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Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2023

TAD, short for Technical Audio Devices, brought the newest version of its Compact Evolution One standmounted loudspeaker to the Florida International Audio Expo for its North American debut. At a quick glance, the CE1TX looks an awful lot like the original CE1, which was introduced back in 2015. As always, the devil is in the details.

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Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2023

Florida Audio Expo was renamed Florida International Audio Expo for this year—but it was purely coincidental that the first new products I saw originated outside of the United States. My first report focused on products from Focal and Naim Audio, based respectively in France and the United Kingdom. This report covers products from companies located in Austria, Japan, and Germany, as well as the United Kingdom; all prices are in US dollars.

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Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2023

I’ve covered my fair share of audio shows in the past decade, and while most rooms and setups tend to congeal into a hazy memory, Avantgarde Acoustic’s rooms always stand out from the crowd. The German company’s horn loudspeakers look—and sound—different from anything else offered in the high end. Florida International Audio Expo 2023 marked the global debut of the new Duo GT loudspeaker system, presented by House of Stereo, a high-end dealer located in Jacksonville, Florida.

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Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2023

The annual Florida Audio Expo began in 2019. Florida Audio Expo 2021 was canceled due to COVID-19, so the 2023 event marks the fourth time the show has been presented. It’s still a three-day event (February 17 to 19 this year), but the 2023 iteration showed a bit of a twist—instead of being called Florida Audio Expo, it’s now called Florida International Audio Expo (FIAE) to better reflect the fact that this show now has international appeal, for both attendees and exhibitors. The name change also shows that this event is firmly established and, therefore, a success.

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Category: Hans Wetzel

A few months back I wrote about the system in my new living room, which includes an NAD M10 V2 integrated amplifier-DAC, Focal’s 1000 IW6 two-way in-wall loudspeakers, and KEF’s KC62 microsubwoofer. I love the KC62 because it’s perfect for my use case: a tiny 10″-cubed footprint married to extension and control below 30Hz. It looks unobtrusive in my room while still offering proper audiophile performance. If there’s an asterisk to this heroic little subwoofer, it’s the matter of output. Above a certain volume its extension begins to roll off to ensure that the little-sub-that-could doesn’t blow itself to pieces, and no matter how accomplished the hardware or DSP is, there is no replacement for displacement (as they used to say in the car world).

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Category: Hans Wetzel

A system is only as good as the room that it’s in, and as I explained in my last article, I’ve had some pretty mediocre rooms over the last decade. But my now-six-month-old daughter gave me and my wife an excuse just over a year ago to move from South Philadelphia to the Philly suburbs in search of additional space and more in the way of peace and quiet. One of my non-negotiables for our new abode was a finished basement that I could turn into a listening room, and after failing to land any of the first five homes we bid on in the historic pandemic housing market, we struck gold on our sixth and landed our dream home.

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Category: Jason Davis

November 11 is Veterans Day in the United States, the day we honor U.S. military veterans. Despite occurring during cold, grey November, it’s a happy day—as opposed to Memorial Day, which is not a happy day, since it’s the day we mourn those who have fought and died while wearing our nation’s uniform. Conversely, that day occurs in May at the joyous onset of summer . . .

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Category: Jonathan Gorse

Earlier this year, SME launched one of the world’s truly great turntables, the state-of-the-art Model 60 flagship. Evidently, engineers have been busy at SME, in Steyning, West Sussex, UK, because the company is now releasing updated, Mk2 versions of every model in their range, from the Model 12 and Synergy to the Model 30. When you consider that the Model 30 has been in production since 1990 without major revisions and is still regarded as one of the world’s finest vinyl spinners, the significance of this launch is obvious.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

Michael Corleone famously said, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” I now know the feeling.

It was late in the day on Sunday, October 30. I’d taken thousands of steps to and through the various Audio Video Show exhibits in all three locations and was ready to call it a day. I was about to put my camera away. Then I walked into one more room at the Radisson Blu Sobieski, and I was sucked back into show reporting.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

Prior to my departure from Toronto, I received an email from Adam Mokrzycki, the organizer of Audio Video Show 2022, asking if I had any interest in attending a concert featuring jazz singer Melody Gardot. Gardot happened to be playing, you see, in Warsaw on the night of Friday, October 28, which just happened to be the first day of the show.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

In the Radisson Blu Sobieski location, I walked into the room occupied by Silent Pound—a brand name I still don’t understand—and stopped dead in my tracks. Fellow SoundStager Jason Thorpe saw me staring at a speaker ahead of me and asked, “Is it something?”

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

We’ve seen and featured Tentogra turntables in previous Audio Video Show reports. This Polish company’s premier turntable, the Oscar, now at Mk III status, is an over-the-top monster with its own battery supply, which is configurable to provide up to 68 hours of running on a single charge. Each time I encounter the Oscar, I’m startled by how much technology and innovation the company can jam into this thing. At $33,000 (all prices USD), the Oscar’s price is certainly reasonable, but it’s hard in any light to consider that much money for a turntable as an actual bargain.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

What’s happened to me? I thought I knew my preferences. Jason likes well-damped boxes and drivers appropriately chosen for their intended frequencies. None of that fussy, retro stuff that inward-looking audiophiles like to champion.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

As I mentioned in my article on the three Audio Video Show 2022 locations, the event is too big for us to cover everything, even with two of us here (Jason Thorpe joined me again this year). We’d need five of us to tackle the whole show—and even then I’m not sure we could get it all within three days. As a result, we have to pick and choose what to include in our reports.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

It’s worth spending good money on high-quality products. What’s better than that, though, is finding high-quality products at bargain prices. This doesn’t happen very often, but Doug Schneider and I are right now at Audio Video Show 2022 in Warsaw, Poland, and there are bargains to be had in this city, at this show.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

The last time I attended AVS was back in 2019. I recall that there were a number of vendors selling LPs at the PGE Narodowy stadium, but this year it seemed like they had seriously multiplied. On the main floor of the stadium, there were two separate areas, each occupied by several different vendors. While there were some CDs for sale, the vast majority of these sectors were taken up with vinyl. Lots of vinyl.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

I know, I know—our beat here at Audio Video Show 2022 is supposed to be new products, but over breakfast this morning, Doug and I discussed a potentially different approach for covering this event.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

I need to listen to music while I write. I guess it’s a Pavlovian response that I’ve drilled into myself over the last two decades of contributing to the SoundStage! Network. So by necessity I have to bring something along with me to shows and on essentially any expedition where I’m going to have to generate copy.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

With a focus squarely on headphone amplifiers and linear power supplies, Ferrum Audio is one of those companies that’s flown under my radar up to this point. The headquarters of Ferrum Audio is here in Warsaw, though, and the offer of a tour of its facilities on Thursday, one day before Audio Video Show 2022 started, had me Googling the brand right quick.

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Category: Audio Video Show 2022

Since I travel to so many hi-fi shows around the world, I often get asked for my opinion about each one. In fact, right now I’m in Warsaw, Poland, getting ready to cover Audio Video Show 2022, which will run from October 28 to 30.

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Vitus Audio
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