Editor’s Choice

• Every untreated listening room is broken (in two) 🌶️ 25th January 2026
  [Editor’s note: This is the ninth in a series of fifteen observations from fifteen years of audio writing] Room acoustics sit at the very top of my audio improvement hierarchy. Above loudspeakers. Above loudspeaker placement. Above amplification. Above source components. Above everything else. A €500 pair of loudspeakers in a […] The post Every untreated […]
• Audeze LCD-5s: flagship planar gets SLAM treatment 24th January 2026
  Audeze has quietly dropped a successor to its LCD-5 flagship headphone. The LCD-5s made its debut at NAMM 2026, bringing the company’s SLAM acoustic technology (previously reserved for the US$5995 CRBN2 electrostatic) down to its planar magnetic lineup. Specs summary The technical fundamentals: a 90mm planar magnetic driver using Audeze’s […] The post Audeze LCD-5s: […]
• Onix completes Zenith trio with XMT20 streaming transport 23rd January 2026
  Shanling’s Onix subbrand / OEM rounds out its three-quarter-width Zenith lineup with the XMT20 – a streaming transport that joins the existing XST20 SACD transport and XDA20 DAC. The XMT20 runs on a new Linux-based platform developed in-house and arrives with Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect and Roon Ready certification. DLNA and […] The post Onix completes […]