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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Parent Category: BloggingOnAudio BloggingOnAudio
- Created: 04 April 2018 04 April 2018
Roger's Montreal Moon 888 Adventure
In his February 2017 SoundStage! Hi-Fi editorial, “The Best of the Worst CES in Decades: 2017,” Doug Schneider named Simaudio’s Moon 888 mono power amplifier one of the best new products of CES 2017 -- and it’s easy to see why. Weighing in at more than 250 pounds and rated by the manufacturer to deliver 888W into 8 ohms or 1776W into 4 ohms, this massive $59,444 USD behemoth monoblock ($118,888/pair) is an all-out assault on the state-of-the-art in amplifier design. It also just happens to be one of the most gorgeous solid-state amplifiers that I have ever seen, with a shining machined-aluminum faceplate offset by the matte-black, cast-aluminum heatsinks and a swooping top cover with an inset Moon logo.
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 25 March 2018 25 March 2018
Montreal Audio Fest 2018: Speakers, Part 3
So many new speakers! Year 2018 was an anomaly, with more speaker introductions at Montreal Audio Fest than I’ve seen in recent memory. Let’s get to it with our third installment on loudspeakers -- all prices in Canadian dollars.
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 24 March 2018 24 March 2018
Montreal Audio Fest 2018: Turntables and Phono Stages
It’d be fun to view the penetration of analog into the Montreal Audio Fest and its prior years’ incarnations as a graph. It’d be a long, flat, straight line with a few small upticks through the early 2000s, then a gentle rise as the format slowly regained its popularity. Then, back in 2016, the curve reached the knee. The year 2017 found further acceleration toward the vertical. This year, ’tables were everywhere. Not necessarily actively playing, mind you, but it seemed that nearly every room had a record player holding down the street cred.
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 24 March 2018 24 March 2018
Montreal Audio Fest 2018: Conditioners, Cables, and Accessories
It’s never good enough in audio. It can always be better. That’s the prevailing sentiment among audiophiles. And that’s why we decorate our systems with cones, pucks, cool wires, and ancillary boxes, like magpies collecting shiny beads.
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 24 March 2018 24 March 2018
Montreal Audio Fest 2018: Electronics
Oh sure, there were tons of new speakers at Montreal Audio Fest 2018. But they won’t so much as squeak without electronics to drive them. We couldn’t find nearly as many electronic product debuts, though there was enough to keep us busy. All prices in Canadian dollars.
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 24 March 2018 24 March 2018
Montreal Audio Fest 2018: Speakers, Part 2
It seemed like this year the Montreal Audio Fest had more than its usual quota of new speaker introductions. They were everywhere. Here’s a bunch more, with all prices in Canadian dollars unless indicated otherwise.
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- Written by Jason Thorpe Jason Thorpe
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 23 March 2018 23 March 2018
Montreal Audio Fest 2018: Speakers, Part 1
A lousy sleep last night. I rolled into Montreal’s Hotel Bonaventure, which is home to the Montreal Audio Fest (MAF), at around 9 p.m., threw my bags in my room, and hustled to the bar. The lobby bar in the Hotel Bonaventure is a wonderful admixture of recently renovated white paint and neon tastefully clashing with ’70s Moonbase Alpha concrete.
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 14 January 2018 14 January 2018
CES 2018: My Favorite Things -- and the One Thing They Have in Common
At this year’s CES, I heard some products that really captured my attention, and even though they were quite different, they have something in common: the Athena project. This experimental research project was conducted at Canada’s National Research Council (NRC), in Ottawa, more than two decades ago, and it sought to define the type of sound listeners would prefer from a loudspeaker. Researchers identified a “target curve” for frequency response that listeners preferred, and at that time they experimented with making the in-room response of a speaker more closely meet that preference by using digital signal processing (DSP). Back then it wasn’t practical to implement DSP in a loudspeaker, but many loudspeaker manufacturers still designed their products to meet that target curve acoustically -- and they still do to this day, both acoustically and now with DSP.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 13 January 2018 13 January 2018
CES 2018: Brent's Grab Bag
At every audio show, I find numerous cool new products that don’t fit the categories we’ve created, or that fell through the cracks of our other articles. Of course, CES 2018 in Las Vegas was no exception. So I’ll wrap up my CES 2018 coverage with a column full of the odds and ends that caught my eyes and ears. Here they are, with all prices listed in USD.
