The Latest Features
The Best of Audio Video Show 2018
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- Written by Douglas Schneider Douglas Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 December 2018 01 December 2018
Since 2016, when I began covering Warsaw’s annual Audio Video Show (AVS), it’s presented one surprise after another. When first invited to attend, by the show’s organizer and owner, Adam Mokrzyck, I’d had no idea AVS even existed. When I arrived in Warsaw and found that AVS occupied 170 rooms spread across three venues -- the Radisson Blu Sobieski and Golden Tulip hotels, and the Warsaw National Stadium -- I was less surprised than shocked. How could a show this big have gotten in under our radar?
Bryston Middle T Active Loudspeaker System
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 December 2018 01 December 2018
Around five years ago, established Canadian electronics manufacturer Bryston began making loudspeakers. This began as a pet project of James Tanner, VP of Sales and Marketing, who wanted a reference speaker for his own use. To achieve the level of performance he desired, the speaker developed was a fully active design. The performance of that speaker was so good that Bryston decided to bring it to market. However, because of the complexity and added cost of active speakers, they decided to first offer it as a passive model. Now that Bryston has been producing their full range of loudspeakers for a while, they’ve introduced fully active versions of their top models, the T series.
NAD's D 3045: a D 3020 V2 on Steroids?
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: System One System One
- Created: 01 December 2018 01 December 2018
My September 2018 editorial was titled “A Feature-Rich, Fully Modern Hi-Fi System You Can Begin, Live, and Grow With -- for $926.95.” Given the total system price mentioned in the title, I thought the piece might be popular. I had no idea. It was one of my most-read editorials in years, bettered only by some of my “Best Of” audio-show roundups. I got e-mails from around the world -- and requests from manufacturers who wanted to send me samples of their equipment, hoping to be included in the next such system I wrote about.
East vs. West
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 December 2018 01 December 2018
It wasn’t my first time in what was once a country ruled by evil, soul-destroying Commies. It wasn’t even my first time in Poland. Long before I was lured to Warsaw, I had visited one country formerly behind the now-forgotten (by many) “Iron Curtain” on numerous occasions: Hungary. Of course, every trip to Budapest was about hi-fi; I went to visit the late, sorely missed Istvan Csontos, the most enthusiastic audiophile I ever knew. He ran amazing hi-fi shows in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which almost prepared me for the situation in another once-impoverished country.
Recommended Reference Component: Fostex TH909 Headphones
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 December 2018 01 December 2018
In his review of the Fostex TH909 headphones last month on SoundStage! Solo, Brent Butterworth remarked that “Fostex has one of the most unusual product lines in the headphone biz. They mostly split between pro ’phones priced under $200, and high-end consumer models priced at $599 or more.” Brent, who’s “been a Fostex fan since 1997,” wrote that “I had yet to hear a set of Fostex headphones I didn’t like” -- including the TH909s ($1799.99 USD).
Totem Acoustic Sky Tower Loudspeakers
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- Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 November 2018 15 November 2018
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Vince Bruzzese founded Totem Acoustic in 1987, in Montreal, Quebec. Last year, to celebrate the company’s 30th anniversary, Totem released the Signature One, successor to Totem’s very first speaker, the Model One. Jason Thorpe reviewed the Signature One on this site in April 2018.
The Best of Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2018
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 November 2018 01 November 2018
In 2013, Jeff Fritz and I reported on the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, held annually in Denver, Colorado. We’d made flight and hotel reservations so that we could attend all three days of the show, but found it so lacking in new and interesting products that we left halfway through Day 2 to see Captain Phillips at a nearby movie theater. We returned on Day 3 but wound up aimlessly walking the halls, finding little worth our while. We’d watched attendance at RMAF dwindle before 2013, but it had never been this bad. Is it any surprise that I didn’t return in 2014 -- or in 2015, 2016, or 2017?
Studio Electric M4 Loudspeakers
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 November 2018 01 November 2018
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Although Studio Electric LLC was established in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2006, founder David MacPherson can trace his career as a speaker designer back 20 years before that. In 1985, he began making speakers for the professional market under the brand name MacPherson, Inc., which he remained involved with until 2005.
Negan's Bat
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 November 2018 01 November 2018
If you believe, as I do, that trends at street level are more important than those manufactured by the press, then the latest Tonbridge Audiojumble was an education. As ever, it was also good for a number of surprises, which is why I’m reporting on it again. There is a subtle change in the atmosphere -- nothing sinister, just a sign of evolution.
Recommended Reference Component: Hegel Music Systems H590 Integrated Amplifier-DAC
- Details
- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Recommended Reference Components Recommended Reference Components
- Created: 01 November 2018 01 November 2018
Hegel Music Systems’ new H590 is, by far, their most costly integrated amplifier-DAC to date, at $11,000 USD. Their next-most-expensive model is their previous flagship integrated-DAC, the H360, at little more than half that price: $6000. But at 17”W x 6.8”H x 17.6”D and almost 50 pounds, and specified to deliver at least 301Wpc into 8 ohms, the H590 is larger, heavier, better built, more powerful, and has more features. And according to Hans Wetzel’s review of the H590 on this site last month, it sounds better. Hans attributed much of that improvement to the H590’s “magnificent D/A converter,” and he should know -- he owned an H360 at the time of review, and before that he’d owned the H360’s predecessor, the H300.
