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Reviews of Attainable Hi-Fi & Home-Theater Equipment

Most Popular Equipment

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 May 2025

Reviewers' Choice The home-theater marketplace—what’s left of it these days—is awash with slim A/V receivers that prioritize room-friendly aesthetics and/or outright unobtrusiveness over performance-oriented specs and features. And I don’t mean that in terms of amplified output, since the 50Wpc you get from most slim receivers is probably more than enough for most mixed-use spaces. It’s rare, though, to find a compact AVR that delivers the goods in terms of room correction. The most popular models, such as the Marantz Cinema 70s ($1200, all prices USD), rely on bog-standard Audyssey MultEQ—which in my opinion is worse than no room correction at all—instead of the more advanced and better-sounding alternatives like MultEQ XT or XT32. And that’s just one of the many things that sets Anthem’s new MRX SLM ($1299.99) apart from most of its svelte competition.

Read more: Anthem MRX SLM A/V Receiver

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 April 2025

Reviewers' Choice Technics is a fabled name in turntables, best-known for its SL-1200 direct-drive ’table—a fixture in discotheques and dance clubs throughout the 40 years during which it was manufactured. But in 2010, Panasonic, which owns the Technics brand, stopped making turntables.

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 April 2025

Kanto isn’t messing around when it comes to broadcasting exactly who and what its latest powered speaker system, the Ren ($599.99, all prices USD), is designed for. Although the packaging and official nomenclature refer to it as simply a powered speaker system, a quick DuckDuckGo search reveals the SEO description for the system to be “REN Powered Speaker System with HDMI for Home Theater.”

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 March 2025

Reviewers' Choice Founded in 1906, Goldring is possibly the oldest extant manufacturer of phono cartridges in the world. Although they were established in Berlin, they moved to the UK in 1933. Today, Goldring manufactures two lines of moving-magnet cartridges—the entry-level E series and the step-up 1000 series—plus six moving-coil units. They’re part of the Armour Home organization, whose other products include Q Acoustics speakers and QED cables, among others.

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 March 2025

Reviewers' Choice As I write this, the 2025 International CES has just wrapped in Las Vegas. Perhaps the biggest news of the show for hi-fi enthusiasts was the fact that Onkyo is back, with a trio of stereo audiophile components coming later this year that evoke memories of the brand’s glory days. I’m here to tell you, though, that Onkyo is already back in a big way—at least with regard to home-theater gear—as evidenced by the newest addition to its RZ Series lineup, the TX-RZ30 ($1199, all prices USD).

Read more: Onkyo TX-RZ30 A/V Receiver

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 February 2025

Reviewers' Choice I have, on at least a few occasions, referred to my reference integrated amplifier, the NAD C 3050, as the Workingman’s Integrated Amp. But I think it’s time for me to reframe that sentiment. I’m actually starting to think of NAD as a company with something resembling real class consciousness, because the new C 379 ($1099 stock; $1499 as reviewed, with the MDC2 BluOS-D expansion module—all prices USD) is every bit as much a working-class product, but for wholly different reasons.

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 January 2025

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

This piece could be called A Tale of Two Amplifiers: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .” Actually, times were pretty good, as this review would be my first chance to directly compare two amplifiers since acquiring a Neohipo ET30 amplifier-speaker switching unit from Amazon ($159.95; all prices in USD). The two units were the Dayton Audio A400 power amplifier ($899), the subject of this review, and my own NAD C 275BEE (discontinued, $1495 when available). I was looking forward to this.

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 February 2025

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

Reviewers' Choice Advance Paris is a fairly new entrant into the North American audio market, but it has been in business overseas for 30 years. The company started in France in 1995 as a speaker manufacturer, Advance Audio, then moved into electronics in the 2010s, changed its name to Advance Paris, and began exporting to North America in 2021. However, only in the last year or so have its products gained significant distribution on this side of the pond.

Details: Written by: Dennis Burger; Created: 01 January 2025

Reviewers' Choice In my unboxing blog post for the KEF Q3 Meta bookshelf speaker ($799.99/pair, all prices in USD), I said it felt like a palate cleanser to me in many respects, but here’s a spoiler for you: I wrote those words before I ever cracked the carton and pulled the speakers from their protective packaging. That notion was based purely on my impressions of the company’s speakers, formed mostly at trade shows and based on objective data.