The SoundStage! Network’s Product of the Year awards for 2024 were announced on December 15 on this website and on our YouTube channel. Award winners were selected by our editorial team (which includes me). As in previous years, we sifted through reviews of products that received Reviewers’ Choice awards during the year on SoundStage! Hi-Fi and its sister websites—SoundStage! Ultra, SoundStage! Access, SoundStage! Simplifi, and SoundStage! Solo—and picked standout products in the different categories.
Award winners represent the state of the art in their specific category and, collectively, the vanguard of a broad sector of the hi-fi industry. Winners were selected by consensus, and I concur with each and every choice. But of course I have my own favorites too—some received an award this year, some did not. In this article, I want to share with you some personal picks and the reasons I chose them.
What I initially thought would be a challenging task, determining three favorites, turned out to be quite easy. Naturally, the more I like a product, the more I talk about it; all I had to do, then, was to look back on which products I talked about the most during the year. I had no trouble identifying the top three in the long list of candidates.
Arendal Sound 1528 Tower 8 loudspeaker
The hi-fi product I probably talked the most about in 2024 was the Arendal Sound 1528 Tower 8. This loudspeaker impressed me so much in its size, styling, build, sound, and value that I felt compelled to travel to Norway and visit the Arendal Sound factory to find out for myself how such a remarkable loudspeaker can be made and sold profitably for $9500 a pair (prices in USD). While there, our two videographers, who accompanied me on this trip, obtained footage about the speaker and the company for our YouTube channel.
I spoke with Arendal founder Jan Ove Lassesen during my visit, who confirmed, as I had surmised, that the commercial success of the Tower 8 can in large part be attributed to the company’s cost-saving direct-to-consumer business model. Key aspects of this model as implemented by Arendal are all-inclusive pricing, extensive customer support, and generous return and warranty periods. (Much of what I learned on this visit is recounted in my December System One article, “Arendal Sound’s 1528 Series Tower 8 Loudspeaker—Monumental Value.”)
The Tower 8 was an obvious choice for a Product of the Year award in the Exceptional Value category. At nearly ten grand a pair, this speaker is hardly cheap; but when you consider its extraordinarily high sound quality, it still represents high value. In fact, I am prepared to go as far as to say that if it were twice as expensive, or even more, the Tower 8 would still be good value.
At the time of this writing, the Tower 8 review speakers are still set up in my living room, where I auditioned them. Another pair of speakers is about to take their place, however, at which time I intend to move the Tower 8s upstairs to my reference listening room, as I planned. I’d very much like to find out how they sound in this larger room. I’m still gobsmacked by how good the Tower 8 is and would love to keep the pair for a while longer. I hope I can.
Sonus Faber Sonetto V G2 loudspeaker
I was already well familiar with the Italian brand Sonus Faber and its loudspeakers and knew what to expect when the review pair of the company’s Sonetto V G2 loudspeakers arrived. And so they didn’t outright blow me away the way the Tower 8s did. In fact, I visited the Sonus Faber factory last April and was able to take a close look at, listen to, and learn about the Sonetto G2 line of speakers, as well as to obtain some video footage for our YouTube channel. While the Sonetto V G2 wasn’t exactly a bolt from the blue for me, it was still hugely impressive—enough to keep me talking about it; enough to devote my November System One column to it.
Like the Tower 8, the Sonetto V G2 was a natural fit for a Product of the Year award. It took home the sole award for Aesthetics and Sound, in recognition of its good looks and equally good sound. Like the Tower 8, the Sonetto V G2, at $6499 a pair, represents great value. This is not something the Aesthetics and Sound award is meant to recognize, but prospective buyers should. Its excellent build quality, exquisite styling, unique use of materials (including concrete and cork!), advanced acoustics (such as the internal cork chamber damping back radiation from the midrange), and distinctive sound profile combine to create a speaker that could reasonably carry a much higher price tag. In every respect, including value, the Sonetto V G2 is truly a superb loudspeaker. Needless to say, I was very sad to pack up and part with the Sonettos. We’d had some good times together.
T+A Elektroakustik R 2500 R streaming CD-receiver
When I received T+A’s Elektroakustik R 2500 R streaming CD-receiver from Killain Jones, who reviewed it in December, I intended to just photograph it and have it measured in support of the review. Predictably, though, the temptation to give it a quick listen got the better of me, and I hooked it up and sat down for a brief listening session. Also predictably, this listening session became rather protracted. And the longer I listened, the more I liked what I heard.
At the heart of the R 2500 R, inside a beautiful all-aluminum case, is a high-quality amplifier section, capable of supplying more than 150Wpc into 8 ohms, and a great preamplifier section that includes an excellent volume control with good accuracy and feel. (Volume can also be changed with the remote or companion MusicNavigator G3 app.)
The R 2500 R is an extremely versatile receiver. It offers wired and wireless network connectivity; it is Roon Ready and supports streaming from multiple music services and playback from local storage via its discrete PCM and DSD DACs; it can play CDs with its built-in optical drive; it supports internet, FM, and DAB radio, as well as Bluetooth. The R 2500 R has balanced and single-ended analog inputs (with one set of the latter supporting phono if the optional phono stage is installed), and it has a headphone output with a 4mm Pentaconn connector. An on-screen menu system allows the user to customize certain features and engage sound-tuning options such as tone and balance controls and digital filters. This functionality is also available through the app.
These built-in features are all very useful and well-implemented. Some, when acquired as add-ons, can be quite expensive. Of course, the R 2500 R is not cheap either: it is priced at $18,800 without a phono stage, $19,720 with one. The high price, as a matter of fact, was one reason the R 2500 R did not receive a Product of the Year or Reviewers’ Choice award despite its impressive feature set and favorable review (and my own positive view of it). The absence of a comparable hi-fi product against which to compare the R 2500 R was another reason it was not a natural fit for a Product of the Year award. It’s like a unicorn in a horse show. It knows all sorts of tricks and can pull off an impressive performance, but is it a horse?
Replacing my reference separates with the R 2500 R has wonderfully uncluttered my living room. It is driving the Tower 8 speakers, as I am typing this, and it’s doing such a fine job it will probably continue to drive them while they are here. I’ve been using many of its features regularly—useful features not available in previous setups. I even brought out a Magnum Dynalab antenna from storage, which has rekindled my love for FM radio. (I was amazed how good some of my local stations sound!)
The R 2500 R is one of my three favorite products of 2024 for its sound quality, build quality, and features. It is decidedly deserving of more coverage, which I intend to give it in a System One column in 2025. Suffice it to say, there’s plenty more to write about the R 2500 R and—those around me will likely notice—I’ll be talking about it quite a bit more too.
. . . Doug Schneider
das@soundstage.com
