2010 Blue Moon Award Winners in the Audio Reviews Categories
The 6moons Blue Moon Award is bestowed only on components or music releases of rare excellence. The following audio components were deemed outstanding for the specific reasons cited.


For English speakers not familiar with the colloquial phrase "Once in a Blue Moon", it connotes an event of considerable rarity, like finding a pearl inside an oyster. The actual occurance in its original and proper meaning relates to the extra full moon in a quarter of the year when there are four full moons rather than the usual three. The division of the year into quarters for this purpose sets the dividing line between March 21 and March 22. This relates to the rule for setting the date for the Christian Holy Day of Easter. It depends on the last full moon (as calculated by a somewhat inaccurate formula) on or before the Equinox on March 21.


This meaning of a blue moon was lost when the editors of the original Farmer's Almanac died. It was recovered only when researchers for Sky & Telescope magazine noticed that the Maine Farmer's Almanac from 1829 to 1937 reported blue moons that did not fit the meaning of the term calendar blue moon as has since become convention when people have taken to calling a full moon a blue moon based on the Gregorian calendar. By this use of the term, a blue moon is the second of two full moons to occur in the same calendar month. This definition of blue moon originated from a mistake in an article in the 1946 Sky & Telescope magazine, which failed in an attempt to infer the earlier definition used in the original Farmer's Almanac. It was helped to popularity when a Trivial Pursuit question used this as a source for one of its questions. Sky & Telescope discovered the error nearly 60 years later and the magazine printed a retraction and correction. But by the time the correction came about, the calendar definition had already come into common use. Because it is so much easier to understand, the mistaken calendar-based meaning has stuck.


Regardless of these arcana, a blue moon sighting refers to something that doesn't happen very often - a perfect image for a selective award and a fitting tie-in to this site's lunar identity. To read the winning reviews, click on the respective links below. But first, a reason why you should:
From Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel  Blue Moon  
"Reading improves your vocabulary, Officer Maiden. You should try it sometime. Though I suppose you can get by with just looking at the pictures."

"Ooh, I'm cut to the quick on that one," Maiden said.

"If you cut us, do we not bleed?", Belisarius asked.

Maiden shocked the hell out of me by giving the next line: "If you tickle us, do we not laugh?"

Belisarius clapped softly. "Touché, Officer Maiden."

"Big and well read," I said. "I'm impressed."

He pulled a chain out of his pocket with keys on the end of it. "Don't tell the other cops. They'd think I was a sissy."

I looked up at him, all the way up at him. "It's not reading Shakespeare that makes you a sissy, Maiden. It's that damn gun. Only pansies carry that much hardware."

He unlocked the door at the end of the hallway. "Got to carry something big, Ms. Blake. Balances me out when I run."
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  The following awards were given out in 2010:
Well Tempered Lab: Amadeus
"Innovation, Ease of Use & Superb Musicality"
Wilson Audio: Sasha W/P
"Outstanding Engineering, Industrial Design & Performance In A SOTA Speaker"
Burson Audio HA160D
"The New Benchmark For Affordable 3-1 Headphone/Preamp/DAC Functionalityr"
Emillé Labs Cha'am
"Absolute Top Class Mid-Power Integrated Valve Amplifier"
Audez'e LCD-2
"World-Class Planar-Magnetic Headphone"
ModWright KWA 100 SE
"Superb Class A/B 100wpc Mosfet Stereo Amp Whose Pricing Makes It A Very Good Value"
Gryphon Diablo
"Best Integrated Amplifier In The World?"
MIT Magnum M1.3 loom
"A State-Of-The-Art High-Resolution Musically Truthful Cable System"
Wyred4Sound DAC2
"A Comprehensively Featured 24/192 USB DAC With Top Performance At The $1.500 Mark"
Dr. Feickert Analogue Blackbird
"A Modern Classic Turntable"
Triangle Magellan Duetto
"A Top-Class Monitor Speaker""
JE AUdio VL20 & VS70
"Affordable dual-differential valve gear that bridges tube and transistor virtues"
ASI LiveLine loom
"A complete audio cable loom with consistently superior timing, transient & harmonic fidelity"
Weiss DAC2
"A high-performance and fairly priced FireWire DAC with a good feature set"
Nagra BPS
"A petite reference phonostage with class-leading tone density and absolutely silent operation"
Anthony Gallo Acoustics Reference 3.5
"The Return of a Legend - even better than before"
M2Tech hiFace
"An Affordable High-Resolution Bit-Perfect USB PC/audio Interface"
April Music Stello CDA500 & Ai500
"Two Affordable Super Machines"
Dared DV-6C
"The Pure Audio 5.1-channel Tube & class D Hybrid Amp that redefines 'simple is best'"
ASR Emitter I
"State Of The Art Sonics in the über-amp category"
Esoteric E03
"A Full-Featured Reference Phono Stage with Class-Leading Resolution & Dynamics"