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- Written by Al Griffin Al Griffin
- Parent Category: High End 2018 High End 2018
- Created: 12 May 2018 12 May 2018
High End 2018: Marantz KI Ruby
Marantz is using the occasion of High End 2018 to release its new SA-KI Ruby SACD player and PM-KI Ruby integrated amplifier. The KI in there stands for Ken Ishiwata, the company’s brand ambassador, who is celebrating his 40th anniversary with Marantz (hence, the Ruby designation).
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- Written by Jeff Fritz Jeff Fritz
- Parent Category: High End 2018 High End 2018
- Created: 12 May 2018 12 May 2018
High End 2018: Flemming Rasmussen and Life Beyond Gryphon
I first met Gryphon Audio Designs’ Flemming Rasmussen at High End 2001. Back then, High End was held in Frankfurt, Germany, at the Kempinski Hotel. The hulking black class-A amps of Gryphon were new and fascinating to me. Over the ensuing years, I spent time with Flemming at shows and corresponded with him over e-mail. I came to know him as a kind, caring man with a great passion for music and music reproduction. During the past 20 years, I’ve reviewed many Gryphon products and grown a tremendous admiration for the brand in general -- but there was no separating Gryphon and its products from Flemming Rasmussen. He was -- is -- the heart and soul of Gryphon.
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- Written by Roger Kanno Roger Kanno
- Parent Category: High End 2018 High End 2018
- Created: 12 May 2018 12 May 2018
High End 2018: Roger's Field of Streams -- Simaudio and Ayre Acoustics
Some of my SoundStage! colleagues give me a bit of a hard time because I don’t stream music. Maybe this will be the year that I finally break down and subscribe to a streaming service -- or maybe not. But at this year’s High End 2018 show in Munich, I saw a couple of high-end streaming devices that just might make me change my mind.
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- Written by News Editor News Editor
- Parent Category: High End 2018 High End 2018
- Created: 11 May 2018 11 May 2018
High End 2018: Product Coverage Gallery 2
Companies featured in gallery below: SGR Audio, Paradigm, Estelon, Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems, Bassocontinuo, Ayre Acoustics, EAR, YBA, Aurender, AudioSolutions, Cocktail Audio, Cayin, Cambridge Audio, Cary Audio, SME, Clearaudio
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- Written by News Editor News Editor
- Parent Category: High End 2018 High End 2018
- Created: 10 May 2018 10 May 2018
High End 2018: Product Coverage Gallery 1
Companies featured in gallery below: Raidho, Scansonic, Crystal Cable, Vitus Audio, Luxman, Von Schweikert Audio, EgglestonWorks, TriangleArt, dCS, Thrax, Sonus Faber, Auralic, Vivid Audio, Lumin, Furutech
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 10 April 2018 10 April 2018
CanJam SoCal 2018: Headphones and Earphones, Part 2
The 2018 CanJam SoCal headphone show, held at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live hotel in downtown Los Angeles, wrapped up on Sunday. As one of the most high-profile headphone events in the world, CanJam SoCal always hosts a slew of new and recent products I haven’t seen before. I’ve already reported on several new headphones and earphones, as well as new amplifiers and a headphone processing app. Here’s the last of my three CanJam SoCal reports, again focusing on headphones and earphones. All products are presented in alphabetical order with prices listed in USD.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 10 April 2018 10 April 2018
CanJam SoCal 2018: Headphone Amps and More
At the CanJam SoCal headphone show last weekend, which took place at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live hotel in downtown Los Angeles, most of the action in new products was in headphones. But I did spot a few interesting new headphone amps and related products -- a couple of which came in at refreshingly low prices. Here are the most interesting ones I found, with all prices listed in USD.
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- Written by Brent Butterworth Brent Butterworth
- Parent Category: Shows-Events Shows-Events
- Created: 09 April 2018 09 April 2018
CanJam SoCal 2018: Headphones and Earphones, Part 1
CanJam is a series of headphone shows that take place at locations around the world. This year has already seen shows in New York, Singapore, and Southern California, with shows in London, Denver, and Shanghai coming later this year. Last weekend, I attended the Southern California show, at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live hotel, located in downtown Los Angeles, and came away with photos and info on numerous new headphones, earphones, and headphone amps. Here’s the first batch of cool headphones and earphones I found, presented in alphabetical order with all prices listed in USD.
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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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