The Latest Features
Not Your Father's Sub-Sat Stereo System—Anthem, Vivid Audio, KEF, and NAD Together
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 May 2021 01 May 2021
In hi-fi, a typical subwoofer-satellite, or sub-sat, stereo system consists of a subwoofer and two small main speakers. Nowadays, this is also known as a 2.1 system—for two speakers, one subwoofer. The main speakers reproduce the highs, the midrange, and some of the upper bass frequencies, while the subwoofer delivers a bit of the upper bass and all of the deeper bass.
Focal Aria K2 936 Loudspeakers
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 May 2020 01 May 2020
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
After evaluating KEF’s diminutive LS50 Meta stand-mounted loudspeaker ($1499.99/pair, all prices USD), I wasn’t keen to raise my hand to review Focal’s far bigger and heavier Aria K2 936 floorstander ($5990). I knew they’d be a pain to schlep up to my third-floor listening room. I guess the little KEFs had made me a bit soft.
Double Trouble—Rotel’s RA-1572MKII Amp and Sonus Faber's Lumina III Loudspeaker Enter the Mix
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: System One System One
- Created: 01 May 2021 01 May 2021
In December 2018, I wrote the first article to appear under the “System One” column name. In that article I explained: “The title means someone’s first system, or someone’s only system—or something else, depending on what’s covered that month. What won’t change is the theme around which I wrote the first two pieces: cost-effective, high-performing equipment that many people can afford.”
Reel-to-Reel for Life
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 May 2021 01 May 2021
If you were around as a sentient adult audiophile during any time between circa 1970 and circa 1990, and you bought into tube equipment, you were probably one nervous wreck. I know I was: I had started using and ultimately collecting tube gear around 1975, and every snap, crackle, or pop made me wonder if I could find new or even old-stock replacement tubes should any fail.
Recommended Reference Component: Karan Acoustics Master Collection LINEb Preamplifier
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 May 2021 01 May 2021
Karan Acoustics’ Master Collection LINEb is priced at $28,000 (all prices in USD), but it isn’t the most expensive preamplifier the company makes—that distinction belongs to the $41,000 Master Collection LINEa. But according to Doug Schneider in his April 15 review of the LINEb, anyone who is able to afford the LINEb will have purchased “one of the very best preamplifiers now available at any price.”
Karan Acoustics Master Collection LINEb Preamplifier
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 April 2021 15 April 2021
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
Each of the websites that currently comprise the SoundStage! Network is devoted to a specific type of audio gear. SoundStage! Access covers home-theater and affordable two-channel hi-fi products, while SoundStage! Ultra is exclusive to two-channel hi-fi products, usually the esoteric and often the expensive; SoundStage! Simplifi focuses on convenience and lifestyle audio products of any price, and SoundStage! Solo reports only on headphones, earphones, and accessories; and so on.
The Four Surprising Reasons Why Some Reviewers Rail Against Measurements
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 April 2021 01 April 2021
The SoundStage! Network began publishing in 1995. By 1999, we had started expanding, adding more sites to the network, and we inked a deal with Canada’s National Research Council (NRC) to measure speakers in their anechoic chamber and publish the results. The NRC’s anechoic chamber and associated lab facilities were world-famous then—and still are today—because that’s where Dr. Floyd Toole initially conducted his groundbreaking loudspeaker research (in the 1970s and into the 1980s) that correlated listening impressions with objective measurements. Toole’s research is considered by many to be the most comprehensive body of work ever produced on the subject and was so influential that it helped to build and shape the Canadian loudspeaker industry.
Bowers & Wilkins 705 Signature Loudspeakers
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- Written by Diego Estan Diego Estan
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 April 2021 01 April 2021
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
I have many fond memories of listening to loudspeakers from Bowers & Wilkins, and over the years have owned several pairs of B&W speakers—including the very first product I reviewed for the SoundStage! Network, the 705 S2 two-way standmount ($2999.99/pair, all prices USD), B&W’s smallest tweeter-on-top model.
Recommended Reference Component: NAD C 298 Stereo/Mono Amplifier
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 01 April 2021 01 April 2021
Only a few years ago it was difficult, if not impossible, to find a stereo amplifier with extremely low distortion and low noise and with enough power to drive most loudspeakers and not have it cost several thousand dollars. With NAD’s recent introduction of the C 298 amplifier, which can be used as a stereo amp to deliver over 185Wpc or as a monoblock to output more than 620W (both into 8 ohms), the price for such an amp has dropped to just $1999 (all prices in USD). Evan McCosham reviewed the C 298 for this site last month.
Remembering the Cassette and Its Inventor, Lou Ottens
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- Written by Ken Kessler Ken Kessler
- Category: SoundStage! UK SoundStage! UK
- Created: 01 April 2021 01 April 2021
With the way the Grim Reaper has been harvesting of late, there is nothing coincidental, ironic, or remarkable about two of audio’s most inventive individuals leaving us these past few months, so closely together. It is simply a sad sign of the times. I am starting to get the tiniest whiff of what it must have been like during the Great Plague of 1665 and have stopped counting friends and acquaintances lost this year, let alone the litany of recently deceased celebrities who made the news.
