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- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Features
When you have to ask whether the quoted-by-the-manufacturer price of a component is in the hundreds or thousands, you know the audiophile world has gone mad. I'm barely halfway through the first day of CES 2013 and, already, when a company rep told me the price of their loudspeakers was "17," I had to wonder whether it was $1700 or $17,000, because I couldn’t tell for sure. It turned out to be the latter.
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Audio Research, Sonus Faber, REL, Magico, Constellation Audio, Simaudio, MartinLogan, Hegel Music Systems, Torus Power, Luxman, Definitive Technology, Neodio, Bryston, Musical Fidelity
All prices in US dollars unless otherwise indicated
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in this gallery: Aurender, Meitner Audio, Sonus Faber, Audio Research, Magico, Simaudio, Definitive Technology, NAD, Paradigm, Hegel, Cambridge Audio, KEF, Vivid Audio
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Wyred 4 Sound, Emerald Physics, Sutherland Engineering, Light Harmonic, Triode Corporation, Benchmark Media Systems, Ayre Acoustics, Thiel Audio, Totem Acoustic, Simaudio, PSB Speakers, Hegel, Aragon, dCS
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- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Features
High-end audio is fragmenting. There are companies such as KEF and Devialet -- Doug Schneider favorites, written about ad nauseum -- that are pushing the performance envelope at lower price points further than anyone could have imagined just a few years ago. At the higher prices, there are research-driven companies such as Vivid and Magico that are doing the same at the outer limits of what is possible.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Features
Last night, I overheard a conversation between Ken Kessler and some other hi-fi journalists about why high-end audio is dying and why so much hi-fi equipment doesn't sell well to people who are rich enough to afford it. Ken, who's big into luxury goods, was adamant that most high-end manufacturers simply don't know how to sell their high-priced products to well-heeled customers. The other journalists, a couple of whom work for a popular but continuously shrinking print magazine, disagreed vehemently with him. It was at that point that the conversation turned heated and, occasionally, ugly, with some shouting and stern words between both sides. I listened and smiled as I watched these old guys fight, but I also knew one thing -- Ken was quite right and the other fuddy-duddies were wrong. That's when I joined in . . .
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Features
In the Barenaked Ladies' song "If I Had $1000000," they sang about what they'd buy if they had that much cash. From what I recall, none of it had to do with high-end audio.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Features
When I walked into the SV Sound (SVS) room and saw their new Ultra-series speakers, comprising a floorstander, monitor, center-channel, and surround, I admit to first thinking, "Are the attractive, sloped, shiny-black cabinets simply acting as pretty faces to conceal that there's little in terms of true design work behind them?" Plus, the prices seemed too good to be true -- the Ultra Tower will retail for about $2000/pair, the Ultra Bookshelf about $1000/pair. In high-end audio, that's cheap -- and cheap sometimes correlates with no time spent engineering anything at all.
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Crystal Cable, April Music/Stello, Octave Audio, PMC, ifi Micro, SVS, Audio Physic, Aperion Audio, Music Culture, Nagra, Zellaton, Sonus Faber, Peachtree Audio, Resonessence Labs
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- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Features
Esoteric is now the US distributor for the French loudspeaker brand Cabasse. Tim Crable, Esoteric's director of sales, said, "The synergy is magical between their point-source loudspeakers and our electronics." Esoteric is no longer in the loudspeaker-manufacturing business, so the pairing is natural because now Esoteric can display and, ultimately, distribute a complete high-end-audio system.
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- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Features
Show One -- value abounds: The Resonessence Labs Concero DAC is priced at $599. It uses an ESS Sabre DAC chip and has an asynchronous USB input. It comes in . . .
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- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Features
Walking through the displays at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2012, I'm struck by the number of manufacturers that are squeezing what seems to be an amazing amount of performance out of products that are priced in reach of the common consumer. Talking to designers, company presidents, sales managers, and others, I heard story after story describing product-development projects that were conceived to offer more value, more performance, and more connectivity for audiophiles looking to maximize their dollars.
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Nordost, Legacy Audio, Sanders Sound Systems, Tenor Audio, Von Schweikert Audio, Your Final System, Vapor Audio, Mojo Audio, DeVore Fidelity, Zu Audio, Joseph Audio, Estelon, MSB Technology, Bob Carver, Sonic Studio
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Focus Audio, Grandinote, Capriccio Continuo, Reference 3A, Kudos, Ceol Audio, Opera, System Audio, Paradigm Shift, exaSound, AIX Records, GutWire, Synthesis, Calyx Audio, Usher Audio
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Features
When I entered the Opera Audio room here at TAVES, nothing really jumped out at me. While readers may imagine that covering an audio show is a vibrant, almost electric experience for audio writers, that's pretty far from the truth. Going from room to room methodically copying down equipment information, I think it's fair to say that actual sound quality becomes something of an afterthought unless it's glaringly apparent that the sound is shockingly good. Or bad, for that matter.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Features
Canada's Bryston Limited is a company legendary for power amplifiers, preamplifiers, and more recently, digital-source-type products such as the BDP-2 digital player and BDA-2 digital-to-analog converter. Now the company is jumping headlong into the loudspeaker market with the introduction of their first product. Named the Model T, its starting price is $6495/pair for the passive version with an internal crossover and a standard finish. Premium finishes increase the cost, as does the option for an external passive crossover or an external DSP-based crossover, the latter option creating a fully active solution. A stand-mounted version as well as a center-channel and subwoofer (both passive and active) are also in the works. Obviously, Bryston is optimistic and thinking ahead.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Features
The French get a bit of a bad rap. There was Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican who developed the eponymous complex. There was the Great War, where France endured almost 1.4 million military deaths. And finally there was the Second World War, where the French were overrun by a failed artist with a God complex and a bad mustache. Militarily then, things have not always gone well for the western European nation. Yet they are renowned for their cheese, their fashion, their new wave -- indeed, for almost the entirety of their cultural tapestry. Taste in the finer things seems to be part and parcel of being French.
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Features
I'll cut to the chase and tell you now that Paradigm's new Tribute loudspeaker is the company's best looking and, from what we could tell at TAVES 2012, best sounding loudspeaker to date. In the case of the former, that might not be saying much -- a little over ten years ago most Paradigm loudspeakers were pedestrian-looking rectangular boxes. Beauty wasn't their thing. It's only recently that they've really upped their styling, and the Tribute is a great example, particularly the Dark Garnet Gloss finish, which is gorgeous. But in terms of sound, that's saying a lot. For decades, Paradigm has consistently produced speakers that perform far in excess of their price.
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- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Features
"The discoveries made by our engineers were so profound that when the end result was first demonstrated within Bose, the reaction was nothing short of astonishment." So reads the literature that accompanies Bose's new VideoWave II "entertainment system." Also known as a television, the second-generation VideoWave screen is a two-product line comprising a 55" model priced at $6495 and a 46" model at $5495. With a 1080p, 120Hz LED display sourced from Samsung and an array of 16 individual speaker drivers enclosed along all four sides of the 6"-deep, wall-mountable device, it struck me as an interesting, if grossly overpriced, product.
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- Written by: Administrator
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Paradigm, Bryston, Elipson, Bel Canto Design, Cary Audio Design, Blue Circle Audio, ELAC, Naim Audio, Air Tight, PrimaLuna, Bose
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