J.Sikora Reference turntable Florida authorized dealer 48

Stereophile Recommended Components, Fall 2025

Deep Dive Audio is Proud to Carry the Following Recommended Components

Stereophile’s Recommended Components list is among the most prestigious and influential awards in audio. The Fall 2025 list has been published, and we want to feature the awardees we represent. Being named a Stereophile Recommended Component not only recognizes the achievement of the component itself, it speaks to the quality of the manufacturer as a whole. And we at Deep Dive are proud to represent so many recognized lines.

J.Sikora Reference turntable Florida authorized dealer 48

Turntables

Class A+

J.Sikora Reference:

This Polish company’s top-of-the-line turntable is a non-suspended, high-mass design, weighing 253lb. The dynamically and statically balanced platter alone weighs 40lb! Drive is with four square belts spun by four Papst DC motors. MF found that the plinth was immune to knuckle raps and motor start-up noises and wrote that the Reference was very quiet. He decided that this J.Sikora ’table had been superbly tuned to extract deep, well-controlled bass free of overhang or excess. The measured speed accuracy was impressive, as was its isolation from the outside world. Using J.Sikora’s own KV12 VTA tonearm ($8995) as well as SAT and Kuzma tonearms, MF couldn’t find fault with any aspect of the Reference’s sonic performance or its machining and physical presentation. He summed up: “For those willing to make the expenditure, add the J.Sikora Reference to the list of great mass-loaded turntables at this price.” (Vol.45 No.7 WWW)

J.Sikora Standard Max Supreme:

“The Standard Max Supreme is built like a heavy-metal layer cake, each massive section supporting another, from its oversized isolation platform to its 40lb Delrin platter and its massive record weight,” wrote KM about this Polish belt-drive turntable. Robert Sikora wrote that compared with the regular Max, “the separating layers at the base of the platter are now made of steel and solid brass plates. The motor housings … are made of 1cm–thick stainless steel, with improved internal damping. The bases of the motor housings are made of a 2cm–thick layer of brass.” The two EBM-Papst DC asynchronous motors are powered by an outboard supply, crowned with a CNC-machined anodized aluminum pulley, and housed within 1cm-thick Inox stainless steel enclosures. With the turntable fitted with J. Sikora’s silica-damped KV9 Max Zirconium unipivot tonearm ($11,750) and a MoFi UltraGold MC cartridge, KM found his attention shifted away from even the most important details—tone, texture, separation—and toward “the delicate spaces between notes, the interplay of musicians, the palpable air pressure in the recording space, the distances between performers in the studio.” He added that the Standard Max Supreme “proved one of the most rhythmically adept players I have encountered. It precisely communicated nuances of time, tempo, groove, and swing.” He concluded that, while the price is high, “the profound musicality it delivers renders the price justifiable.” (Vol.48 No.4 WWW)

Class A

Rega Naia:


Based on the cost-no-object, limited-edition Naiaid, the top-of-the-line Naia resembles Rega’s Planar 10 and Planar 8. It uses the same skeletal plinth, built from a lightweight polyurethane foam core sandwiched between top and bottom layers of laminate and to maximize stability the belt-driven ceramic platter concentrates its mass at the rim. The Naia uses Rega’s familiar one-piece aluminum armtube, this fitted with an ultra-lightweight titanium bearing structure to minimize resonances. There is no provision for adjusting the cartridge’s azimuth or stylus rake angle, because Rega is adamant that this would compromise the structural rigidity, but a 2mm shim can be added at the arm mount if you want to use a particularly tall cartridge. The review sample was fitted with Rega’s Aphelion 2 MC cartridge ($5545 when sold separately), which brings the package price, including the Reference Power Supply, to $16,995. MT was immediately struck by how tidy and controlled the Naia/Aphelion 2 combination sounded, allowing him to focus on the music making. The Naia nails pace, rhythm, and timing “with extreme confidence,” he wrote, and concluded that the Naia “is compact, lightweight, and supremely easy to set up and get the best from. Most importantly, it sounds superb and pulls music from the grooves of a record better than the vast majority of turntables.” (Vol.48 No.1 WWW)

