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Shows-Events
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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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2023
Are you not entertained? Is it a spectacle you want? Well, ESD Acoustic, a new-to-me company that’s just thrilled to tell you it’s from China, presented a truly over-the-top spectacle at High End 2023. In all my days, I’ve never seen anything like this outrageous system. I mean, just look at this setup.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2023
Certain iconic products have become part of our cultural DNA. The Coca-Cola bottle. The Rolex Submariner watch. The Chanel N°5 bottle. The Ferrari 308.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: High End 2023
Switzerland’s Stenheim used High End 2023 to launch the new Alumine Two.Five loudspeaker, which the company describes as “a passive two-way, floorstanding, high-performance speaker that incorporates the company’s essential design attributes in an elegant tower that adapts to most living spaces.” The Alumine Two.Five reportedly “builds on the simplicity of the original bookshelf Alumine Two, but with greater cabinet volume and double bass drivers for lower extension.”
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2023
After sitting down in Verity Audio’s room, I realized within 15 seconds just how much I’ve missed listening to the company’s speakers. It’s been well over a decade since I reviewed a Verity speaker. It was the Amadis, back in 2010. That sealed my fate, as the Amadis was probably the most musically satisfying speaker I’d ever heard in my room.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: High End 2023
For 20 years, Denmark’s Lyngdorf Audio has been making products that are both technically advanced and lifestyle-friendly—the latter meaning that interior designers might approve of using Lyngdorf components in the home. That can’t be said of all hi-fi brands.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: High End 2023
Denmark’s Gryphon Audio Designs is well known for massive class-A-biased power amplifiers that generate a lot of heat, take up a lot of space, and probably injure a lot of backs as buyers try to maneuver them into place. Examples include Gryphon’s flagship Apex stereo and monoblock power amplifiers. The stereo version of the Apex won a SoundStage! Network Product of the Year award in 2022.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: High End 2023
I’ve been into audio since 1980. Since then, I’ve been aware of the Naim Audio brand, but I’ve never owned a Naim product—though I’ve been tempted to. Naim Audio has always had a fervid, almost cult-like following. People don’t seem to just buy Naim; they live Naim. I’m reminded of that whenever UK-based SoundStage! contributor Jonathan Gorse speaks of the brand. He owns several Naim components, including the Nait 1 integrated amplifier, which the company released in 1983 and just refurbished for Jonathan. Never having owned a Naim component, I can’t quite understand this fervor, but it’s something I kind of envy.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2023
It had been a slow start to Friday morning. After dinner Thursday night, we’d made a tactical error and ended up at a bar with some industry folks. I proceeded to drink more than was strictly advisable given the early starts we had scheduled for ourselves. Doug Schneider is much more mature than I am when it comes to this sort of thing. He had one beer and then split, shooting a look of warning at me as he bellowed, “8:30 tomorrow in the hotel lobby. Right, Jason?”
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