SoundStage! Simplifi | SoundStageSimplifi.com

PSB Alpha AM5 Powered Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 December 2020

Reviewers' Choice I didn’t expect to be writing this review -- at least, not now. As I mentioned a month ago, in my feature article “A Perfect Pair,” when I read PSB’s announcement of their new Alpha AM3 and Alpha AM5 powered speakers, I immediately requested for review a pair of AM5s. I was told that samples would be shipped to me that very week -- only to hear, a few days later, that review samples weren’t available, due to robust initial orders and pandemic-related product shortages. When PSB offered to supply the smaller AM3s, I gladly accepted.

A Simplifi Yearbook

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 December 2020

At the start of 2020 — it seems an age ago — I’d made some ambitious travel plans for the year: In March, I’d take the train to Montreal for the Audiofest; in April, I’d fly to Chicago for AXPONA. In May, I’d jet off to Munich for the High End show. In October I’d stay in my home city to attend the Toronto Audiofest, and in November it would be off to Warsaw for the Audio Video Show.

SVS Prime Wireless SoundBase Streaming Integrated Amplifier

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 November 2020

Most audiophiles know SV Sound (SVS) as a manufacturer of high-performance, high-value speakers and subwoofers. The Ohio-based company’s catalog also includes one electronic component: the Prime Wireless SoundBase ($499.99, all prices USD), which combines a powerful integrated amplifier and network streamer in one compact case.

Focal Solo6 Be Active Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 November 2020

One of the best-kept secrets of home audio is the possibility of building a hi-fi system around a pair of professional studio monitors. As I discussed in my July 1 feature, “Turning Pro,” studio monitors offer more bang for the buck than most conventional systems comprising separate electronics and passive speakers.

A Perfect Pair

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 November 2020

It sounds like a nice problem for a speaker maker to have: Some hot new models are launched, and the first batch immediately sells out. That’s what happened when PSB announced powered versions of its acclaimed Alpha P3 and Alpha P5 minimonitors.

Buchardt Audio A500 Active Loudspeakers and Stereo Hub WiSA Transmitter

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 October 2020

Reviewers' Choice With apologies to William Shakespeare, there’s something rockin’ in the state of Denmark, audiowise. When it comes to active speakers that include digital signal processing (DSP) -- in my opinion, now the most exciting segment of audio -- the Danes are on the leading edge. During my two-years-plus at SoundStage! Simplifi, I’ve written about active speakers from several Danish brands, including DALI, Dynaudio, and System Audio, and I’ve loved them all.

Klipsch The Fives Active Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 October 2020

Is there a speaker brand that does retro as well as Klipsch? I doubt it. Klipsch’s big horn speakers hark back to the middle of the 20th century, and so do their lifestyle products.

The Critical Component

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 October 2020

In the last decade, recorded music has undergone a sea change -- it has become disembodied. From the late 19th to the early 21st century, music was distributed on physical media. In the early 21st century, digital downloads held sway, then quickly gave way to on-demand streaming.

Has the Time Come for Surround Music?

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 September 2020

A year ago this week, Amazon shook up the audio world with its announcement of Amazon Music HD, a streaming service that today offers 60 million tracks in lossless 16-bit/44.1kHz CD resolution, plus “millions” of hi-rez tracks in resolutions up to 24/192. While lossless and hi-rez files were already available from Qobuz and Tidal, the leading streaming services all used lossy codecs, so Amazon’s embrace of hi-rez audio was big news.

Triangle Elara LN01A Powered Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 September 2020

For the past couple of decades, the audio industry has been angsting about how to get young listeners interested in hi-fi. It’s not that teens and twentysomethings don’t love music; it’s that their musical lives revolve around smartphones, headphones, maybe a Bluetooth speaker. How can they be introduced to the joys of listening to real stereo from real hi-fi speakers?

