The Best of Munich's High End 2018 -- Under €10,000
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 June 2018 01 June 2018
Exploring High End 2018 throughout all four days of the show (May 10-13) with five other SoundStage! Network reporters -- the biggest team we’ve ever sent to Munich, Germany, where the show is held each year -- I could have sworn that the 2018 edition was High End’s biggest show yet, based on the many new products introduced. But on May 23, when the High End Society released the statistics for HE2018, there were some surprises: totals of 530 exhibitors and 19,899 visitors, which respectively represent drops of 2% and 7% from HE2017. It reminded me that perception and reality don’t always coincide.
Muraudio's SP1 Loudspeaker -- Way Outside the Box Again
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 May 2018 01 May 2018
How Muraudio’s new SP1 loudspeaker ($14,700 USD per pair) came to be is probably best summarized by the old adage “Necessity is the mother of invention.” The SP1 was one of the five products I wrote about last month, in “The Best of Montreal Audio Fest 2018.” However, the interesting commercial and technical stories behind it deserve more than the few words I gave it in that editorial, especially when those stories are about a brand I thought wouldn’t last more than a couple of years.
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.
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.
Unexpected -- The Best of CES 2018
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 February 2018 01 February 2018
I didn’t think I’d be writing anything at all about the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas January 9-12. After all, toward the end of my report on last year’s show, “The Best of the Worst CES in Decades: 2017,” published in this space last February, I wrote: “[W]e’ve decided that, unless something changes, we won’t be there [next year], because we feel there’s little value for us or our readers.” What changed?
The 2017 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 2018 01 January 2018
It’s time to announce the SoundStage! Network’s Products of the Year -- the best of the best products we reviewed in 2017. To be considered for a POTY award, a product must have been reviewed on one or more of our five main editorial sites -- SoundStage! Access, SoundStage! Hi-Fi, SoundStage! Simplifi, SoundStage! Ultra, SoundStage! Xperience -- and have received a Reviewers’ Choice award. Those products that qualify then went to our selection panel of five of our senior staff, who chose the winners based on the contents of those reviews.
The Best of Poland's Audio Video Show 2017
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 December 2017 01 December 2017
Few would think of Warsaw, Poland, as a hub for high-end hi-fi, but with the growth of the annual Audio Video Show (AVS) over the last 20 years, it’s become exactly that. AVS 2017 was held November 17-19, and Brent Butterworth and I were there to cover the show for SoundStage! Global -- it was my second AVS, and Brent’s first.
Close Up with McIntosh Laboratory
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- Written by Al Griffin Al Griffin
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 November 2017 01 November 2017
I recently tagged along with the SoundStage! video-production crew on a trip to McIntosh Laboratory. It was a balmy, late-September afternoon in Binghamton, New York, and the crew were shooting interviews with McIntosh Group president Charlie Randall and several engineers for an upcoming video series about the company’s new integrated amplifiers. Between takes, I was able to talk with Randall. That discussion expanded into a full interview that we’ve decided to run in place of SoundStage! Hi-Fi’s regular opinion piece.
Mismatched Masters and False Frequencies -- Is MQA Better, Worse, or Just Different?
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 October 2017 01 October 2017
Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) digital-file playback has been a controversial topic in the hi-fi press ever since it was first announced, in December 2014. Usually, the controversy around a new audio technology cools down after a while. But with MQA, it just gets hotter, as recent tests by SoundStage! and other journalists and manufacturers are raising more questions that have so far received few answers.
A Poor Man Can Only Afford to Buy the Best -- Three Tips for How to Avoid a Bad Buy
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 September 2017 01 September 2017
In July we unveiled a SoundStage! InSight video about Amphion Loudspeakers, filmed in June in Finland. Near the end, Amphion’s owner, Anssi Hyvönen, says: “In this country, we have a concept that a poor man can only afford the best.” He explains that the idea behind it is that you buy something of high quality, then keep it for a long time.
