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Shows-Events
- Details
- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2024
Doug Schneider, the SoundStage! Network’s publisher and head honcho, basically dragged me by the ear into International Audio Group’s room in one of the upper atria of the Munich Order Center. We had to drop off a Product of the Year award for Mission, which is one of IAG’s brands. I don’t normally enjoy chores like this, but I’m glad Doug pulled me into the room.
- Details
- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: High End 2024
At High End 2022, DALI (Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries) debuted its Kore loudspeaker, which, today, is priced at Є90,000 per pair in Europe (including Europe’s VAT, also reflected in the prices below). The company’s main goal with the Kore was to show the world everything this Danish brand had learned about loudspeaker design during its 40-year history (DALI was founded in 1983). Also, I’m pretty sure DALI’s accountants hoped the company would sell quite a few pairs.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2024
Earlier this year, Hans Wetzel reviewed the Audionet Humboldt integrated amplifier and found it to be good. That’s the biggest understatement I’ve cranked out today—it’s a biblical understatement. The $59k (USD) Humboldt (all prices in euros except that one) impressed Hans with its insane build quality, huuuuge power, and neutral, resolving sound quality. “It’s a statement-level integrated amplifier,” he testified.
- Details
- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2024
The S 230 loudspeaker, which T+A Elektroakustik recently added to its Criterion line, is still pretty much brand spankin’ new. It only began shipping last month, at a price of €9500 (VAT included) in Europe, or $11,990 per pair in the US. Naturally, I was excited to get my eyes and ears on a pair of S 230s here in Munich. Imagine my surprise when I visited T+A’s exhibition room and was greeted with a newer-still Criterion loudspeaker, the S 240.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2024
During High End 2023, I spent a fun hour or so in the AudioSolutions room checking out the company’s Figaro M2 speaker. We listened to a bunch of cool music that was right out of my forever playlist. And it was all on vinyl. In my report on the room, I mentioned that the source was the Immersion II turntable from Poland’s BennyAudio, but I didn’t go into much detail other than to throw in a photo.
- Details
- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2024
There’s something inherently gonzo about trying to report on one of these massive hi-fi shows. It’s nigh impossible to strip oneself of the sensory overload one experiences at the show so that one can write about it in a sensible way.
- Details
- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2024
Wenn schon, denn schon is an idiomatic phrase in German with no direct translation to English. Even to a native German, it’s one of those things that sounds like weird nonsense once you get thinking about it. In use, however, it’s very much akin to the English phrase, “If you’re gonna do something, you better go all the way.”
- Details
- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2024
On the evening of Friday, February 23, after the first day of the Bristol Hi-Fi Show, Naim Audio took me out for a superb meal. The evening concluded with some fine single-malt courtesy of Kat Ourlian, global sales and marketing director for SME Ltd. You’ve gotta love a gal whose only poison is whisky! As a result, I slept very contentedly.
- Details
- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2024
The 35th Bristol Hi-Fi Show was held from February 23 to 25 at its usual venue—the Delta Hotels by Marriott Bristol City Centre—and the vibe was just as I’ve always remembered it. I’ve been coming here for over 30 years, and there’s a sense of energy that is incredibly infectious and quite unique. People are often packed into the rooms and spilling out into the corridors, trying to listen to the latest and greatest from the world’s finest audio manufacturers. The bar was humming all weekend, the industry was out in force, and there were some seriously impressive systems on display.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
I took a seat in one of the Playback Distribution rooms (the company had several), with the intent of listening to the flagship Krypton3X speakers from Amphion. “Anyone here seen Barbie?” asked Rob Standley, president and cofounder of Playback.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
It was the kind of serendipity I couldn’t ignore. The room next to mine was hosted by American Sound of Canada, a Canadian distributor with a bricks-and-mortar presence just outside of Toronto, which is where I live.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
The day before I departed for the Florida International Audio Expo, I received an email from Wynn Wong of Wynn Audio, the North American distributor of a whole bunch of tasty brands, asking me how I was making out with the Thales TTT-Compact II turntable (review forthcoming on SoundStage! Ultra). “Are you attending the Florida show?” Wynn asked as an aside.
- Details
- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
Last November, I wrote about the Estelon Aura loudspeaker on SoundStage! Hi-Fi in my “System One” column. In that article, I described how I purchased some Tönnen Sound acoustic panels from Amazon to help tame some reflections in my living room. I also created a video on our YouTube channel about the Tönnen panels and two other panel-type products—smaller hexagonal- and square-shaped felt-type absorbers—that I’d also bought from Amazon.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
Sometimes you just luck out. I’d sat for a while listening to the TAD Laboratories Reference system, and it was a packed house, as you’d expect on a Saturday afternoon at an audio show. I sighed to myself and figured I’d nip back up to my room and grab my laptop so I could come back down and sit, listen, and write, as is my wont. It works well at shows, I find, to sit still in a chair and write about the room, rather than gather details and then write it up later in my room or at the bar over a light Yankee beer.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
Any room that plays Henry Mancini’s main theme from The Pink Panther soundtrack at absurdly loud levels deserves coverage in this here publication.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
A speaker, by necessity, becomes a part of the room in which it’s installed. If that speaker is relegated to a listening room, and if the owner really doesn’t care about the appearance, a well-designed driver complement in a rectangular MDF box will do just fine.
- Details
- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
I have an issue taking a ridiculously priced product seriously if there’s not a credible explanation of why it costs as much as it does—or unless it delivers sound that catapults me to Mars. There are several such components on the market that fail this test, and the Børresen Acoustics M1 two-way standmount loudspeaker is one of them.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
I arrived at the Embassy Suites hotel in Tampa on Thursday night after a two-hour tarmac delay due to snow and the attendant de-icing. I barely had time to slam down a beer in the lounge before it was time for dinner hosted by the organizers of the Florida International Audio Expo. Seated next to me in the restaurant was the affable Jason Motoyama, lead preamp tech for Pass Labs, and we had a great time chatting about music. Our mutual love of Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More bridged the generational gap that might otherwise have loomed large between us.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
While eating breakfast at the buffet in the Radisson Blu Sobieski hotel at the Audio Video Show in Warsaw, I tend to sit in roughly the same quadrant each day and from year to year. This section is usually occupied by representatives of several manufacturers—notably Kostas Metaxas and the chaps from Falcon Acoustics.
- Details
- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2024
Until now, SVS’s largest and most expensive speaker has been the Ultra Tower, a three-way, five-driver design that stands 45.6″ tall and sells for $2600 per pair (all prices in USD). That model remains in SVS’s line, but the new Ultra Evolution Pinnacle is now the flagship, and it ups the game significantly. This Pinnacle is the first model of SVS’s brand-new Ultra line, with other new models to be announced soon.
Subcategories
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