SoundStage! Simplifi | SoundStageSimplifi.com

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 November 2019

Reviewers' Choice It’s been just over five years since Canada’s Lenbrook Industries Limited launched the Bluesound brand of streaming multiroom products, and many of the decisions Lenbrook made during Bluesound’s formative stages now seem prescient. These include developing the underlying BluOS technology in-house, rather than sourcing it from a third party, and supporting high-resolution playback right from the start.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 October 2019

Based in Coquitlam, British Columbia, on Canada’s left coast, Kanto Audio has made a name for itself with budget-priced powered stereo speaker systems. These include the YU2 ($219.99/pair, all prices USD), a two-way desktop speaker with USB DAC and 3.5mm stereo analog input; and two bookshelf models, the YU4 ($329.99/pair) and YU6 ($399.99/pair), both featuring Bluetooth connectivity, a built-in phono preamp, a TosLink digital input, and a line-level analog input. The YU4 has a 4” Kevlar woofer and a 1” soft-dome tweeter, driven by a 35Wpc RMS class-D amp; the larger YU6 has a 5.25” woofer and a 50Wpc RMS class-D amp. Kanto’s most ambitious design yet is the Tuk powered minimonitor ($799.99/pair). Inside each rear-ported enclosure is a 5.25” aluminum woofer and a 28 x 45mm Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeter.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 October 2019

Do you have to be a propeller-head to enjoy Simplifi’d hi-fi? The question might seem nonsensical, but when you think about this site’s mandate -- to cover “convenient, lifestyle-oriented audio” -- it makes a perverse kind of sense, and the product reviewed here illustrates my point.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 September 2019

Like many music-lovers, I’ve changed my listening habits drastically in the last ten years. A decade ago, all of the music I listened to at home was stored on shiny discs. A decade later, those discs are long gone. My music library is now stored on a LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt RAID system connected to an Apple Mac Mini computer in my second-floor office. The Mac Mini runs Roon Core, and streams music via Wi-Fi to the music system in my main-floor living room.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 September 2019

Reviewers' Choice In her song “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell famously observed “That you don’t know what you’ve got / Till it’s gone.” There’s a lot of truth in that. The converse is equally true -- you don’t know what you’ve been missing till you experience it. Both thoughts occurred to me as I reviewed Elac’s Navis ARF-51 active floorstanding speakers.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 August 2019

Cute, adorable, funky -- you rarely read those adjectives in reviews of serious audio products, but they do describe the appearance of Devialet’s Phantom Reactor active loudspeakers. Perched on their matching tripod stands, the Reactors evoke memories of R2D2 from Star Wars (though each Reactor is much smaller), or characters from the game Angry Birds (the Reactors look way friendlier).

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 August 2019

As regular visitors to this site surely know by now, I’m a big proponent of active loudspeakers. My reference system is built around a pair of Dynaudio Focus 200 XDs, which have dedicated 150W class-D amps for their 1” tweeters and 6.5” woofers. This choice was driven by domestic considerations -- it would be almost impossible to fit a system of audio separates into the living room of the century-old row house I share with my much better half.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 July 2019

Reviewers' Choice It was a deal that left many audiophiles scratching their heads. In May 2016, the venerable British loudspeaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins was sold to California-based EVA Automation Inc. If few people had ever heard of EVA Automation, that’s not surprising -- the Silicon Valley startup had been founded only two years before, and had never released a product.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 July 2019

Reviewers' Choice Five years ago, if someone had asked me if there was a market for a tabletop all-in-one music system that cost $1499 (all prices USD), I’d have replied, “You’re kidding, right?” For that kind of dough, you could get a nice integrated amp and speakers, or a really good set of powered speakers. I had nothing against all-in-one music systems -- not then, not now. But for serious listening, I want the immersive experience you get from a stereo pair of speakers spaced several feet apart.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 15 June 2019

When most people think of audio components from McIntosh Laboratory, they think of serious high-end separates: preamps and big, powerful amplifiers. But there’s another side to this iconic brand, which this year celebrates its 70th anniversary. McIntosh now offers several lifestyle audio products, including integrated music systems, streamers, headphone amplifiers, and the subject of this review: what they call an integrated turntable.

: Written by: Gordon Brockhouse; Created: 01 June 2019

For people who want to enjoy their music in real-world living spaces, two of the most welcome developments of recent years have been the integration of streaming capability into integrated amplifiers, and the downsizing of these components. With a streaming amplifier and good pair of speakers, you have everything you need to enjoy a vast range of music, in sound quality far beyond that of most all-in-one tabletop speakers. And you can do this without breaking the bank, or cluttering up your living area with audio gear.