The Best of High End 2019
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 June 2019 01 June 2019
High End 2019, held May 9-12 at the Munich Order Center (MOC), in Germany, was busier for me than previous High Ends. The show has grown -- a few days after it closed, the event’s organizer, the High End Society, released statistics that indicated that HE2019 had topped their previous biggest show, HE2018, with 551 exhibitors (up 3.8%), 8208 trade visitors (up 8.6%), and a grand total of 21,180 attendees (up 6.5%). The sheer size of High End has always made exhaustive coverage of it a challenge, and this year the challenge was even greater.
Seven Shades of AC/DC's "Back in Black" -- Finding the Best Version to Test Your System With
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 May 2019 01 May 2019
Every so often, I post to my Facebook page my opinions on audio- and music-related subjects, to see what others think. For example, on March 27, 2019, I uploaded an image of the cover of AC/DC’s album Back in Black (1980) and wrote: “Is it only me who thinks that this is one of the best-recorded rock albums of all time?”
The Best of Montréal Audio Fest 2019
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 April 2019 01 April 2019
Early in the morning of Monday, March 25, I typed this into my personal Facebook feed: “[Montréal Audio Fest] gets a 10 out of 10 this year. Big congratulations to Michel Plante and Sarah Tremblay for bringing this event back to life. The enthusiasm and crowd sizes on all days were the best [they’ve] been in 10 years. See our coverage at www.SoundStageGlobal.com.”
The Best of Florida Audio Expo 2019
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 March 2019 01 March 2019
As I talked with exhibitors and other audio writers at the inaugural Florida Audio Expo (February 8-10), I got the impression that almost every one of us had arrived in Tampa asking ourselves this question: Will this be a complete waste of time?
The Best Got Better: Revisiting EMM Labs' DA2 Reference Digital-to-Analog Converter
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 February 2019 01 February 2019
Have you ever taken your car in for a complete tune-up and, when you picked it up, it worked so much better that it seemed like a different vehicle? A similar thing happened to me with EMM Labs’ DA2 Reference digital-to-analog converter, which I reviewed in July 2017.
The 2018 SoundStage! Network Products of the Year -- One-Sentence Summaries
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 January 2019 01 January 2019
Here are the SoundStage! Network’s Products of the Year for 2018. The winning products are chosen based on the reviews of them published in the preceding 12 months on our websites: SoundStage! Access, SoundStage! Hi-Fi, SoundStage! Simplifi, SoundStage! Solo, and SoundStage Ultra.
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?
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?
Added to that $926.95 System: A $289 Turntable and $359.94 Worth of Speaker Footers?
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 October 2018 01 October 2018
In this month’s photos of the system I wrote about last month in “A Feature-Rich, Fully Modern Hi-Fi System You Can Begin, Live, and Grow With -- for $926.95,” keen-eyed readers will notice two additions: a turntable, and footers for the speakers. The turntable shouldn’t be a surprise -- I mentioned last month that I was thinking about adding one -- but as you’ll read below, for this system update the turntable and footers go hand in hand.
A Feature-Rich, Fully Modern Hi-Fi System You Can Begin, Live, and Grow With -- for $926.95
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 September 2018 01 September 2018
In the last few years I’ve reviewed some very expensive hi-fi gear (all prices in USD): Constellation Audio’s Revelation Taurus Mono amps ($40,000/pair) and Revelation Pictor preamplifier with optional DC filter ($23,000); EMM Labs’ DA2 Reference digital-to-analog converter ($25,000); Muraudio’s SP1 speakers ($14,700/pair) -- and, still to come EMM Labs’ Pre preamplifier ($25,000) and MTRX2 monoblock ($85,000/pair).