Rega turntable tonearms Florida authorized dealer

Tonearms

Class A

J.Sikora KV12 VTA:

The oil-damped, unipivot KV12 VTA is the first tonearm to use an armtube made of Kevlar—“KV” stands for Kevlar—and features precision, on-the-fly VTA adjustment. MF noted that while the KV12’s bass reproduction was clean and tight, it couldn’t match the “prodigious-yet-honest bass” of the much-more-expensive SAT arm. MF concluded that while the KV12 hasn’t got the Kuzma 4 Point’s bottom-end “womp” and authority, its timbral balance and everything else about it produced nothing but sonic pleasure. (Vol.45 No.7 WWW)

Rega RB330:

Current version of Rega’s classic tonearm. (Vol.40 No.2, Vol.46 No.11 WWW)

Aidas Phono Cartridges Gold Series Florida authorized dealer

Phono Cartridges

Class A

Aidas AG-CU series Malachite Silver | Aidas CU-series Durawood:

These hand-built, low-output moving coil cartridges from Lithuania use the same basic generator, boron cantilever, AlNiCo5 magnet, and nude MicroLine stylus, but differ in the wire used to wind the coils and the material used for the cartridge body. The Durawood uses copper wire and a body made from multilayered wood; the Malachite uses silver-plated copper wire and a heavier, green, Tru-Stone body. The first thing that struck MT about the Durawood was how quietly this cartridge sat in the groove. “Minimal groove noise is usually a good indicator of a well-aligned stylus, sitting square and true in the groove,” he wrote. On a track featuring John Coltrane playing soprano saxophone, the sound never devolved into screechiness: “It remained prominent but smooth.” Art Davis plays a bowed solo on the same track, “which demonstrated just how embodied and rich the Durawood’s bass can be when given the right material.” With the Malachite Silver, MT found that the sound remained similar in overall tonal flavor but with a noticeable improvement in microdynamics and power. “Both of these cartridges are easy to like, with a smooth, refined sound and gobs of detail and precision,” he concluded. “The Malachite Silver sounds similar to the Durawood but adds some dynamic impact and slam. … If you can swing the additional $1255, the Malachite Silver is a clear step up.” (Vol.47 No.2 WWW)

Rega Aphelion 2:

This low-output MC uses a boron cantilever and a fine-line stylus and recommended loading for 
the 10 ohm coil is 100 ohms. Tracking force is 1.9gm. See the Rega Naia entry in Turntables. (Vol.48 No.1 WWW)

Ideon Absolute Stream Meta Edition

Disc & File Players

Class A+

Ideon Audio Absolute Stream meta edition (2024) server/streamer:

The Absolute Stream meta edition can render music files stored on its internal 4TB SSD (an 8TB SSD is also available) or on USB- or network-connected external storage. It can natively stream Internet radio, Spotify, and Qobuz, and adds an embedded Roon core. Features include a CPU that’s “highly prioritized for audio playback only, ensuring highly optimized sound quality” and a reclocking circuit that includes “no-compromise femto clock architecture embedded as standard” on an upgradable platform that is said to eliminate jitter. Ideon considers a USB source of data less prone to noise than a network connection; the optional Alpha Wave LAN optimizer ($6900) takes in an Ethernet signal, converts it to USB, reclocks it, and outputs the music data over USB 3.0. JVS found that Ideon’s web-based app had metadata problems with WAV files; it did much better with FLAC. “Never before have I reviewed a stand-alone streamer/server so accomplished in the hardware department, yet so behind the best in software implementation,” noted JVS, but such limitations aside, he wrote that the Ideon Absolute Stream meta edition (2024), running its own software, delivered clearer, more involving sound than any other music server or streamer he’d heard in his reference system. (Vol.47 No.11 WWW)