Volumio Primo Community Edition and Hi-Fi Edition Streaming DACs

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 August 2020

Volumio may not be a household name among audiophiles, but it has a huge following among DIY hobbyists. Based in Florence, Italy, Volumio is the developer of an eponymous, open-source Linux distribution designed for music playback that can run on an inexpensive single-board computer (SBC) such as the Raspberry Pi. The company claims to have over 300,000 users, mainly hobbyists who run Volumio on home-built digital music streamers and servers.

System Audio Legend 5 Silverback Active Loudspeakers and Stereo Hub WiSA Transmitter

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 August 2020

Integrating a hi-fi system into a multipurpose living space can be complicated by all the wiring needed to connect the various components. This is particularly true of speaker cables, especially if they have to cross an open area of the room. Even if they aren’t tripping hazards, they’re unsightly.

My Top Ten Products of the Last Two Years

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 August 2020

On a Friday morning, two years ago this month, an unexpected e-mail from SoundStage! publisher Doug Schneider appeared in my inbox. I say “unexpected” because, at the time, I barely knew Doug. We’d met a few times at such audio events as CEDIA and the Consumer Electronics Show, and I knew Doug by reputation, having been a regular reader of SoundStage! publications since the Network’s launch, in 1995. We arranged to chat by phone.

Andover Audio Model-One Turntable Music System

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 July 2020

If you want to establish a new audio brand, where do you start? That was the question faced by Andover Audio, a Boston-area company founded in 2012 by ex-employees of Cambridge SoundWorks, when they decided to offer products under their own brand.

Elac Alchemy DDP-2 Streaming DAC-Preamp

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 July 2020

The American brand Audio Alchemy was founded in the 1980s and folded a decade later. It re-emerged in the early 2000s, and was purchased by Elac in 2016, where it has undergone a renaissance. Audio Alchemy founder Peter Madnick now acts as a consulting engineer for Elac, and is responsible for developing Elac’s Alchemy series of electronic components, now in their second generation.

Turning Pro

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 July 2020

In the two years I’ve been writing for SoundStage! Simplifi I’ve reviewed 15 stereo loudspeakers, all of them active or powered models. There’s a practical reason for this. I don’t have a dedicated music room, and our living room isn’t big enough to accommodate a conventional audio system of separate components: sources, amplifiers, and passive speakers. So the music systems in our current home have been built around active speakers -- first, Dynaudio’s Focus 200 XD, which, following a firmware update, is sonically and functionally identical to the newer Focus 20 XD ($5999/pair, all prices USD); and, later, Elac’s Navis ARF-51 ($4599.98/pair).

Focal Shape 65 Analog Active Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 June 2020

Reviewers' Choice In the past few years, the French speaker maker Focal has had an amazing run on SoundStage!. Reviewed by Diego Estan on SoundStage! Access, the Chora 806 ($990/pair, all prices USD) received a Reviewers’ Choice award, and was later designated a Recommended Reference Component. The same honors were bestowed on Focal’s Stellia headphones ($2990), reviewed by Brent Butterworth on SoundStage! Solo; and on the Spectral 40th floorstanding speakers ($9990/pair) and Sopra No1 minimonitors ($9990/pair), both reviewed by Diego for SoundStage! Hi-Fi. The Spectral 40th was also named a SoundStage! Network 2019 Product of the Year in the Hall of Fame category. That’s a mighty impressive record.

All About That Bass

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 June 2020

When I reviewed Elac’s Navis ARF-51 active floorstanding speakers ($4599.96/pair, all prices USD) in September 2019, I rediscovered something I’d been missing for the previous six years: kick-ass bass.

HEDD Type 07 Analog Active Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 June 2020

When computer audio took off, a decade ago, many hobbyists opted to use active studio monitors, rather than the usual amplifier and passive speakers. It’s not hard to see why. Especially for desktop audio, where space is at a premium, speakers with built-in amps are convenient.

exaSound Audio Design Delta Music Server M100

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 May 2020

Do you need a powerhouse computer just to play music? Not everyone does -- I use a nine-year-old, mid-tier Apple Mac Mini, and it does just fine. I’ve modified it for music playback, swapping out its spinning hard-disk drive for a solid-state drive (SSD), and bumping up its RAM from 4 to 16GB, so that music plays from memory rather than storage.

