Tom Fine
Gear Review
NTH-100 Headphones
Nov 15, 2022
Long a well-reputed maker of microphones, Australian company RØDE has jumped into the crowded, but red-hot headphones market with both feet. The...
Gear Review
NDH 30 Headphones
Nov 15, 2022
Back in 2019, I reviewed Neumann's first foray into headphones, the closed-back NDH 20 . At that time, its parent company...
Gear Review
HD 400 PRO Headphones
Mar 10, 2022
Sennheiser, a German business run today by the founder’s grandsons, took a new direction last year. A longtime player in consumer and professional...
Gear Review
Fireface UCX II USB Interface
Jan 15, 2022
RME has raised the bar on value with the Fireface UCX II. This German-made ADC/DAC is an all-in-one recording tool of bits and bytes, with no...
Gear Review
HPA4 Headphone/Line Amplifier
Jan 15, 2021
When the folks at Benchmark suggested a review of their HPA4 for Tape Op, my first reaction was, “Isn’t this aimed more at the audiophile market?”...
Gear Review
BT-Pro V2 Bluetooth Direct Box
Nov 15, 2020
Radial Engineering, of Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada, has built its business by designing clever solutions for stage and studio, including an extensive...
Gear Review
Mercury Mastering DA Converter
Jul 15, 2020
SPL electronics is a 35-year-old German company that makes everything from the Vitalizer sweetener/equalizer to a well-regarded de-esser and desktop...
Gear Review
4B3 Pro Dual Mono Amplifier
May 20, 2020
Bryston, based in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, has been around since 1961. The company straddles the border between pro audio and the part of the...
Gear Review
Professional 1 Series 104 Powered Monitors
Nov 15, 2019
I wanted some small-format speakers for monitoring a transfer chain I set up to digitize a medium-sized pile of old NTSC videos. These videos...
Gear Review
NDH 20 Headphones
Jul 15, 2019
Neumann made its bones on the microphone side of the audio business. From its 1928 founding by Georg Neumann, through its 1991 acquisition by the...
Gear Review
Mini Maglite Pro LED Flashlight
Mar 15, 2019
I've been a Maglite man since I was in college. They are built to be dropped, don't die under most rain conditions and the beam-focus...
Gear Review
Big Knob Studio & Big Knob Passive
Jan 15, 2019
Back in 2004, Mackie introduced the original Big Knob, the first affordable monitor/headphone bus controller for DAW-based studios. Essentially...
Gear Review
DT 1770 & DT 1990 PRO Headphones
Sep 15, 2018
A couple of years ago beyerdynamic debuted the latest versions of their top dynamic studio headphones. The DT 1770 PRO closed-back and DT 1990 PRO...
Gear Review
P3100 Studio Power Amp
Sep 15, 2018
As Canada's Radial Engineering continues to revive the Hafler brand (acquired in 2014 from Rockford Corporation), its latest move is into power...
Gear Review
ADI-2 DAC Converter
May 15, 2018
Set up as a straight DAC/headphone amp, RME's ADI-2 DAC sounds fantastic and is very much on the neutral and clear, perhaps "clinical"...
Gear Review
Clear Professional Headphones
May 15, 2018
France-based Focal is best known for pro and consumer audio speakers, but the company has, in recent years, moved into all aspects of the headphone...
Gear Review
m900 Headphone Amp/DAC/Preamp
Mar 15, 2018
As we all know, it's a new "personal listening" world out there. The majority of consumers, especially younger ones, listen to most of...
Gear Review
Monotor Headphone Amp
Jan 15, 2017
Boutique equipment maker and former studio technician Jonathan Little has built a business around making useful (and small) boxes that solve specific...
Gear Review
HA15 & HA75 headphone amps
Sep 15, 2016
These days, pro audio's end products often live in the "Headphones World." The home stereos of the past have been supplanted by the...
Gear Review
Sparrow DAC
May 21, 2016
Black Lion Audio, based in Chicago, started out as a "hot-rodding shop," modifying equipment by other manufacturers to improve the sound...
Gear Review
DAC2HGC A/D converter & preamp
Jan 21, 2016
Before she joined Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick was in a band called The Great Society. They made an LP, Conspicuous Only in Its Absence, the title...
Gear Review
Two18 studio monitors
Jul 15, 2015
A few months ago, I took on a project that pushed me into the dreaded realm of needing new studio monitors. After about ten years of using a pair of...