After more than a decade reviewing audio gear, Zeos of Z Reviews has seen it all—DACs with longer menus than the Cheesecake Factory, headphone amps with more buttons than a cockpit, and a thousand different ways to complicate what should be simple. So when it came time to design his own gear with Leo of Orchard Audio, he went in the opposite direction. In this conversation, Zeos unpacks his thinking behind Valencia—a minimalist power amp that strips away gain stages, volume knobs, and inputs in favor of clean, uncolored signal. We talk about market fatigue, feature bloat, and why sometimes the best audio gear is the one you don’t notice at all.

Before Leo Ayzenshtat ever designed an amp, he was specializing in high-stakes engineering for NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Siemens, where failure wasn't an option and every component had to earn its place. But in pursuit of better sound at home, he started applying that same rigor to a new frontier: audio. In this conversation, Leo walks us through the origin of Orchard Audio: from designing a DAC for his own living room to launching a company known for minimalist, high-performance gear. We talk about the lessons he brought from aerospace, the challenges of running a lean business without compromising on sound, and why accessibility, simplicity, and sonic excellence don’t have to be at odds.

Hi everyone, I want to take this opportunity to give a quick update to the community on how tariffs might impact Apos’ operations. This is ...