The Latest Features
The 2023 SoundStage! Network Awards for Outstanding Achievements and Products of the Year
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 15 December 2023 15 December 2023
For over two decades, we’ve presented our annual awards for Products of the Year at around this time of year. The 2023 award recipients have been culled from the product reviews written over the past year on SoundStage! Hi-Fi, SoundStage! Access, SoundStage! Ultra, SoundStage! Simplifi, and SoundStage Solo. (SoundStage! Australia announced its own awards for Products of the Year on December 6.) Our product awards are divided into three main categories: Distinction (formerly called Individual Awards), Outstanding Performance, and Exceptional Value.
Simaudio’s Moon 791 Streaming Preamplifier: Uncompromised
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 December 2023 01 December 2023
Comprehensive reviews of high-end, feature-rich hi-fi products may require 3000, 5000, even 8000 words to adequately describe the product’s performance and features. I appreciate that, as do many of our readers. Although video reviews are growing in number and popularity, in-depth written reviews will undoubtedly continue to thrive alongside. And while article length in itself has proved not to be an obstacle, a pitfall inherent to all detailed reviews is the potential obscuration of salient features or aspects of performance by protracted coverage of features and attributes of lesser import.
Simaudio Moon 791 Streaming Preamplifier
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 December 2023 01 December 2023
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
Ten years ago to the day, my review of Simaudio’s Moon Evolution 740P preamplifier was published on this site. I was so impressed with the 740P that I’ve kept it in my system after the audition period until earlier this year. What better time, I thought, to review its recently released successor, the Moon 791 preamplifier, part of the company’s new North Collection. For a complete picture, though, a brief overview of the 740P is in order.
Rotel Michi X5 Series 2 Integrated Amplifier-DAC
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- Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 November 2023 15 November 2023
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
When the Rotel Michi line re-emerged in 2019 after a two-decade absence, I was caught off guard. It’s not that I didn’t think I’d ever see a Michi product again—I didn’t know Michi existed in the first place! Mea culpa.
Recommended Reference Component: T+A Elektroakustik Solitaire S 530 Loudspeaker
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 15 November 2023 15 November 2023
In May, SoundStage! Ultra featured Hans Wetzel’s review of the T+A Solitaire Elektroakustic S 530 loudspeaker. Priced at $44,900 a pair (all prices in USD), the S 530 is the mid-level offering in the German brand’s Solitaire line, above the S 430 ($29,900/pair) and below the S 540 ($54,900/pair).
Spectacular-Sounding Systems in England and Denmark—Purifi Audio Revisited
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column
- Created: 01 November 2023 01 November 2023
At the end of September, I traveled to England to attend UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2023, which was held from September 29 to October 1 at the world-famous Ascot Racecourse. There, I met up with UK correspondent Jonathan Gorse, who wrote three articles for SoundStage! Global to cover the show. On October 1, I hopped on a plane to Billund, Denmark, where I was joined by SoundStage! videographers Chris Chitaroni and Jorden Guth. We visited several hi-fi companies in that part of the country and shot some videos for our YouTube channel.
Estelon Aura: A Beautiful, Great-Sounding Stereo Starts with Beautiful, Great-Sounding Speakers
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Category: System One System One
- Created: 01 November 2023 01 November 2023
When I started this column five years ago, I intended it to feature the kind of components and systems found in real-world listening rooms, such as my living room, where I’ve set up all the equipment I’ve been writing about here. It was meant to focus on inexpensive products, which I defined in my first installment (and have reiterated several times since).
Grado Labs Sonata3 Low-Output Moving-Iron Phono Cartridge
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- Written by Matt Bonaccio Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 01 November 2023 01 November 2023
The idea of moderation as a virtue is an ancient principle. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle established his Doctrine of Means, stating that “it is the nature of ethical virtues to be destroyed by deficiency as well as by excess . . . but they are preserved by moderation, or the mean.” As the philosopher goes on to explain, this idea of finding the mean—that sweet spot between not enough and too much—works for pretty much all virtues, notably temperance and bravery, “for a man who flees from and fears everything and never stands his ground becomes a coward, but he who fears nothing at all but proceeds against all dangers becomes rash.” In modern times, the stakes are certainly much lower for a phonograph cartridge like the Grado Sonata3—and thankfully, we won’t find ourselves tasked with evaluating it from an ethical standpoint. But as audiophiles, don’t we often find ourselves weighing the mean between excess and deficiency?
Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 800.2 Integrated Amplifier
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- Written by Phil Gold Phil Gold
- Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews
- Created: 15 October 2023 15 October 2023
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
“Musical Fidelity” must be the perfect name for an audio manufacturer. While many companies are named after their founders or places of business, how relevant is that name when the founder leaves or the company moves? And forget acronyms or initials. What meaning do they convey? “Musical Fidelity” says it all. It beats “ClearAudio,” “Living Voice,” and “Definitive Audio”—my runners-up. At the bottom of my list come “Schitt Audio,” “Monster Cable,” and “Fried Products.”
Recommended Reference Component: Musical Fidelity M6x Digital-to-Analog Converter
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- Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors
- Category: Components Components
- Created: 15 October 2023 15 October 2023
Phil Gold’s review of the Musical Fidelity M6x digital-to-analog converter appeared on this site on July 15. In his review, Phil explained that the M6x, which is priced at $2500 (all prices in USD), “replaces the M6sR, which itself replaced the M6s, one of the first DACs to use ESS Technology’s Sabre ESS 32-bit HyperStream II architecture.” The brand was founded by classical clarinetist Antony Michaelson in 1982, but Phil pointed out that Michaelson “sold Musical Fidelity to Audio Tuning Vertriebs GmbH, parent company of Pro-Ject Audio Systems, and returned to his first love, making music” in 2018.
