The Latest Features
Shunyata Research Denali D6000/S Power Distributor
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 April 2018 15 April 2018
Power-line products such as Shunyata Research’s Denali D6000/S distributor pose a conundrum for me. On the one hand, I know from experience that having clean power at the proper voltage makes a difference. I learned this when I lived on the top floor of a 21-story high-rise, where power fluctuations and noise-related problems were really bad. An ExactPower EP15A power regenerator, which I reviewed and purchased in 2003, did a bang-up job of clearing up those problems -- whatever I plugged into it sounded better than when I plugged it directly into the wall outlets.
The Best of Montreal Audio Fest 2018
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- Written by Douglas Schneider Douglas Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 April 2018 01 April 2018
From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Montreal’s annual Salon Son & Image (SSI) was my favorite hi-fi show. There were always plenty of exhibitors and thousands of visitors -- a combination that made the event bristle with excitement. Nor did it hurt that Montreal is a great place to visit. I loved going there each spring.
Totem Acoustic Signature One Loudspeakers
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 April 2018 01 April 2018
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Man, what a run.
I first read about Totem Acoustic’s Model 1 loudspeaker in a 1988 issue of Andrew Marshall’s Audio Ideas Guide. “That sounds like a cool speaker!” I remember thinking. Sure enough, I ended up with a pair about seven years later. The Model 1 was my first real audiophile speaker, and it began an obsession with audio, and a journey that led me on the path to becoming a writer for the SoundStage! Network. (I also still have that issue of AIG, stored in the under-sink cabinet of my upstairs bathroom.)
Long Live FM
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 April 2018 01 April 2018
As I am long-domiciled in Europe, a geopolitical area almost as bizarrely snowflake-y as Canada (your PM is such a deluded putz), I am never surprised by idiotic decisions. As has always been the case, whenever governments get involved with consumer technology, they usually screw it up.
Recommended Reference Component: Klipsch Heritage HP-3 Headphones
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 April 2018 01 April 2018
In his review of the Klipsch Heritage HP-3 headphones ($1199 USD), published in March 2018 on SoundStage! Xperience, Brent Butterworth wrote that “The Heritage HP-3s are Klipsch’s best headphones ever, and serious competitors for any headphones in the $1000-$1600 range,” and that they look “like something Paul Klipsch himself might have designed back in the 1950s.”
Constellation Audio Revelation Pictor Preamplifier and Optional DC Filter
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 March 2018 15 March 2018
Last fall, Murali Murugasu talked with me about the birth of his company, Constellation Audio, which he cofounded with David Payes in 2010. “We knew that to succeed, we would need to bring something new and special to the marketplace,” he said. Yet if you take a quick look at Constellation’s Revelation Taurus Mono power amplifiers ($39,000 USD/pair), and the Revelation Pictor preamplifier ($18,000) with optional DC filter ($5000) reviewed here, you might wonder how that could possibly be true -- from the outside, they look like typical audio separates.
McIntosh Laboratory XRT2.1K and Sonus Faber Aida -- Two Flagship Tower Speakers Introduced in Two Days
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 March 2018 01 March 2018
With well-known audiophile brands Sonus Faber, Audio Research, and McIntosh Laboratory -- all now owned by the McIntosh Group -- all on display at a luxe SoHo townhouse converted to a showroom and renamed World of McIntosh (WOM), you’d be forgiven for thinking that all of those companies’ products are made in the same factory. But Sonus Faber is based in Vicenza, Italy; Audio Research in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and McIntosh in Binghamton, New York.
Schiit Audio Yggdrasil Digital-to-Analog Converter with Analog 2 Upgrade
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- Written by Erich Wetzel Erich Wetzel
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 March 2018 01 March 2018
Schiit Audio was founded in 2010 by two audio veterans: Jason Stoddard, formerly of Sumo, and Mike Moffat, formerly of Theta Digital. In the 1980s, Theta was one of high-end digital’s pioneers, and Moffat was behind all of their designs. All of Schiit’s equipment is manufactured in Valencia, California, using parts mostly sourced from the US. They also have a retail shop, The Schiitr, in Newhall, California, where the public can drop in to see and hear their gear. The jokes and puns on Schiit.com aside (read it, it’s hilarious), these guys take their audio seriously.
Digital Is Bad . . . or Maybe It's Not That Simple
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- Written by Joseph Taylor Joseph Taylor
- Category: Joseph Taylor's "On Music" Joseph Taylor's "On Music"
- Created: 01 March 2018 01 March 2018
In “As We See It,” in the October 2017 issue of Stereophile magazine, Steve Guttenberg performed a kind of thought experiment. He asked, “What if Digital Had Never Happened?” Much of his speculation had merit, and resonated with this old analog lover. “[W]e can look back and see that pre-digital recording was simpler,” he wrote, “with less of a fix-it-in-the-mix approach by engineers and bands.” Other things he said also seemed to ring true, and made me wonder if some of my assumptions about the digital vs. analog debate were worth examining.
Soul-Restoring Vintage Hi-Fi at the Audiojumble
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 March 2018 01 March 2018
Another February, another Tonbridge Audiojumble . . . but this time it was an eye-opener. According to the founder and father of the current organisers, John Howes, it’s the best attended yet, and none would dispute it. But why, all of a sudden, is the world’s finest hi-fi flea market enjoying a new audience? I kid you not: there were plenty of people in attendance who 1) weren’t over 40, and 2) didn’t have prostates or beards.
