Smyth Research Realiser A8 Headphone System

Kal Rubinson has posted an extensive review of the Smyth Research Realiser A8 Headphone System ($3360) in his regular Music in the Round column at Stereophile. His conclusions:

Even more remarkable was the Realiser's ability to create a two-channel soundstage from two-channel sources. No longer was the CSO clustered inside my head, but arrayed from left to right and, apparently, some 30' behind my main speakers. Coupled with the head-tracking function, which kept the image stably in place when I moved my head, even the phantom center-fill of instruments or soloists remained centered between the (now silent) B&W 802Ds. My wife, a casual listener, was amazed by the Realiser-Stax. "The sound is not coming from the headphones," she exclaimed. "It's out there."

…The SVS Realiser A8 has successfully countered every theoretical objection to listening via headphones to standard music and movie sources, whether in mono, stereo, or multichannel. If you're a regular headphone listener, you absolutely must hear this. Even if you aren't, perhaps, for all the reasons I've enumerated, you'll change your tune. The SVS Realiser A8 changes our expectations for the reproduction of music by headphones. (I imagine a killer product: a stereo DAC/preamp/headphone amp with a simplified SVS function.)

You can read the full review here.