Have You Seen?
Blogs
The SoundStage! Network’s multi-author blog about hi-fi, home theater, and more.
- Details
- Written by: Garrett Hongo
- Category: Garrett Hongo
My book, The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo, tells the story of three journeys—my own audio quest for the past 15 years, my love of all kinds of music since I was a kid in Hawaiʻi back in the 1950s, and the story of amplification itself from early acoustic instruments and classical amphitheaters to modern electronics and speakers. It’s part memoir, part personal audio chronicle, and part essayistic history of audio itself told through selected highlights. It took me a long time to write.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Davis
- Category: Jason Davis
The term format agnostic has been showing up lately in certain hi-fi circles. I’m no linguist, but I am a fan of words and the creative ways we use them. These two words, in combination, caught my attention.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
Most high-end speaker manufacturers practice some form of quality control (QC) measures to ensure that their products leave the factory performing and looking exactly as they intend them to. These QC methods typically involve visual inspections—sometimes with special lighting or other tools that make obvious the smallest cosmetic flaws—and listening tests. The best manufacturers add acoustical testing to these QC steps.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
There was a time when I was an audiophile but not an audio-equipment reviewer. Although I have been with SoundStage! since 1997, I recall a time before that when I had the gleam in my eyes that comes from pursuing the audio truth with limited means but an unquenchable curiosity. I dare say it was a more enjoyable experience in many ways than being “in” the industry. Sometimes, though, I feel brief moments of wonder like I did in my youth.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Davis
- Category: Jason Davis
On the morning I submitted my previous (first) column, I stepped outside to my backyard workshop shed and unfastened the wood clamps from a fun little project I had no intention of keeping.
- Details
- Written by: Jason Davis
- Category: Jason Davis
I’ve long felt that a kid who doesn’t know what he wants to do will soon find out exactly what he doesn’t want to do. That is, there is no greater motivation for suddenly embracing (any) plan B than first being confronted with a disagreeable plan A.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
Something struck me when I interviewed Michael Levy, president of New York’s Alta Audio, for a recent SoundStage! Talks video on the SoundStage! YouTube channel. First, Michael is a wealth of information, and his speaker-design knowledge goes back—way back. If you haven’t checked out that video, and you only know Alta from a few ads and maybe a quick experience at an audio show, you’ll gain a whole new perspective on the company and its products from watching that Talks episode.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
When I visited Magico at its Hayward, California, factory back in July of this year, my main focus was exploring the new Magico flagship, the mighty M9 ($750,000 per pair). I saw M9s being built and tested, and I got to hear a pair of these in Magico’s custom listening room. It was quite a treat.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
With the process of setting up the SVS SB16-Ultra complete, it was time to put this monster of a subwoofer through its paces to see how it performs. The first question I wanted to answer was whether the SVS app is preferable to the included small, plastic remote control. In a word, yes. The remote does provide basic controls such as volume and turning the display on or off, but the app gives the user far more control with direct access to functions such as the Parametric EQ and adjustable crossover. For users who don’t want their smartphone by their side in the listening room, the remote is handy in a pinch. The app, however, is made for you control freaks who want everything the sub is capable of right at your fingertips. I’ll use the app.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
I’ve had a set of Monitor Audio Studio standmount speakers ($1400 per pair when available, all prices USD) anchoring my multipurpose music/movie/YouTube stereo system for a few years now. This two-way minimonitor (mini Monitor?) is a high-resolution transducer, what with its AMT tweeter and dual midrange-woofers—both drive units derived from the company’s costlier Platinum series of flagship loudspeakers. The thing they lack, though, is deep bass. That is of course where SVS comes in.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
In my May 1, 2021, SoundStage! Ultra article, “What Matters Most in an Audio System: The Loudspeaker Drive Unit,” I interviewed Vivid Audio’s technical director, Laurence Dickie, one of the world’s preeminent loudspeaker designers. The interview was all about drivers, obviously, and their importance above all other single factors in the design of a finished loudspeaker. In that article, Dickie—whose Vivid loudspeakers such as the Giya series are legendary in the industry—said something important:
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Jeff Fritz
Rarely does high-end audio offer a value proposition like that seen in the SVS SB16-Ultra subwoofer ($1999.99, all prices USD). Now that might sound like a bold statement, but as I was unboxing this big, bad SVS sub, I couldn’t help thinking about just what was enclosed in the massive cardboard box my son and I had hoisted up into my listening room.
- Details
- Written by: Roger Kanno
- Category: Roger Kanno
With its large, analog VU level meters and old-school design aesthetic—and considering Technics’ reputation for producing turntables like the legendary SL-1200—you might think that the Technics SU-R1000 is an all-analog integrated amplifier at first glance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lurking below its impeccably polished casework are a plethora of novel technologies, including an all-digital signal path and the company’s effort to take on the absolute state of the art with its Reference Class integrated amplifier.
- Details
- Written by: Rhys Brindle
- Category: Rhys Brindle
Among the best-known British hi-fi brands, there are some much smaller “under-the-radar” companies that almost never receive the recognition or acclaim for the quality of products that they design and produce. Some of you may already be familiar with Temple Audio, but for those who are not, the company designs and creates a range of high-end products (most notably, amplification and power supplies) at their headquarters in Manchester, North West England.
- Details
- Written by: Brent Butterworth
- Category: Brent Butterworth
The story of Audeze’s CRBN electrostatic headphones, which the company announced today, is unusual. And judging from the brief listen I got last week at Audeze’s Santa Ana, California, headquarters, so is the end result.
Most-Read Last 90 Days
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: House of Stereo Dazzles with Electrocompaniet, Stenheim, and Nordost
- My Audiophile Neighborhood: Upgrade Fever
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: Estelon, Vitus Audio, Crystal Cable, and Others—More Than a Million, Now We’re Cooking
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: Popori Acoustics Electrostatic Speakers Are Killing It!
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: Orchard Audio and Soundfield Audio Get Emmylou Harris’s “Orphan Girl” Right
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: Volti Audio—Speakers for the King of England
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: A New Chesky and a Cost-Conscious Speaker—the LC1
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: Ø Audio’s New Icon 12—The Velvet Hammer
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: Oneiros Audio Shoots for the Stars
- Florida International Audio Expo 2025: Anthem, GoldenEar, and HiFiRose for Two-Thirds the Price of a Really Good Car
- The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 2
- The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 1
- The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 3
- My Audiophile Neighborhood: It Takes a Village
- Lyngdorf Audio’s MP-40 2.1 Multichannel Processor: Eight High-End Two-Channel DACs in a Box
SoundStage! Global is part of
All contents available on this website are copyrighted by SoundStage!® and Schneider Publishing Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
This site was designed by JoomlaShack, Karen Fanas, and The SoundStage! Network.
To contact us, please e-mail info@soundstagenetwork.com