Stereophile Ideon eos

Digital Processors

Class A+

Ideon eos:

Manufactured in Greece, the eos offers electrical S/PDIF digital inputs on RCA and BN jacks and a USB port, the last featuring three-stage noise filtering. (Ideon calls this port a “Proprietary Triple Distillation USB input.”) A large display on the front panel displays the incoming data’s sample rate, the output level can be set to High or Low, and there are both balanced and single-ended analog outputs. HR used the USB input for his critical listening; he found that neither of his reference processors, a dCS Lina and a HoloAudio Spring3, had greater raw clarity than the Ideon. “What the eos DAC was doing better than any DAC I’ve used is compel me to play songs over and over.” The eos played a favorite Alan Lomax track more clearly, with better tone and greater vibratory presence, than any HR could remember. With CDs played on a Sparkler transport feeding the Ideon’s S/PDIF input, he wrote that the eos’s presence, immediacy, and raw transparency “were now subordinated to an atmosphere of copious nuance and wide-spectrum tonal shading.” Overall, the Ideon eos’s sound character most closely resembled Wattson Audio’s Madison. “The eos has that same jet-engine, DAC-of-the-future presence and drive, to which it adds a lot of corporeal, tone-correct realism that I found extremely compelling,” HR concluded. On JA’s test bench, the measured resolution with the output set to High was 18 bits; the Low setting reduced the measured resolution by 1 bit. Both harmonic and intermodulation distortion were very low, and the Ideon eos was immune to jitter with both its coaxial and USB inputs. The only anomalous behavior JA found was that with data sampled at 44.1kHz, the response rolled off sharply above 17kHz and was down by 16dB at 20kHz. (Vol.48 No.9 WWW)

Class A

Accuphase DG-68 Digital Voicing Equalizer:

The fifth iteration of a unique Japanese product that made its debut in 1997, the DG-68 offers high-resolution, DSP-based multiband equalization and versatile room-acoustic correction abilities (a microphone is included), coupled with a 35-band spectrum analyzer and, according to JA’s measurements, state-of-the-art digital/analog conversion. The DG-68 has both analog and digital inputs and outputs. Using the analog inputs and outputs and experimenting with the DG-68’s settings to optimize the sound of his reference system in his room, JVS found that with VC/EQ active, “guitar strums sounded more realistic, bass was fuller. … Tonality was superb, and the slightest change in dynamics or emphasis was easy to hear and savor.” He concluded that Accuphase’s Digital Voicing Equalizer enriched his experience of reproduced music far more than he could have imagined. “It is transformational and performs flawlessly, to oft-astounding effect. For those who can afford it, its rich musical dividends may prove essential.” JVS subsequently repeated his auditioning using the DG-68’s digital inputs and outputs. He found that the sound was “more substantial in the best ways possible without, to these ears, any loss in transparency, color, [or] depth. … The DG-68’s digital in/ out operation enhanced my listening experience in every imaginable way short of transporting me to the actual recording venue.” (Vol.44 Nos.8 & 12 WWW)

Ideon Audio Ayazi mk2 | Ideon Audio 3R Master Time Black Star Clock

Reviewed as a system, this pairing from Greece offers coaxial S/PDIF and asynchronous USB inputs and one pair of single-ended outputs. The Ayazi processor uses the well-regarded ESS DAC chips. Without the Master Time Black Star Clock, AH found that the Ayazi reproduced music with less resolution and timbral accuracy and created a spatially smaller, less lifelike sound. “Music sounded duller and less compelling,” he wrote. With the external clock, nothing was exaggerated or missing, including deep bass and the high highs, and nothing sounded strident or splashy. This sense of order was heightened by profoundly silent backgrounds and remarkable resolution. “With a combined price of $7800, it is by no means inexpensive,” AH concluded, “but it provides good value for the refined musical spectacle it creates.” JA noted that the Ayazi did well on the test bench, but he didn’t find any difference in its measured performance when fed USB data via the 3R Master Time Black Star Clock. Still, based on AH’s subjective evaluation, the A+ rating is only when used with the 3R Master Time Black Star Clock; without the clock, this is a class B DAC. (Vol.45 No.8 WWW)