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 13 January 2018 13 January 2018
CES 2018: Cables Everywhere -- and More Speakers
During my time at the 2018 CES, I came across several new cable introductions of note and a few more speakers that I had not included in my previous show reports. Here’s the last of my new-product coverage. All prices in USD.
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 12 January 2018 12 January 2018
CES 2018: Roger Finds Audiophile Electronics, Part 2
Brand new product introductions for audiophile-type electronics at this year’s CES were relatively few and far between, but scouring the halls of the high-end exhibits at the Venetian and visiting some other manufacturers at off-site locations, I was able to find a few more significant product debuts. All prices in USD.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 12 January 2018 12 January 2018
CES 2018: Headphones, Part 2
I found lots of interesting new headphones at CES 2018, including not only mass-market models but many of particular interest to audiophiles. I’ve covered several models previously in my “CES 2018: Unveiled” and “CES 2018: Headphones, Part 1” articles. Here are the rest of my favorites, with all prices in USD.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 12 January 2018 12 January 2018
CES 2018: Brent Finds Too Many Turntables
Considering that the high-end audio exhibits at CES 2018 were almost entirely confined to the 29th floor of Las Vegas’s Venetian hotel, I didn’t expect to find enough new turntables to fill an article. But to my surprise, I probably could have filled a couple of posts with new turntables from the show. Here are my favorites, with all prices in USD.
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 11 January 2018 11 January 2018
CES 2018: Roger Finds Audiophile Electronics, Part 1
In between handing out the SoundStage! Network 2017 Products of the Year award trophies on the first couple of days at this year’s CES, I was able to find some interesting value-oriented product introductions from several of the usual electronics manufacturers that I’m familiar with -- and one from a company that really surprised me. All prices in USD.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 11 January 2018 11 January 2018
CES 2018: Wireless Speakers
Much of the talk at the 2018 CES centered on wireless speakers. But there wasn’t much discussion of the speakers themselves; it was more around the voice-command systems, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, that many of the latest models use. Of course, I saw plenty of new wireless speakers using only Bluetooth, but most of the ones getting attention had Wi-Fi as well as some variety of voice-command.
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 10 January 2018 10 January 2018
CES 2018: Roger Finds Audiophile Speakers
As expected at this year’s CES, the high-end audio exhibitors were primarily restricted to one floor of the Venetian hotel -- and the exhibitors that were there didn’t even fill the entire floor (companies from other industries were located in some of the suites). But I was still able to find some interesting speakers on my first day at the show, including a couple that were offsite at the Hard Rock Hotel, where Harman (the parent company of JBL and Revel, among other brands) was exhibiting in addition to having a suite at the Venetian. All prices in USD.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 10 January 2018 10 January 2018
CES 2018: Headphones, Part 1
The annual CES in Las Vegas is probably the best place in the world to experience a wide variety of headphones. Shows like CanJam probably have more high-end models, but the offerings at CES typically run from under $20 to well over $2000.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 09 January 2018 09 January 2018
CES 2018: CES Unveiled
CES Unveiled is the first major event of the CES show, which runs through Friday of this week in Las Vegas. The 2018 Unveiled took place Sunday night, packing a predicted 1500 journalists and 100 tech companies together into a large ballroom at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. While a few large companies show up, it’s mostly small companies who might be missed in the maelstrom of CES’s main show floors.
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- Written by Doug Schneider Doug Schneider
- Parent Category: Product Debuts Product Debuts
- Created: 08 January 2018 08 January 2018
Magico A3 Loudspeaker -- the Sound
Magico’s founder, Alon Wolf, isn’t the kind of person to say things just to appease you; he’ll tell you what he thinks with absolutely no softness in his delivery. It’s hard, just like the metal used in the cabinets of his speakers. For example, he’s told me that my Canon camera is crap, my recommendation of the 2013 movie Gravity is a “stain on my résumé,” and that my high praise for a well-regarded two-way standmounted speaker that many other writers also like is an embarrassment. Don’t talk to him if you’re easily offended.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 07 January 2018 07 January 2018
AISE 2018: The Craziest (and Maybe Best) Speaker in Vegas This Week
The attendees at the ALMA International Symposium and Expo (AISE) 2018, held this week in Las Vegas, are mostly audio product design and testing professionals. Having heard and tested almost everything, they’re more skeptical of new technologies than attendees at an ordinary audio show might be. So when a friend of mine who’s a veteran of the audio measurement industry insisted I go hear a new speaker technology being demoed at a suite in the South Point Hotel, which hosted AISE, I figured I’d better go. I’m really glad I did.
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