September Speaker Week in Denmark—DALI, Treble Clef Audio, and Radiant Acoustics
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 October 2024 01 October 2024
Denmark—a hi-fi-dense country
For a country one-fifth the size of the UK and a population just shy of six million, Denmark has an astonishing number of hi-fi companies and brands: Bang & Olufsen, Buchardt Audio, DALI, Dynaudio, Gato Audio, Gryphon Audio Designs, Lyngdorf Audio, Ortofon, Raidho Acoustics, Steinway Lyngdorf, System Audio, Vitus Audio, and others. I’d bet Denmark has the highest number of hi-fi companies per capita of any country in the world.
Still Think Computer-Based Audio is Tough to Set Up? Try a Turntable!
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 September 2024 01 September 2024
The vinyl long-play (LP) record has been around for a while. It debuted in mono form in 1948 and was adapted for stereo in 1957, but it hasn’t changed since; only the music has. By contrast, rapid technological advancement is a defining characteristic of digital music.
In Defense of Doing Things the Wrong Way
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- Written by Matt Bonaccio Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 August 2024 01 August 2024
In case you need more reasons to start following the SoundStage! YouTube channel, know that, occasionally, some of the vlog-type videos posted there can get pretty spicy. No, I don’t mean X-rated stuff; I’m talking about SoundStage! founder and publisher Doug Schneider’s July 8 Real Hi-Fi video in which he discusses the shortcomings of single-driver speakers. Putting it plainly, “they’re crap,” he says. To my amazement, of the 40 or 50 comment chains on that video (as of this writing), only 11 of them are people letting Doug know he’s an idiot and wrong about everything. Of those, I think only two used profanity, and no one used the caps-lock key. Bravo, internet! Faith in humanity restored!
The Loudspeaker Class of ’74: A Canadian Reunion
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 July 2024 01 July 2024
I don’t think anyone in the world could have predicted that a 1974 meeting between Paul Barton, founder of PSB speakers, and Dr. Floyd Toole, a research scientist at Canada’s National Research Council, would change the way loudspeakers, headphones, and soundbars are designed—not just in Canada but globally.
High End 2024—Have You Ever Been Experienced?
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- Written by Matt Bonaccio Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 June 2024 01 June 2024
I set my backpack under the table and sat down gingerly. Across from me was SoundStage! Ultra senior editor Jason Thorpe, his lips pursed. We’d ducked into a small café in the Maxvorstadt section of Munich, not far from our hotel, hoping a late breakfast of espresso and pastries might revive us. Outside a spring rain washed the streets. Jason raised an eyebrow at me and said, “You’re looking a bit peaked.”
Subwoofers, Speakers, and the Sonus Faber Suprema
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 May 2024 01 May 2024
Show me the cattle
“All hat and no cattle,” they say in Texas, I’m told, of those who are all talk but no action or those who have the appearance but not the substance. That saying came to mind during the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early in January when Sonus Faber introduced its new Suprema loudspeaker system to the press. I didn’t attend that show—it’s been a decade since CES has mattered at all for hi-fi—but, like many, I watched from home as coverage of the system trickled out. Disappointingly, other than regurgitating Sonus Faber’s press release, this coverage focused on just two extraordinary features of this system: its stratospheric price of $750,000 in the US and its gorgeous finish options, something the Italian brand is well known for.
From Aura to Extreme—Experiencing Estonia’s Estelon
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 April 2024 01 April 2024
My travel dynamics—frequency and range
After 25 years of almost monthly travel to interview audio designers and to shoot images and videos, I am almost certain I’ve visited more hi-fi companies than anyone else on the planet. To me, frequent travel is a key part of the job that, time-consuming as it is, feels quite natural; but it seems to baffle some of my peers.
The Best of Florida International Audio Expo 2024
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 March 2024 01 March 2024
In February 2019, a new audio show was launched in Tampa, Florida: the Florida Audio Expo. I and the other visitors that first year couldn’t have known whether it would be any good, of course, but the idea of spending a few days in Florida in February was appealing enough to go anyway. That show turned out to be hugely successful and has been held yearly since (except for 2021, due to the pandemic). An increasing number of exhibitors from outside the US have been attracted to the show in each successive year—mostly from Canada, Europe, Asia, and the UK—which prompted its organizers to rename it in 2023: the Florida Audio Expo became the Florida International Audio Expo. It has continued to grow in scale and reputation, and we intend to continue to cover it as we have since its inception.
Canada’s NRC: A Forthcoming Look at Its Role in the Advancement of Canadian Loudspeaker Design
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 February 2024 01 February 2024
The NRC connection
In 1980, at the age of 16, I bought my first stereo system, which was centered on a pair of PSB New Avanté loudspeakers. It was through PSB’s product information for those speakers that I first learned of Dr. Floyd Toole and his work at Canada’s National Research Council (NRC), in Ottawa. Dr. Toole, an electrical engineer and a renowned acoustician, conducted seminal research in acoustics and psychoacoustics at the NRC in the 1970s and has published extensively in the field. PSB’s founder and chief designer, Paul Barton, was introduced to Dr. Toole by Ian G. Masters, who was the editor of Audio Scene Canada magazine at the time, and who had published some of Dr. Toole’s writing. Barton began R&D work at the NRC under Dr. Toole’s mentorship in 1974, a relationship PSB was not shy about in their product information.
How I Define “Oligarch Audio”
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 January 2024 01 January 2024
Last September, Futureaudiophile.com featured an article by writer Steven Stone titled “Oligarch Audio Is Not the Same as High-Performance Audio.” Stone opens his article with a humble disclaimer, noting that although the term “oligarch audio” has been ascribed to him by his publisher, he takes no credit for it. This term, insofar as I can find, first appeared as a title of an article Stone wrote for Audiophilereview.com in 2014, so he may well have coined it.