Accuphase Power Amplifiers Florida Authorized Dealer

Power Amplifiers

Class A (Solid State)

Accuphase A-300 monoblock:

“The more I listened to the A-300 monoblocks, the more I wanted to listen,” wrote JVS about his time with a pair of these powerful amplifiers. (It is specified as delivering 125W into 8 ohms, 250W into 4 ohms, 500W into 2 ohms, and 1000W into 1 ohm.) The MOSFET output operates in class-A up to 125W into 8 ohms, 62.5W into 4 ohms, and 31.25W into 2 ohms. The A-300 has both balanced and unbalanced inputs; the gain and XLR polarity can be adjusted; and an operation-mode switch facilitates bridging and biamping. “As revealing and full range as the sound was,” wrote JVS, “these amplifiers emphasized midrange warmth over top-end brilliance.” He summed up the A-300 by writing “as much as the Accuphase A-300 Monophonic Power Amplifier deserves a Class A rating on our Recommended Components list, that classification only begins to capture how wonderful it sounds.” On the test bench, the A-300 exceeded its specified powers, clipping at 210W into 8 ohms, 385W into 4 ohms, and 610W into 2 ohms. JA’s conclusion: “The Accuphase A-300’s measured performance indicates that it has no problem driving low impedances, and it offers very low distortion, especially into 8 ohms. It is also a very quiet amplifier, even at the highest gain setting.” (Vol.46 No.12 WWW)

JMF Audio HQS 7001 Monoblock:

After this powerful French amplifier—specified power is 300W into 8 ohms, 500W into 4 ohms, and 850W into 2 ohms—had warmed up, JVS found it offered “extremely colorful and neutral sound” that made him want to listen more and more. The JMF Audio HQS 7001 “is especially adept at putting music front and center without injecting commentary,” he concluded, adding that the HQS 7001 “is a bit like the fine wine whose bouquet you can’t describe other than to say that your meal was divine in part because you sipped it.” In the test lab, the JMF amplifier slightly exceeded its specified powers and offered measured performance that was typical of a high-power, solid state design with a class-AB output stage. Distortion will be lowest into 8 ohms, noted JA, who also warned that this amplifier’s heatsink only has just enough thermal capacity for its rated power. (Vol.47 No.2 WWW)

Class A (TUBE):

Unison Research Reference monoblock:

Unusually, the Reference monoblock uses four paralleled 845 triode tubes operating in class-A for its output stage. The front-end circuitry uses one ECC82 tube and one ECC83 tube. There are both balanced and single-ended inputs and 4 ohm and 8 ohm output transformer taps. (RvB slightly preferred the 8 ohm tap with his reference Focal Scala Utopia Evo speakers, and the 4 ohm one with the Estelon X Diamond Mk IIs.) Playing familiar albums, RvB noted that the Unison monoblocks gave recorded instruments the space they needed: “All sounded lush but not overripe.” They beautifully rendered the hushed, expressive Rhodes piano on John Martyn’s “Couldn’t Love You More” and the claves on his “Certain Surprise.” He also found that the Unison amps handled complex, layered music with composure. “Even the weight and speed of taiko hits came through with more authority than I’d thought likely from a tube amplifier,” he commented, adding that that kind of performance “is usually the province of solid state contenders.” RvB concluded that the 845 tubes occupy their own terrain. “They don’t punch like the PrimaLuna EVO400 amplifier or dazzle with immediacy. Instead, they bloom. They stretch space, thicken tone, and draw you in with an unhurried, dimensional ease. They flesh out the harmonic body of a note and let its decay hang in the air without collapsing the structure around it. The Unison Reference amplifiers make full use of that character.” Unison Research specifies the Reference’s maximum continuous power as 75W, a high power for a single-ended topology. JA found that the amplifier reached its specified maximum power into 8 ohms at almost 10% THD+N. Fortunately, he noted, the distortion in the midrange was predominantly the subjectively innocuous second harmonic. However, with the circuit’s reduced linearity in the top audio octave, intermodulation distortion with an equal mix of 19 and 20kHz tones was disappointing. JA summed up his findings by writing “The amplifier offers relatively high power as long as the load impedance is higher than the nominal output transformer tap value. The single-ended input is preferable to the balanced.” (Vol.48 No.9 WWW)

