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Pro-Ject Audio Systems T1 Phono SB Turntable

Details: Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette; Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews; Created: 15 February 2021 15 February 2021

Some audio gear is easy to write about. Other stuff requires more effort. I’m not talking about describing a component’s sound, but about describing the process of setting it up and evaluating its features. I find writing about loudspeakers relatively straightforward—the most important thing is to set them up correctly, a task made far simpler when you know your listening room well. I also find it easier to hear differences between two pairs of speakers than between, say, two good integrated amplifiers. Reviewing something like Anthem’s STR Preamplifier is even more challenging because it has so many features and functions, all or most of which should be evaluated if the aim is to write a comprehensive review.

Making Way for More Equipment at John Thompson's The Record Centre. Is This the Future of Hi-Fi Selling?

Details: Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider; Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column; Created: 01 February 2021 01 February 2021

In 1979, Bob Geldof’s Boomtown Rats released “I Don’t Like Mondays” and instilled the idea that bad things happen on the first day of the workweek in an entire generation. But one particular Monday—December 11, 2017—wound up being a revelatory day for me. That was the day I first set foot inside The Record Centre, which is located in Ottawa, Canada, the city where I live. But I wasn’t there for the records—a friend had told me that the store was selling new and used hi-fi gear, so I wanted to see its stock for myself.

MayFly Audio Systems MF-201A Loudspeakers

Details: Written by Diego Estan Diego Estan; Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews; Created: 01 February 2021 01 February 2021

Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.

MayFly Audio Systems was founded in 2020 by Trevor May, an engineer and musician who had begun his research and prototype development two years earlier. May lives and operates MayFly out of Ottawa, Canada, the city I live in—in fact, he lives on the street I grew up on. That made for quick, easy deliveries.

I Hate Streaming

Details: Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler; Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK; Created: 01 February 2021 01 February 2021

SoundStage! UK After last month’s wander down the Format Memory Lane and my continued bleating about open-reel tape, many of you might assume that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Luddite, but that is not the case. Yes, I champion tubes, vinyl, and open-reel, as well as the 45-year-old BBC LS3/5A, Decca cartridges, Quad Electrostatics, and other hoary, venerable items, but my work demands that I use current, up-to-the-minute equipment for reviewing, while I adore SACD and do not write with a quill. No, my issue is with streaming.

Recommended Reference Component: Pro-Ject Audio Systems RPM 10 Carbon Turntable with 10cc Evolution Tonearm

Details: Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors; Category: Components Components; Created: 01 February 2021 01 February 2021

Recommended Reference Component SoundStage! founder Doug Schneider and senior contributor Aron Garrecht both went turntable shopping in January. Independently and physically distanced, of course. They each wanted to find a top-tier turntable that would allow them to review the ever-increasing number of turntable-related products on the market, such as phono stages, whether standalone or built into a preamplifier or integrated amplifier, and other components and accessories. For advice, they consulted SoundStage! vinyl guru, Jason Thorpe, who told them both to buy a Pro-Ject Audio Systems RPM 10 Carbon turntable with 10cc Evolution tonearm, which he’d reviewed for SoundStage! Ultra on December 15, 2017. Jason had owned a Pro-Ject RPM 10 before reviewing the RPM 10 Carbon, its successor, and immediately sold it and replaced it with the newer model for the improvements in sound and build.

Hegel Music Systems V10 Phono Stage

Details: Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe; Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews; Created: 15 January 2021 15 January 2021

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio Electronics Lab, click this link.

Have you ever looked closely at the coils of a moving-coil cartridge? If you have a jeweler’s loupe and a cartridge with a relatively open body, it’s worth exploring this tiny, elegant universe. The coils themselves are so small that it seems impossible they could be made by hand, or mounted inside a cartridge, or that they can work at all.

Three Reasons Why the SoundStage! Network Has So Many Websites (Important Lessons for Aspiring Online Hi-Fi Publishers)

Details: Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider; Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column; Created: 01 January 2021 01 January 2021

Last month, I wrote about our 25th anniversary of online publishing. In that article I described how we began, how the SoundStage! name came about, the events that took place before we secured the soundstage.com domain name for the initial website, and some of the other things that helped us to get off to a pretty good start.

Yamaha A-S3200 Integrated Amplifier

Details: Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno; Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews; Created: 01 January 2021 01 January 2021

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio Electronics Lab, click this link.

Though now perhaps best known for their motorcycles and other vehicles produced by their Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. division, the Yamaha Corporation has a long, rich musical history—the logo of even the Yamaha Motor Co. is still a trio of crossed tuning forks. Founded as Nippon Gakki in the late 19th century, the Yamaha Corporation began as a maker of pianos, and has since become the world’s biggest manufacturer of pianos and other musical instruments. Yamaha has made audio equipment since the 1920s, and what many would consider high-fidelity audio components since the 1950s.

Inexpensive Outboard Alternatives: Bellari VP549 and NAD PP 2e Phono Stages

Details: Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider; Category: System One System One; Created: 01 January 2021 01 January 2021

In August 2020, I reviewed the Hegel Music Systems H95 integrated amplifier-DAC for this site. If you read that review, you’ll know that the H95, which is priced at $2000 (all prices in USD), is a good performer and good value, but you’ll also see it’s not as feature-rich as some other integrated amps on the market. For example, like all of Hegel’s integrated amplifiers, it has a built-in DAC but lacks a phono stage. Vinyl playback is a pretty big thing for hi-fi buyers across all price ranges, and many lower-priced integrated amps answer that demand, so I intended to criticize this omission in the review.

Formats Gone but Not Forgotten

Details: Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler; Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK; Created: 01 January 2021 01 January 2021

SoundStage! UK You have to laugh: there’s an ad on TV in the UK plugging some financial app for people who want to invest in shares but are clearly too stupid to seek out a legitimate, accountable broker. Whatever. Anyway, the gist of the ad is that you wouldn’t ask your brother-in-law or bartender for stock market tips, and it shows some grubby-looking, beardy, unkempt schmuck suggesting one should invest in LaserDiscs to the far cooler-looking target of the advertisement. Chuckle? I almost fell off the sofa.