Perfect Timing: A Bruce Cockburn Evening and a Digital Upgrade for Treble Clef’s TCA-M Active Loudspeaker
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 December 2025 01 December 2025
Although there are many reasons to like loudspeakers built around purely analog components—whether they’re all-passive or analog-based active designs—one benefit that owners of those loudspeakers can never enjoy is getting a digital upgrade that can improve the speakers’ sound and maybe even add new features. With digital active speakers, such benefits are possible.
Visiting a Mostly Italian Hi-Fi Trio: Diapason, Mastersound, and VinnieRossi
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 November 2025 01 November 2025
In my August 1 editorial, titled “Inside Views: Why SoundStage! Goes the Distance,” I outlined why some of us at the SoundStage! Network travel to audio companies around the world as often as we do. My explanation was summed up in this sentence: “The reason is simple: so we can better inform our audience.” While visiting companies, we typically focus on their newest products. We also put time into finding out about each company’s history and what makes it tick.
Simaudio Takes On the World with the New Moon 371 Streaming Integrated Amplifier
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 October 2025 01 October 2025
Yesterday, Simaudio released the Moon 371, the first product in its new Compass Collection. I had advance knowledge of the Moon 371 and the Compass Collection, having attended a briefing session at Simaudio’s headquarters in mid-September. Although no other Compass Collection products were released, or even mentioned, we were given a hint of what’s to come. Simaudio told the group that this new series takes both technology and inspiration from the more-expensive North Collection line, which was launched in 2023 and comprises six models: the 641 integrated amplifier, 681 streaming digital-to-analog converter (DAC), 761 and 861 power amplifiers, and 791 and 891 streaming preamplifiers. Where North is the pinnacle, Compass has been designed as its natural companion, one intended to point you northward—a series that remains proudly high-end, but one that also opens the door for a wider audience to experience Moon products at their best.
How a Trip to Montreal Made Me Hate the Compact Disc a Little Less
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 September 2025 01 September 2025
For nearly 20 years, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the Compact Disc (CD). I admire it for outlasting every prediction about its demise—but that stubborn endurance also frustrates me. In a world where technology races ahead, the CD has somehow refused to be left behind, a theme I explored in a Real Hi-Fi video just over two years ago.
Inside Views: Why SoundStage! Goes the Distance
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 August 2025 01 August 2025
This article will be briefer than usual because as I write this, I’ve been home for less than 24 hours after visiting Beijing and Weifang, two cities in China. The outward journey took about 24 hours, but the trip home—delayed by bad weather that diverted our final flight—stretched to a grueling 34 hours. I’m not just jetlagged; I’m thoroughly exhausted and more than a little edgy. Still, the message I want to share feels too important to postpone—and I wanted to relay it with this trip fresh in my mind.
Torn Between Component Types—A New Twist on the Integrated-versus-Separates Debate
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 July 2025 01 July 2025
I’ve been thinking a lot about Natalie Imbruglia lately—not about her music, but about the sentiment behind her best-known hit, “Torn,” from 1997. The word captures how I’ve been feeling as I reassess what I really want from my hi-fi system. No, I haven’t been feeling emotionally wrecked, lying naked on the floor as the singer laments in the chorus; but I am torn, more than ever before, as I suspect many audiophiles are these days, pulled between two very different sound-system philosophies. Do I want a sleek, full-featured piece of gear that delivers nearly everything I need—amplification, phono EQ, preamplification, streaming, digital-to-analog conversion, and maybe even a tuner—in one elegant chassis, or do I want a modular, flexible suite of separate components that could potentially, though not necessarily, provide better sound?
Has JBL Reached the Summit? The Ama and Makalu Loudspeakers at High End 2025
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 June 2025 01 June 2025
During High End 2025 in Munich, Germany, held from May 15 to 18, the renowned American loudspeaker brand JBL unveiled three new additions to its flagship Summit series: Ama, Pumori, and Makalu. The Summit Ama is a two-way standmount speaker, while the other two are three-way floorstanding speakers. The new Summit speakers represent the pinnacle of JBL’s engineering and design, and their names reflect that: Ama Dablam, Pumori, and Makalu are among the most impressive peaks in the Himalayas.
Ditching the US Dollar as Our Default Review Currency—It’s Going to be Beautiful!
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 May 2025 01 May 2025
For nearly 80 years, the US dollar (currency code USD) has been the cornerstone of global finance. After World War II, the USD became the world’s reserve currency and has since served as the standard currency for international trade. It has become the dominant currency for monetary transactions in global capital and commodity markets. Backed by both the size and strength of the US economy, the US dollar has established itself as stable and reliable and has gained near-universal recognition.
Denmark’s Raidho Acoustics—Listening and Learning
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 April 2025 01 April 2025
If you regularly read this monthly column or frequent our YouTube channel, you are likely aware of our ongoing globetrotting quest for primary-source material for our websites and videos. Frequently, the SoundStage! Network’s video team and I travel across North America and Europe to visit hi-fi companies, talk with key personnel, and learn about and listen to review-worthy products. We hope to expand our travel scope to Asia soon as well.
The Miracle of the Compact Disc and the Usefulness of the Shanling ET3 Transport
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 March 2025 01 March 2025
When the Compact Disc was released to the public in 1982, it seemed unimaginable that music encoded on a disc could one day be transmitted wirelessly, as we experience today. It seemed equally unimaginable that it could be stored on a server thousands of miles away and played back nearly instantaneously in the home, as now happens with streaming services. This was a time when physical media not only dominated the market, but was the only option for high-fidelity playback.
