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Shows-Events
- Details
- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
Let me begin with a confession: I did not intend to write this article. Actually, I did not expect to write any articles at all during Audio Video Show 2023. My plan was to take most of the photos, edit them, guide writers Matt Bonaccio and Jason Thorpe around the show, and then take more time listening to systems than I usually do. I figured I’d only write about something if it really intrigued me. The Paradigm-Anthem setup at the PGE Narodowy stadium did just that, so I wrote an article about it.
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
Warsaw’s bustling stadium left us with much to do and not much time to do it, but I made sure to stop at the Headphones Zone—this trip wouldn’t be complete without it. The layout was impressive, with dozens of brands displaying their wares one next to another, like a Persian bazaar. Here, of course, were not exotic spices and hand-woven rugs, but headphones, amplifiers, in-ear monitors, and every accessory imaginable.
- Details
- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
Today the SoundStage! crew made a jaunt over to Audio Video Show’s main location, PGE Narodowy. It’s Warsaw’s national stadium, and this weekend it’s hosting a bevy of the world’s best-known audio and home-theater brands. I saw a lot there today—keep an eye out for more—but one of the highlights was Norwegian electronics manufacturer Electrocompaniet.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
There’s a brunch restaurant near me that’s insanely busy on the weekends. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, there’s a lineup of about 20 people waiting to be seated. This amazes and repulses me. The concept of lining up and waiting—probably for quite a while—is completely foreign to me.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
Canadian sister brands Paradigm and Anthem are hi-fi powerhouses, with extensive manufacturing and design capabilities. Both brands have roots in the advanced loudspeaker research done at Canada’s National Research Council (NRC). In fact, some Paradigm and Anthem employees worked at the NRC and conducted some of that research. As a result, both brands offer high-performing hi-fi products with unique features that allow users to set up their systems in interesting ways.
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
There’s something about tubes, right? Maybe it’s the shiny, glowing glass bottles, maybe it’s their benign low-order distortion character, or maybe it’s a mix of those two with a healthy glug of nostalgia thrown in. Or maybe it’s just that the voltages are high enough to flash-fry you if you touch the wrong wire.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
I know it’s juvenile, but I know I’m not alone in this. I’m a sucker for bass. Exhibitors know how they can use this little kink to draw in showgoers, but they have to walk a fine line. Sloppy bass doesn’t work. Boomy mid-bass doesn’t work.
- Details
- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
“Poproszę jedem pączek. I cappuccino, proszę.” The woman behind the café counter dutifully set my plate on the glass countertop and set about steaming the milk for my drink. We’d ducked into the small, French-styled café to get out of the rain and refuel as we wandered around Warsaw’s Old Town. I brought my pączek (it’s like a jelly donut, but better) to the table and sat down across from SoundStage! Ultra senior editor Jason Thorpe and SoundStage! founder Doug Schneider. Doug gaped at my newly acquired ability to order a donut in Polish. “You know, you’re the most un-American American we’ve ever brought on one of these trips,” he said and laughed.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
On Monday, October 16, at 4:15 p.m., the shipping company picked up the Estelon XB Mk II speakers that I reviewed in July for SoundStage! Ultra. The XBs had lived in my main system for close to six months, and, as you can read in my review, I spent those months enamored by their dynamic prowess, retrieval of detail, and utter musicality.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Audio Video Show 2023
“It’s the flight, Doug. It exhausts me,” I said to Doug Schneider as we were discussing our plans for Audio Video Show 2023 in Warsaw, Poland. “I can never sleep on planes. These overnight flights leave me crippled and exhausted.”
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- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2023
Here’s the third and final instalment of my coverage of UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2023 from Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire, England. As in my first and second reports from Ascot, this one includes a raft of new product launches, informative audio presentations, and another world-class system.
- Details
- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2023
Featuring a huge swath of new products and some genuinely world-class systems, this second part of my coverage of UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2023 from Ascot Racecouse in Berkshire is even more diverse than the first. A strange thing about Ascot is that it never feels busy, even when there’s a huge number of people in the venue. Only when I visited the exhibit rooms did I realize just how many people were in attendance. Most of the manufacturers I spoke to seemed to be having a good show. All prices are in UK pounds.
- Details
- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2023
It’s hard not to be awestruck as you walk up to Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire, England. Located 25 miles west of London, Ascot was the site of UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2023, held September 29 to October 1. The scale of the venue, not to mention its rich heritage, reminds you how important this event is. It’s put on by the UK magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review.
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- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: North West Audio Show 2023
I love hotels, especially those set in the great country houses of England. They always have king-size beds and blackout curtains, so I generally sleep better there than at home. Your every need is catered to: food and drink are served with a smile wherever and whenever you wish. Furthermore, nobody who lives in a normal house has this much land to roam around. It was a delight to explore the acres that make up Cranage Hall Estate, site of the North West Audio Show, held June 17–18 in Cheshire, England. I’ve already reported on my first day at the show. Here’s what I experienced on day two. All prices are in British pounds.
- Details
- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: North West Audio Show 2023
It’s not often one gets to spend the weekend listening to some of the world’s best audio systems in an Elizabethan-style manor house built in 1828, surrounded by Doric columns and illuminated by glorious chandeliers. It’s not often that one enters a hi-fi show by walking Oscars-style up a red carpet before getting personally greeted by the organizer and receiving a perfectly chilled glass of fizz from a silver platter. But that was my experience entering the North West Audio Show, which was held June 17–18 at the De Vere Cranage Hall Estate in Cheshire, England.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: High End 2023
At the end of each year, the SoundStage! editors pick the best products based on the reviews that have appeared across our network of sites during the previous 12 months. This year, we created an award for Outstanding Achievement in the industry—and there were three people in 2022 who won.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2023
It’s not often I get stopped in my tracks by a turntable. I should qualify that statement a bit . . . I’m a cheap date, and any turntable that isn’t a rectangular slab of wood will give me horny pains. But that said, I’m quite capable of walking past most of the chrome and acrylic monstrosities without going ga-ga.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2023
The Rockport Technologies and Absolare room was packed. Standing room only. This was Saturday, the first of two days during which High End was open to the public, and attendance seemed to have more than doubled. Thank heavens the COVID-19 emergency has officially ended because this would have been a superspreader event.
- Details
- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: High End 2023
In the weeks leading up to a show like High End 2023, I research what new products have been announced and ask manufacturers to let me know what new products they’ll be displaying. I plan my initial coverage around products for which I’ve received advance information. Everything else I discover at the show is secondary.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2023
For the first time ever, I got to listen to Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut at an audio show—on vinyl, no less. It impressed me that Gediminas Gaidelis, owner and engineer of AudioSolutions, had this LP buried in among the usual audiophile bumfluffery. Why more exhibitors don’t use this album in demos is beyond me.
Subcategories
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- Audio Video Show 2024: Devialet: From Weird, Confusing, and Mysterious to a Kick-in-the-Astra Reboot
- Aron Garrecht’s New Reference Room, Part 1
- UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2024: Days 1 and 2
- UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2024: Day 3
- Audio Video Show 2024: Get There—Destination Audio Will Take You
- Audio Video Show 2024: Knocked on My Ass by ElinsAudio
- Audio Video Show 2024: Skala Audio—the Bravest Exhibit at the Show
- Audio Video Show 2024: Norwegian Wood, Is It Any Good?
- Audio Video Show 2024: Poland’s Audio DIYers Show Up and Show Off
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- Audio Video Show 2024: Homogenix Cartridges—a Totally New Design Out of the Blue
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