 96 kHz | DACs

ButtKicker has been making tactile transducers (shakers) for several years now. These are devices that make your chair, couch, or floor vibrate when low frequency material is playing. They were always very powerful, and in fact, more intense than many consumers wanted. You could always just turn down the volume, but then, you were paying for high power shaking that you were not using. So, ButtKicker decided to produce a shaker that is smaller, with less maximum shaking potential, and include a smaller amplifier. The BK-KIT-4 is the result.

My first “high end” system consisted of Sennheiser HD-580 headphones, an original HeadRoom headphone amplifier, an Audio Alchemy DAC in the Box, and a Sony Discman with an optical digital out. I was a college student at the time, and there was no way of having a real, properly set up hifi system in my dorm room. It was clear to me at the time, listening to both my system and uber high end Hifi in shops, that my little headphone setup blew away many high dollar loudspeaker based systems.

I’ve been suspicious of power conditioners ever since they first appeared – sometime in the Jurassic Park period I think. Just like the science in that movie is a little glossed over, so is the science of AC power glossed over by wild claims for power conditioning products. Besides, when we shell out the big bucks for good hifi a lot of what we’re paying for is the power supply. That’s why we pick it up before we buy it. A good power supply means a big transformer, which is heavy. And big capacitors which we’d like to see neatly arranged. I was willing to give Furman a try however because for one thing, they got their start in pro-audio. I don’t necessarily think that the pro-audio world has an advantage over the retail audiophile crowd (that’s you and me) when it comes to good ears.