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Recommended Reference Component: EMM Labs DS-EQ1 Optical Phono Preamplifier
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 15 November 2022 15 November 2022
Last month, we recognized the DS Audio DS 003 optical cartridge and its companion DS 003 phono preamplifier with a Recommended Reference Component award. As Jason Thorpe explained in his review of that combo on this site, DS Audio’s cartridges don’t “rely on magnets and coils to generate an electrical signal.” Instead, DS Audio cartridges use LEDs and light sensors, and the resulting signal must then be boosted and equalized by a phono preamplifier designed specifically for optical cartridges.
Not Quite a Vinyl Epiphany, but Close—My Brief Encounter with a DS Audio Optical Cartridge
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 November 2022 01 November 2022
Around the middle of last month, I was at SoundStage! Hi-Fi writer Jason Thorpe’s place, which is in Toronto, Canada, helping him take photos of a Kuzma turntable he had in for review. While we were shooting photos, Jason was rattling on about me having to hear his system before we left for supper.
Shunyata Research Venom-X Speaker Cable
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 November 2022 01 November 2022
Shunyata Research has been manufacturing its highly regarded power products for over 20 years. And while the Poulsbo, Washington, company is known for its power cords and Hydra power distributors, it also manufactures a full suite of cables and accessories. Shunyata’s products are not cheap: the entry-level Venom line of audio cables has prices starting at $450 and ranging up to $1000 (all prices in USD). However, all of its products utilize some or all of Shunyata’s many proprietary technologies and are assembled by hand at the company’s facility in Poulsbo.
Atohm GT1-HD Loudspeaker
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- Written by Dan Kong Dan Kong
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 October 2022 15 October 2022
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
I got into this hobby as a teenager in the mid-1990s. Back then, I enjoyed the listening experience and loved the gear, but I also appreciated the industry itself. I seem to think the industry was broader and more vibrant than it is today—there were so many independent manufacturers serving the entire budget spectrum. Even the mainstream brands like Sony, Onkyo, and Pioneer had high-end product lines (ES, Integra, and Elite, respectively).
Recommended Reference Component: DS Audio DS 003 Cartridge and Phono Preamplifier System
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 15 October 2022 15 October 2022
The resurgence that vinyl has experienced is certainly a boon for those who make and sell records, but there’s not much that’s new under the sun for this medium—the records, turntables, tonearms, and cartridges aren’t very different from how they were in vinyl’s heyday in the 1970s. But there has been one recent development that has advanced vinyl as a playback medium—the optical cartridges and accompanying phono preamplifiers that Japan’s DS Audio began making almost ten years ago. In July, Jason Thorpe reviewed the company’s DS Audio DS 003 cartridge and companion DS 003 phono preamplifier, a combination that he declared offers “paradigm-smashing performance” for the $6000 (all prices in USD) package price.
Bryston, Simaudio, EMM Labs, and Meitner Audio—Homegrown Hi-Fi Heroes of Made-in-Canada Electronics
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 October 2022 01 October 2022
A hot topic among today’s hi-fi consumers is whether it matters where a company’s products are made. This topic can veer off in myriad directions, but the elephant in the room is China. Labor rates are low there, but ethics and human rights are a concern—yet it’s where many European and North American companies offshore manufacturing, either to third-party manufacturers or factories they own there.
EMM Labs DS-EQ1 Optical Phono Preamplifier
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 October 2022 01 October 2022
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
“I’ll never make a phono stage,” Ed Meitner told me with flat finality. The fact that I was in the midst of a Skype call with Ed and his son, Amadeus, to discuss EMM Labs’ DS-EQ1 optical phono preamplifier was packed with an irony we were all studiously ignoring.
Recommended Reference Component: KEF LS60 Wireless Speaker System
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 15 September 2022 15 September 2022
In Gordon Brockhouse’s enthusiastic August 1 review of the KEF LS60 Wireless speaker system on SoundStage! Simplifi, he called it a “landmark product” and wondered if it would “be named a SoundStage! Network Product of the Year,” as its predecessor, KEF’s LS50 minimonitor, was in 2012. Gordon went so far as to say: “Ten years hence, might we think of the LS60 Wireless as audio’s Product of the Decade for the 2020s?” To the best of our knowledge, Gordon has never spoken so highly of a product before.
"SoundStage! Travelers" Continues with "The Beatles + UK Hi-Fi at iFi Audio and PMC—July 2022 British 'Heat Wave' Adventure"
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: YouTube YouTube
- Created: 08 September 2022 08 September 2022
From July 9 to 16, 2022, the SoundStage! video team traveled to the UK to visit hi-fi companies iFi Audio and PMC (Professional Monitor Company), as well as the home city of The Beatles.
Summer Music Lessons—Mobile Fidelity's Digital LP Scandal and PMC's Dolby Atmos Demo
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 September 2022 01 September 2022
Mobile Fidelity’s failing grade
The biggest story in hi-fi so far this year was the Mobile Fidelity “digital step” scandal, which broke in July. You can find numerous videos on YouTube about it, including one by me, so I’ll skip most of the details, though I will reiterate the basics.