Bryston BDA-3.14 Streaming DAC-Preamplifier

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 May 2020

Can an audio component be more than the sum of its parts? Bryston’s new BDA-3.14 streaming DAC-preamp ($4195, all prices USD) invites that question. Essentially, it combines two products on one chassis: the acclaimed BDA-3 DAC ($3795) and a network streamer based on the BDP-Pi ($1495). The BDP-Pi derives its name from the Raspberry Pi single-board computer at its core. Hence the model number of the new integrated product -- 3.14 is an approximation of the mathematical constant pi (π), denoting the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

Gently Down the Stream

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 May 2020

Many of the products I’ve recently reviewed for Simplifi have been DACs with built-in streamers -- most recently, Bryston’s BDA-3.14 ($4195, all prices USD) and iFi Audio’s Pro iDSD ($2749); and, before that, NAD’s Classic C 658 ($1649), Lumin’s T2 ($4500), and Naim Audio’s ND5 XS 2 ($3495).

Big Events

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 April 2020

In my last three columns, I wrote about how streaming is changing the ways people discover and experience music. In my January feature, “The State of Streaming,” I looked at streaming services that deliver lossless CD-resolution and high-resolution music. In “The Name Game,” published February 1, I wrote about how streaming has given rise to whole new classes of audio components, and set out to establish some definitions. And in my March feature, “Rules of the Game,” I discussed the software protocols that enable these new components to talk to one another, and compared their benefits and drawbacks.

iFi Audio Pro iDSD Streaming DAC-Preamp-Headphone Amplifier

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 April 2020

A half-century ago, when I got into audio, most amplifiers had front panels that looked like jet cockpits. And the higher a model was in its manufacturer’s product line, the more knobs and switches it had.

Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 March 2020

Is there a hobby that’s less domesticated than home theater? Ever since people began connecting their TVs to their stereos in the late 1970s, audio manufacturers have been encouraging them to add more and more speakers -- and it’s gotten a bit crazy.

DALI Rubicon 6 C Hybrid Active Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 March 2020

Reviewers' Choice Last November in Warsaw, Poland, at the Audio Video Show 2019, I saw several products that fit Simplifi’s mandate to cover “convenient, lifestyle-oriented hi-fi,” many of which I knew I wanted to get in for review. At the top of the list were two new active loudspeakers from Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries (DALI): the Rubicon 2 C stand-mount ($5799/pair, all prices USD) and the Rubicon 6 C floorstander ($7999/pair). DALI’s passive Rubicon models are just one tier below their flagship Epicon series, so the prospect of reviewing these new active versions was mighty appealing.

Rules of the Game

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 March 2020

In last month’s feature, I looked at the various kinds of components that can make up a Simplifi’d music system. As I noted then, networked music systems include three broad classes of components that traditional hi-fi systems don’t: servers, which send audio data (and metadata) over a home network; streamers, which receive and render that data; and controllers, with which users select music and control its playback.

Pro-Ject Audio Systems Pre Box RS2 Digital DAC-Preamp-Headphone Amp

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 February 2020

The audio world knows of Pro-Ject Audio Systems as a major brand of turntables, but this Vienna-based company also makes an extensive line of electronics that lately have been winning all kinds of awards. For the past three years, Pro-Ject has received awards for its turntables and its electronic components from the Expert Imaging and Sound Association (EISA).

Klipsch RW-51M Wireless Powered Loudspeakers

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 February 2020

“You want to put those in our living room?” Over the years, words like these have scuttled countless plans for new home-entertainment systems. If the components themselves didn’t push the spouse acceptance factor into the red zone, the cables needed to connect them did.

The Name Game

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 February 2020

I sometimes wonder if the name of this site, Simplifi, contradicts its stated mission to cover “convenient, lifestyle-oriented hi-fi,” per the blurb on the SoundStage! Network portal.