The Latest Features
"SoundStage! Hi-Fi" Inducted into EISA
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 August 2018 01 August 2018
If you’re reading this article before August 15, you won’t see a new menu option on this site that says “EISA.” But on or after August 15, it will be there -- you’ll be able to click it and see submenu items, including one for the EISA 2018-2019 product-award winners, as well as another for an EISA-related video that we produced. But even if you’re reading this before August 15, at the top you’ll see EISA’s logo alongside our SoundStage! Hi-Fi logo, as well as elsewhere on our site.
Muraudio SP1 Loudspeakers
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 August 2018 01 August 2018
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
My experiences with Muraudio’s new, unconventional, two-way, stand-mounted hybrid loudspeaker, the SP1, began last March in Montreal, where I saw and heard its debut at the Montreal Audio Fest. (A single hybrid speaker has drivers based on different technologies; in the SP1’s case, electrostatic and dynamic.) We covered the SP1 on SoundStage! Global during the show, and I included it in “The Best of Montreal Audio Fest 2018.” In May, impressed by the innovative ideas that had gone into the SP1’s design, I wrote and published “Muraudio’s SP1 Loudspeaker -- Way Outside the Box Again,” and promised a full review of the speaker in June.
Speaking of Sad Bastards
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 August 2018 01 August 2018
Unless one is an active member of an audiophile club, like the Boston Audio Society or a similar group, it’s easy to feel detached from anything approaching a “high-end culture.” Unless one works in the audio industry, whether manufacturer or retailer, regular contact with fellow hi-fi enthusiasts might be limited at best. Isolation is fine for components -- not so much for anything else.
Recommended Reference Component: Audio-Technica ATH-ADX5000 Headphones
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 August 2018 01 August 2018
When Brent Butterworth began listening to the Audio-Technica ATH-ADX5000 headphones for SoundStage! Solo (the review was published July 10), he was “skeptical” about them: “At first glance, they don’t really seem all that different from their stablemates,” he wrote -- and while he’d liked the sound of A-T’s previous open-back headphones, he hadn’t thought any were “world-class.” Also, at $1999 USD, the ATH-ADX5000s are more than three times the price of A-T’s next-most-expensive open-back headphones, the ATH-AD1000s, which “seems a stretch.” By the end of his review, Brent’s skepticism had vanished.
Analysis Plus Silver Apex Speaker Cables and Interconnects
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 July 2018 15 July 2018
I’ve been using Analysis Plus speaker cables and interconnects in my reference system for many years now, but was a bit shocked when I realized that it had been more than ten years since I’d last reviewed and bought anything from them. In 2007, when I reviewed the newly introduced Black Oval 9 speaker cables and Micro Copper Oval-In interconnects, I noted that Analysis Plus had not substantially revised the designs of any of their cables in the roughly ten years since they’d been introduced. Now, another eleven years later, the bulk of their cable designs remain essentially unchanged. But as I also said in 2007, Analysis Plus has stated that they believe in producing well-built, properly engineered cables whose high quality is “scientifically verifiable” through measurements.
The Best of High End 2018 -- €10,000 and Up
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 July 2018 01 July 2018
Last month, I wrote about the best products at High End 2018, in Munich, priced under €10,000. This month I share my picks for the best products from High End 2018 priced at €10,000 or higher. (All prices in euros or USD.)
Monitor Audio Silver 200 Loudspeakers
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- Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 July 2018 01 July 2018
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Reading SoundStage! Global’s coverage of the High End 2018 audio exhibition, in Munich, Germany, I was amazed and dismayed at how exclusive so much of it is. High End is the biggest event on the audio calendar, where companies, journalists, and consumers congregate each year to discover the industry’s latest and greatest -- but many of the new products introduced at HE2018 retailed for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A Short History of the High End
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 July 2018 01 July 2018
Every year at the Oscars, there’s a film tribute for the motion picture industry notables who passed away in the previous year. Inevitably, they leave out one or two, probably through human error, but I suspect because of politics, too; one can only imagine if they’ll include Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and the like, once they shuffle off to whatever level of Dante’s Inferno awaits them.
Recommended Reference Component: Anthem STR Integrated Amplifier-DAC
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 July 2018 01 July 2018
Vinyl isn’t the only audio sector that’s resurging these days -- integrated amplifiers, too, are back in style. But today, those who demand integrateds want much more than a preamp and power amp in a single box. They want not only the high power and sound quality of separate components, but also lots of features, digital and analog.
JE Audio HP20 Phono Stage
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- Written by Oliver Amnuayphol Oliver Amnuayphol
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 June 2018 15 June 2018
With LPs on a seemingly endless comeback streak -- 2017 marks the 12th straight year of sales growth, according to Nielsen SoundScan’s figures, as reported in Billboard -- the demand for vinyl-related gear seems to have concomitantly increased: Turntables abound, with more models at more price points available than ever before. The number of available phono stages seems higher still, in a market well populated by less-well-known, specialty audio firms offering quality hi-fi at less-than-stratospheric prices. Among these is JE Audio.
