The Latest Features
The 2024 SoundStage! Network Awards for Outstanding Achievements and Products of the Year
- Details
- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 15 December 2024 15 December 2024
Scope
The SoundStage! Network has been presenting Product of the Year awards annually for almost 30 years. As always, selection of the 2024 award recipients has been based on product reviews published during the year on our core group of audio-review websites: SoundStage! Hi-Fi, SoundStage! Access, SoundStage! Ultra, SoundStage! Simplifi, and SoundStage! Solo. Winning products were chosen from among those that received a Reviewers’ Choice award at the time the review was published.
Stunning Sound: Dynaudio Confidence 20A Loudspeakers in Warsaw
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 December 2024 01 December 2024
One of the top five audio shows in the world, Warsaw’s annual Audio Video Show (AVS), was held from October 25 to October 27 this year, its 26th. Founded and still run by Adam Mokrzycki, it has enjoyed steady growth over the years and has established itself as a world-class event. I started attending the show in 2016. From my perspective, it is the second-most important audio show in Europe, after the annual High End show, in Munich (soon to be held in Vienna). It has surpassed the American audio shows and, along with several Asian shows, holds considerable importance. Needless to say, it is a key event for us.
Arendal Sound’s 1528 Series Tower 8 Loudspeaker—Monumental Value
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: System One System One
- Created: 01 December 2024 01 December 2024
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada’s National Research Council can be found through this link.
A couple of decades ago, a marketing director for a boutique-type speaker company, vexed by my questioning of his company’s product claims rather than accepting them at face value, called me cynical. I didn’t take offense. On the contrary, I considered this a compliment: it confirmed I was doing my job as a reviewer. Arendal Sound founder Jan Ove Lassesen might have thought the same of me these past few months, having been bombarded by my incessant email queries. But I have learned a good deal.
T+A Elektroakustik R 2500 R Streaming CD–Receiver
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- Written by Killain Jones Killain Jones
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 December 2024 01 December 2024
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
I recall having a conversation with a good friend soon after he purchased his first sports car, a new Porsche 911 Carrera S. His wife had agreed to the purchase on the understanding that their two kids would be able to fit in the car, which of course reduced the range of models he could consider. “The sports car needed to suit the family’s needs,” I remember him saying.
Pro-Ject Audio Systems XA B Turntable and Pick it Pro Balanced Cartridge
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- Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 November 2024 15 November 2024
Two years after I began writing for SoundStage!, I decided to get a turntable. I wasn’t interested in using it to review other turntables; I simply wanted another option for enjoying music, especially because I was seeing a growing number of LPs in the music stores I frequented. Most importantly, though I grew up listening to cassettes before graduating to CDs, my parents always had a record player in the house—from my earliest memories, vinyl was always around.
Recommended Reference Component: Eversolo Audio DMP-A8 Streaming Preamplifier
- Details
- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 15 November 2024 15 November 2024
When assessing a product for SoundStage! Simplifi, our reviewers consider more than just sound quality: convenience, features, and ease of use all play a role as such qualities are important to Simplifi’s readers. In contrast, reviewers assessing components for our other sites focus, sometimes almost exclusively, on sound quality. Not surprisingly, shortcomings in one or more aspects of a component’s usability are often identified—few products can tick every box.
Arendal Sound 1528 Tower 8 Loudspeaker: Why I’m Going 3500 Miles to Learn How it Happened
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 November 2024 01 November 2024
Company visits
The SoundStage! Network began in 1995. By 1998, traveling to visit hi-fi companies had become a regular occurrence for me. At first, I toured companies close to my home in Ottawa, Canada—those located in the Toronto and Montreal metropolitan areas, mostly. By 2000, I was traveling to companies in the United States and Europe as well.
Wooed by Wood—The Sonus Faber Sonetto V G2
- Details
- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: System One System One
- Created: 01 November 2024 01 November 2024
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada’s National Research Council can be found through this link.
If you’ve been following this column, you might know I’ve recently developed a preference for white speakers in my living room. It started with the striking Estelon Auras, which I reviewed a year ago, and continued with the sleek Totem Bison Twin Towers, featured in August. So when my review pair of Sonus Faber Sonetto V G2s arrived and I found out they had the dark-color wenge wood veneer, I was somewhat disappointed. Not for long, though. Once set up, they looked so good that they may have cured my fixation on white speakers.
Orchard Audio PecanPi+ Streamer Premium DAC
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- Written by Matt Bonaccio Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 October 2024 15 October 2024
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
“Simplify, then add lightness,” British inventor and Lotus founder Colin Chapman once said. New Jersey-based Orchard Audio may not have attained the renown for iconic designs that Lotus has nor quite the status of an exemplar of American hi-fi as Naim or Harbeth have of British hi-fi. But it does seem to have followed Chapman’s paradigm, handcrafting relatively small, light components with a clear focus on simplicity and performance, eschewing nonessential connections and features. The PecanPi+ Streamer Premium, which retails for $1500 (prices in USD), is a prime example of this paradigm. You won’t find advanced functionality on this streamer, the sort of features found on “full-service streamers,” but you will find that the functions it offers, it executes extremely well.
Recommended Reference Component: Simaudio Moon 891 Streaming Preamplifier
- Details
- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 15 October 2024 15 October 2024
In May 2023, Simaudio released its Moon North Collection, comprising the 641 integrated amplifier, 681 streaming digital-to-analog converter (DAC), 761 and 861 power amplifiers, and 791 and 891 streaming preamplifiers. In December 2023, Doug Schneider reviewed the 791 on this site, highlighting the preamp’s DAC, streaming functionality, and MM/MC phono stage, and concluded that it should “appeal to the discerning audiophile who wants an uncompromised preamplifier that could easily handle today’s playback needs and those in years to come.”
