Audio Unleashed

Audio Unleashed

This is Audio Unleashed: the world’s only totally unfiltered, freewheeling, fearless discussion about the latest events in the world of audio, featuring veteran audio reviewers Brent Butterworth and Dennis Burger. With decades of experience, a modest grasp of science and logic, and a marginal degree of financial security, they can tell the good from the bad, and the proven from the preposterous — and they’re not afraid to tell you what’s what.

Episodes

August 20, 2025 63 mins

We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent do some sleuthing work to ascertain whether a crackpot article about Tom Waits is A.I. slop or just straight-up plagiarism, and whether or not Dr. Sean Olive has a substance-abuse problem. Then they sort through two lists of speakers that audiophiles all either love or hate to find which speakers are on both lists, wonder why it seems l...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent dive deep into the subject of infrasonics by way of a “studio-quality” MP3 album that tunes baroque music to the planet’s Schumann resonance and thus allows you to be calm and focused (i.e., the sonic opposite of Audio Unleashed), and they also ponder the utility of two new subwoofers bigger than our dynamic duo put together. Next up, D...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent ponder the questions that everyone ought to be asking: Why hasn’t anyone tested speaker isolation devices before now? (Like, really tested them, not just gauged their emotional reaction to them.) Why does AI music sound so much more convincing than AI images look? (And can AI out-ButterBurger House Band the real ButterBurger House Band?...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent wonder why Stereophile killed the comments section on their website (besides the magazine’s desperate quest to deprive Audio Unleashed of a reliable source of entertainment). Next, they speculate about how juicy a deal reviewer Cameron Oatley got for voicing Warwick Acoustics’ $38,000 APERIO GoldenSound Edition headphone system, and dis...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent yet again ponder the question of whether or not CDs are making a legitimate comeback. Then they deconstruct one of Stereophile’s most controversial columns in ages. And what’s up with Zu Audio’s new speaker. Is this thing legit or what?

💿 Michael Gaughn’s Jour et Nuit on Bandcamp: https://michaelgaughn.bandcamp.com/album/jour-et-nuit

B...

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June 11, 2025 67 mins

We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent discuss Darko’s coverage of the Munich High End show, including his insistence that he’s noping out of trade shows going forward. Will we really never see him again IRL? Next up: did Audio Judgement do this crossover A/B blind test right … and can a chancy collection of cheap caps and chokes credibly conquer the chi-chi stuff? Finally, ...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent catch up with all the news we should have covered last episode, including the Harman acquisition of Sound United, and what it means for the fate of Bowers & Wilkins, Dolby, and the half-dozen audio dealers left in the U.S. Then they ask The Absolute Sound’s philosopher-in-chief Tom Martin to blink twice if he’s OK in his recent vide...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent dig into the news about a new $25/month music streaming service that claims it’s the first to deliver lossless and immersive audio. (Please don’t tell Apple Music or Qobuz or Tidal or Amazon!) Then they look on as an AudioXpress writer does a Marianas Trench-level dive on the return of the 78 rpm record, and question whether these can d...

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April 30, 2025 56 mins

We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent deconstruct the latest column by Stereophile’s editor-in-chief and contemplate whether his position on spooky woo-woo has devolved in the past decade. Then they ogle cool amps and preamps on AliExpress that borrow revered brands yet cost only hundreds—and also examine how crazy it’d be to buy this stuff right now (b/c tariffs, not b/c c...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent explore the fast-growing world of made-to-order lathe-cut records – and even play one for you! (Prepare to be … well, prepared.) Then they delight in some made-to-order pink noise from Erin’s Audio Corner, and deconstruct Holly Cole’s new made-to-order (well, for audiophiles) album with the help of Stereophile. 

Brent’s audio projects:

...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent stop by Strata-gee to see how Sonos is strategorizing to scramble back to the summit of the sound souk with a new … oh, wait, change in plans! Then they ally themselves (very conditionally) with a British-ish mastering engineer who contends that high-priced DACs are a scam. Then they bring their incomparable incredulity to bear on the q...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent page through the storied Gray Lady (known to some as the New York Times and to Brent as “employer”) and find, to their amazement, an in-depth profile of high-end vinyl company Acoustic Sounds and its iconoclastic proprietor, Chad Kassem. Then they check out what YouTube star Cheapaudioman says are the biggest mistakes audiophiles can ma...

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We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent unexpectedly flip the phase of their podcast by lavishly praising another audio pundit. But they quickly get back to business with an in-depth report on what might be the most preposterous subwoofer review (and most preposterous subwoofer setup) in a long history of preposterous subwoofer reviews by audiophile mags. Then they try to fig...

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February 19, 2025 75 mins

We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis wonders why a writer for The Atlantic is wondering why his cheap Bluetooth speaker can’t generate the feeling of community he got at a Beyoncé concert, while Brent wonders why Dennis was reading The Atlantic. Then they dig into a recent article on acoustics by one of audio’s most popular personalities to learn what’s better: a lousy speaker in a ...

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February 5, 2025 61 mins

We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent discuss Danny Ritchie’s diagnosis of the legendary Wilson WATT/Puppy; can he find the cure for questionable engineering? Then they ponder whether Spotify is truly evil, and what malice might lurk in the hearts of other streaming services. And they wrap up with speculation about why a stupid article on vinyl seems to have been memory-hol...

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January 22, 2025 74 mins

We’re on Patreon! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Dennis and Brent discuss how spending money and seeing measurements can influence subjective listening impressions, take a weird vicarious trip to a Japanese Kissa, and listen to a direct comparison between the same digital master delivered on a variety of different media.

Buy-now links for products mentioned herein (As Amazon Associates, we may earn a ...

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January 8, 2025 59 mins

We’re on Patreon now! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, while the Audiophiliac (Steve Guttenberg) questions whether we can trust audio reviewers, Dennis and Brent decide whether we can trust Steve Guttenberg. Then they make the mistake of watching one the audio world’s cringiest videos, in which audio icon Mark Levinson tries to explain how PCM audio is stressing everyone out, or not stressing everyone o...

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December 25, 2024 66 mins

We’re on Patreon now! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Brent and Dennis dig into the latest drama surrounding a sus audio manufacturer trying to suppress bad press; riff on yet another article about the increasing appeal of vintage audio gear; and talk about king-of-all-audio-media John Darko’s experimentations with different amps driving KEF’s Q Concerto Meta speaker. Should you run screaming (or quiet...

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December 11, 2024 56 mins

We’re on Patreon now! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Brent and Dennis bemoan the sordid tasks mainstream tech journalists are forced to do these days; dig deep into the current state of audio recording methods as an excuse to promote Brent’s new album; and shine a light on a great review of FiiO’s new portable CD player, which really might change the way we consume music.

Buy-now links for products m...

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November 27, 2024 69 mins

We’re on Patreon now! Find us at https://www.patreon.com/AudioUnleashed This week, Brent and Dennis welcome headphone expert and friend of the podcast Lauren Dragan to answer the question: does the new hearing-aid functionality of Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 really work, or is it just another quickly tacked-on feature everybody else will have to copy? But before that: Some bloviating about Bose’ purchase of the McIntosh Group and some g...

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