Class B (TUBE):

Zesto Audio Bia 200 Select:

This elegant looking, zero-loop–feedback, tubed design from California comes fitted with push-pull pairs of KT150 output tubes operated in Ultralinear mode, but can also use K120s or KT88s. Output tube bias is adjustable on the fly for KT150s (three settings) and KT120s (two settings). There are balanced and single-ended inputs and 4, 8, and 16 ohm output transformer taps. KM used both KT150s and KT88s. With the latter tubes, KM noted that the Bia 200 Select sounded “laid-back, a bit slumber-toned, and easy on the ears. … Smoothness and textural sweetness were its strongest points.” With KT150s at the same low bias he had used for the KT88s, the Zesto sounded entirely different, “like a transparent membrane, now pulled tighter.” Moving up to the middle bias setting, and then to the highest, KM commented that “music swelled with more intensity and force in the low end and better articulation and more immediacy, overall.” He concluded that the Bia 200 “is transparent, powerful, resolving, fun. Maybe it’s the top end that seems to go out for miles, or the sonorous bass, or how it steps out of the way of recordings and lets them shine on their own terms.” On the test bench, the Zesto featured extremely high source impedances from all three of its output taps, conform to classic telecommunications practice in which making the source impedance the same as that of the load impedance maximizes power transfer. However, this means that the amplifier will sound different with every loudspeaker with which it is used. Of greater concern was that the Bia 200 only met its specified powers at relatively high levels of harmonic distortion, along with the fact that the distortion was higher at low frequencies than it was in the midrange and that the distortion and noise were different in the two channels. JA found that this behavior was due to mismatched output tubes—Zesto recommends that the tubes have at least 50 hours of use to sound their best, but the review sample’s tubes had more than 500 hours of use, with corresponding deteriorations in their operating parameters. The paradox, therefore, is that the longer the tubes are used the better the amplifier will sound but the worse it will measure. (Vol.46 No.3 WWW)

Unison Research S6 Black Edition Florida authorized dealer

Integrated Amplifiers

Class A

Unison Research S6 Black Edition:

This tubed amplifier uses three KT77 Gold Lion output tubes in single-ended Ultralinear mode for each channel to deliver a specified maximum power of 40Wpc into 6 ohms at 5% THD. (JA measured 38W into 8 ohms at 10% THD+N.) There are four pairs of single-ended inputs, as well as USB, S/PDIF, and TosLink digital inputs; the USB input supports PCM up to 384kHz and DSD up to DSD256. (The DAC chip is a Sabre ES9018K2M.) Listening to vinyl KM noted that the S6 Black Edition made music with a dark-chocolatey richness while managing to avoid cloying sweetness or sentimentality. Its presentation was vibrant and full. “No matter what I paired it with, the S6 Black, with its signature golden hue and consistent well-sortedness, faithfully reproduced subtleties of the upstream and downstream components,” he wrote. The S/PDIF digital input fared less well: “the sound was perfectly fine: quiet, even compelling, but nowhere near as engaging as my analog setup.” KM’s conclusion? The Unison Research S6 Black Edition does have a sound of its own, “classic tube sound: liquid, a touch warm, excellent tonal color. It’s not old-fashioned or stodgy, but it’s definitely not sterile.” In the test lab, the S6 Black Edition behaved pretty much as JA expected from a tube amplifier with a single-ended output stage and little or no global negative feedback. “While the distortion signature is predominantly the innocuous second harmonic,” he wrote, “the high levels of distortion at powers of more than 1W, especially into impedances below 8 ohms, mean that this amplifier must be used with loudspeakers that have both a high sensitivity and a high impedance.” (KM auditioned the S6 Black Edition with the very sensitive Volti Lucera and Voxativ Ampeggio loudspeakers.) The measured performance of the digital inputs was compromised by the presence of supply-related spuriae, JA found. (Vol.48 No.5 WWW)

