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Recommended Reference Component: Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G Loudspeakers
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- Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 March 2022 01 March 2022
Last month, we published Philip Beaudette’s review of a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G loudspeakers on this site. In that article, he declared: “Monitor Audio has been on a roll lately, if the number of its product launches offers any evidence to support such a cliché.” The company’s roster of new products includes the seventh generation of loudspeakers in its Silver Series, with the 500 7G as the flagship model.
Klipsch La Scala AL5 Loudspeakers
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 February 2022 15 February 2022
There’s no replacement for displacement. It’s a North American thing.
I grew up on the tail end of the big-engine era. Around my neighborhood, we were all in awe of the older kids who had managed to stuff large V8 engines into cars that were entirely unsuited to them.
"Licorice Pizza" and Post-Pandemic Hi-Fi Shows
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 February 2022 01 February 2022
A day before I sat down to write this article, I did something I used to do every week, but haven’t done in two years—I saw a movie at a theater. It was Licorice Pizza, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who has previously made some films I’ve really liked—Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Hard Eight, and Punch-Drunk Love are the ones that spring to mind.
Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G Loudspeakers
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- Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 February 2022 01 February 2022
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Monitor Audio has been on a roll lately, if the number of its product launches offers any evidence to support such a cliché. In 2018, I reviewed a pair of the smallest floorstanders from the UK company’s sixth-generation Silver Series, and I wrote about the fifth-generation Gold 200 floorstanders in 2020. Recently, Monitor Audio updated the Silvers again, and I received a pair of the largest tower in the series, the Silver 500 7G ($3200, all prices in USD), for review.
Ken Kessler's New Stereo System: Part Eight
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 February 2022 01 February 2022
It is not my intention to wind you up, but this culmination of all that has gone before with the system’s story needs a tiny bit more explanation. (If patience is not one of your virtues, feel free to skip to the end.) It will, however, apply to most of you . . . unless you happen to live in a home with perfect conditions for setting up a sound system, including rock-solid floors, more AC outlets than mission control in Houston, pre-existing bombproof shelving, etc. In setting up what I now call the $6000 SoundStage! Special, I chose not to use my bespoke listening room, with its poured concrete floor and 18″-thick walls.
Recommended Reference Component: Meze Audio Elite Headphones
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 February 2022 01 February 2022
In Brent Butterworth’s April 2019 review of the Meze Audio Empyrean headphones on SoundStage! Solo, he declared that they “clearly rank among the very best headphones you can buy.” The Empyreans were—and still are—$2999 (all prices in USD), and because of Brent’s praise, they earned Reviewers’ Choice, Recommended Reference Component, and Product of the Year (2019) awards.
Quebec Double Feature—Simaudio, Followed by Triangle at Centre Hi-Fi
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 January 2022 01 January 2022
At the end of last month’s article about my trip to France to visit speaker maker Focal, I stated that “I’ll travel to pretty much any company of any size, even if it’s in the middle of nowhere, if it means that I can learn something new about the hi-fi industry.”
Stenheim Alumine Two Loudspeakers
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- Written by Diego Estan Diego Estan
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 January 2022 15 January 2022
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Stenheim, a relatively new Swiss manufacturer of high-end loudspeakers, was a brand I had only heard of in passing prior to this review. The company was founded in 2010 and by 2011 had launched Alumine, its first line of speakers, which are, as the name suggests, built using non-resonant aluminum enclosures. Suffice it to say that, like most Swiss hi-fi companies, Stenheim’s offerings have never been inexpensive.
Technics Reference Class SU-R1000 Integrated Amplifier-DAC
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 January 2022 01 January 2022
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
When I think of Technics, the first things that come to mind are the legendary SL direct-drive turntables. So it didn’t come as much of a surprise that their latest Reference Class integrated amplifier-DAC, the SU-R1000, has many features related to optimizing playback of phono sources. What is a bit surprising is that most of these phono-related features rely on digital signal processing (DSP) for their implementation. Not only that, once the phono signal is equalized, the entire signal path of the SU-R1000 remains in the digital domain until the speaker output stage.
Recommended Reference Component: Focal Celestee Headphones
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 January 2022 01 January 2022
In Brent Butterworth’s SoundStage! Solo review of the Focal Celestee headphones ($999, all prices in USD), which was published in September 2021, he wrote that the French brand’s headphones are “the opposite of AC/DC albums.” He then explained his reasoning: “AC/DC albums look different but sound the same. Focal headphones look the same but sound different.” Brent knows the Focal line well, because he’s also reviewed the company’s Clear, Elegia, Stellia, and Utopia headphones for Solo.