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The Best of Warsaw's Audio Video Show 2022

Details: Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider; Category: Monthly Column Monthly Column; Created: 01 December 2022 01 December 2022

About two years ago, I became quite critical of hi-fi shows. We were in the middle of the pandemic, there hadn’t been a hi-fi show in over a year, yet most companies were selling more products than they had sold in years.

Pro-Ject Audio Systems X2 B Turntable with Ortofon Quintet Red Cartridge

Details: Written by Philip Beaudette Philip Beaudette; Category: Full-Length Equipment Reviews Full-Length Equipment Reviews; Created: 01 December 2022 01 December 2022

The Great Recession of 2008 was the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression of the early 20th century. In North America, the big-three car manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) suddenly found themselves in trouble as increasing fuel costs meant that consumers could no longer justify their love affair with the gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks these companies had focused their marketing and manufacturing on. With SUVs sitting on dealer lots across the continent and few buyers to be found, governments in both Canada and the US intervened to bail out GM and Chrysler with massive loans. Taxpayers were told the failure of these automotive behemoths would have meant further economic hardship for the rest of us. So much for the laissez-faire economics of capitalism.

JBL's Best-Kept Secret Is a Killer All-in-One Music System—the L75ms Integrated Music System Revisited

Details: Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider; Category: System One System One; Created: 01 December 2022 01 December 2022

This is the article that almost never happened. The idea for it first came up when I was picking up the JBL L75ms Integrated Music System ($1500, all prices in USD) from Gordon Brockhouse’s place. Gordon had just finished reviewing it for SoundStage! Simplifi, and his endorsement of this all-in-one system in that review was so glowing that our team basically had to give it our Reviewers’ Choice award. His praise also piqued my interest. So as I was bundling it into my SUV with the plan of returning it in a few weeks’ time to JBL’s Canadian distributor, Erikson Consumer, I told him that I was tempted to listen to it myself. But that’s when he said, “I have to warn you, it’s really hard to get in and out of the box.”

Recommended Reference Component: EMM Labs DS-EQ1 Optical Phono Preamplifier

Details: 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

Details: 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

Details: 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

Details: 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

Details: Written by SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors SoundStage! Hi-Fi Editors; Category: Components Components; Created: 15 October 2022 15 October 2022

Recommended Reference Component 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

Details: 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

Details: 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.

Reviewers' Choice “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.