Franco Serblin Accordo Speakers Florida authorized dealer

Speakers

Class A

Franco Serblin Accordo Goldberg:

This elegant-looking, curvaceously styled, reflex-loaded, two-way standmount from Italy is best used with the matching stands, which cost $2500/pair. A Scan-Speak 7″ (180mm) woofer, loaded with a port on the asymmetrical rear panel, crosses over around 2kHz to a 29mm silk-dome tweeter, also by Scan-Speak. The antiparallel and strongly curved enclosure is fabricated from 24 laminated, solid walnut planks to control structural resonances. “It was with simple recordings of natural sounds that these speakers’ true excellence was revealed,” MC wrote. “Even with a large orchestra, the perception of individual-instrument focus and perspective was compelling.” He noted that with Tony Faulkner’s recording of Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, “a huge soundstage filled in with an extraordinary quantity of microdetail. Near-pinpoint imaging was heard over the whole soundscape.” The Accordo Goldberg “manages to transcend the build technology and the machinery within to build a closer relationship with your ear. It plays with a superbly natural timbre, especially violin, piano, and voice, while defining wide, deep, and well-focused sound images that almost breathe with life. … But that is as nothing compared with their supremely tactile microdynamic and seductive quality, which draws the listener into the musical performance,” he concluded. The Accordo Goldberg is a relatively demanding load, wrote JA, who also observed that its low frequencies will sound somewhat lightweight without boundary reinforcement. JA was impressed by the clean waterfall plot but noted that the frequency response lacked energy in the lower midrange and presence regions. The latter will be ameliorated if the speakers are toed in so that their axes cross in front of the listener. (Vol.47 No.8 WWW)

BOX Audio Furniture ISO Isolation Platform Florida authorized dealer

Racks and Stands

Box Furniture Co. Equipment Rack HS3S:

Box Furniture Co. racks have premium hardwood frames and plywood shelves. All joints are mortise-and-tenon, and catalyzed finishes are applied to all surfaces. Art used a single-width, three-shelf rack finished in Quartered Sapele. Beautiful and sturdy, he said, and equipment stacked atop it sounded good. (Vol.32 No.2 WWW)

Symposium Rollerblock Series 2+:

For improved resolution from your CD player (or any other digital equipment), ST recommended these precision-machined items, which consist of a block with a ball bearing set in a hemispherical depression. Once they’re in place, he said, the sound “just tightens up, cleans up, clears up. I hear more low-level information. Imaging improves. Timin+N176g, too … . Transients are crisper. I hear improvement in just about every respect.” The only drawback (outside of cost) is that the player might “roll around a little” when you load a disc or hit Play. SD concurs with ST’s enthusiasm; MF became a believer in the “high-roller” phenomenon when he put his Virgos on the similar Yamamura speaker bearings. (Vol.22 No.4)

Symposium Super Plus Platform: $799 | Symposium Ultra Isolation Platform:

The top and bottom of the Ultra platform are aluminum, while the middle is made up of several unequal-thickness layers of vibration-damping material designed primarily to drain vibrational energy away from your component, rather than to provide isolation from external vibrations or footfalls. It succeeded at lowering noise and enhancing resolution, while bringing “an entirely subjective sense of ease” to listening, said JM. The less-expensive platform jazzed MF with the “top-to-bottom authority, focus, and slam” that his system gained when the platform was installed under his turntable. Prices are for 19″ by 14″ size; 19″ by 21″ costs slightly more. (Vol.20 No.5. Vol.26 No.3 WWW)

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