DALI Epikore

When I moved into a suburban row house for my second year of university, one of the first things I did, naturally, was hook up my hi‑fi system.

Read more: The Room That Doesn’t Exist

Every January, the tech world descends on Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, where manufacturers often promise a cable-free utopia. This year was no exception. At CES 2026, brands on the show floor shared visions of a future without cords, cables, or clutter. LG unveiled its Sound Suite with Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, the world’s first soundbar system promising modular wireless flexibility. Samsung showcased its Music Studio speakers, designed to blend seamlessly into modern interiors. Both promised effortless sound, delivered through the ether. Yet a significant question lingers: where’s the power coming from?

Read more: We’ll Always Need Wires: The Myth of the Wireless Revolution

When the Hong Kong–based digital-audio brand AURALiC stopped answering emails in September 2025, the silence spoke volumes. The community forum vanished without explanation. Dealers couldn’t reach anyone. The website went dark except for a terse notice about suspended US shipments. For owners of AURALiC’s Altair, Aries, and Vega streamers, each costing thousands of dollars, the reality set in quickly: they were holding expensive hardware without a support lifeline and facing an uncertain future.

Read more: After AURALiC

Seven years ago, when Gordon Brockhouse asked “Are downloads dead?” on this site, the question felt relevant but premature. Downloads were in obvious decline, streaming was ascendant, and the writing seemed to be on the wall. Today, with streaming accounting for 69% of global music revenues and downloads representing just 2.8% of the market, you’d think the answer would be obvious. Yet download stores are still operating here in 2025, serving a dedicated, passionate audience that has no intention of giving up ownership.

Read more: The Persistence of Downloads

Not only is the television screen the focal point of many living rooms, but it has increasingly become the central control hub for those spaces. That has shifted how people think about audio in these rooms.

Read more: Cord-Cutting: Wireless Surround Sound in 2025

It wasn’t exactly a coming-out party, at least not the one I expected. In a January 1 feature on Simplifi, Mike Jbara, vice-president and general manager of Lenbrook Media Group (LMG), said High End 2025 would mark “the coming-out party” for a new streaming service specializing in MQA-encoded music.

Read more: MQA Update, October 2025

After years of broken promises, Spotify has finally done it. The streaming giant is now rolling out lossless audio to its Premium subscribers, ending one of the most prolonged feature droughts in tech history. Four years after first teasing “Spotify HiFi,” the company that dominates global music streaming is finally delivering serious audio quality to those who demand it.

Read more: Spotify Lossless Is Here at Last! Was it Worth the Wait?

I’ve been a strong proponent of active loudspeaker systems since early in my audio journey. As I described in my recent introductory feature, I bought my first set of active studio monitors back in the late 1990s. Before that, I had assembled an audio system piecemeal that incorporated active crossovers—and in the process, I heard the benefits of this approach firsthand.

Read more: Why Don’t People Get Active?

Like most music lovers these days, I use some kind of computing device for the bulk of my listening. When I’m listening through the KEF LS60 Wireless active speaker system in my living room, I cue up music, control playback, and adjust system settings using a ninth-generation iPad. Upstairs in my home office, I use my MacBook Pro (late 2023, M3) to control playback through the PSB Alpha iQ active speaker system on the top shelf of my secretary desk.

Read more: Shape-Shifters—Using Music Apps on Foldable Smartphones

Ever since I got into file-based playback in the late 2000s, I’ve used some kind of app to play music. At first it was iTunes, the music app bundled with Mac computers. When I started purchasing high-rez albums from download stores like HDtracks, I added BitPerfect, an inexpensive utility that runs on top of iTunes and enables bit-perfect playback of files with different sampling rates and bit depths.

Read more: Direct Connections—Do You Really Need a Music App?

As this is my first feature article for SoundStage! Simplifi, and my first contribution as senior site editor, I’m going to kick things off with a synopsis of my hi-fi journey to date. This will hopefully break the ice and provide some context about my philosophy when it comes to our audio hobby.

Read more: The Long Way Round: My Journey to Simplifi

  1. Reading the Room: An Interview with Nilo Casimiro Ericsson of Dirac Research
  2. Help! I Need Somebody!
  3. Game Over!
  4. MQA’s Second Chapter
  5. Mixed Media
  6. Getting Physical
  7. Getting Spaced: What’s the Future for Atmos-Encoded Music?
  8. Little Colored Lights: Drilling Down in Roon
  9. The French Connection—Is Audirvana a Worthy Alternative to Roon?
  10. Apple’s War on Windows
  11. Fire Sales
  12. Direct versus Retail
  13. Harman International Has Bought Roon Labs—What Comes Next?
  14. Getting Physical—Do LPs and CDs Have a Place in Simplifi’d Hi-Fi?
  15. Active Voices: Livio Cucuzza of Sonus Faber
  16. Is Roon Worth It?
  17. Out and About—Using Roon Away from Home
  18. Lakeside Streaming—Network Entertainment at a Vacation Home
  19. Streaming Update—Spring 2023
  20. Active Voices: An Interview with Paul Barton and Rob Nicholls of PSB Speakers
  21. The State of Streaming—2023
  22. Gordon's System, Re-Simplifi'd
  23. Mix Master: PMC's Heff Moraes on Making Music in Atmos
  24. Toronto Audiofest 2022, Simplifi’d
  25. The Great Debate: Is Component Hi-Fi Dead?
  26. Evolving Hi-Fi: My Journey with a Fleet of Devialet Silver Phantoms
  27. Simplifi'd Hi-Fi at Munich High End–and Elsewhere
  28. How We Listen
  29. Wayback Playback
  30. Listen While You Work
  31. The State of Streaming—2022
  32. Why "Simplifi"—Five Years Later
  33. The Evolution of BluOS: An Interview with Lenbrook's Andrew Haines
  34. Dolby Atmos Music in Your Home
  35. The Big Switch
  36. I'm Only in It for the Money
  37. Encore! Encore! An Interview with Patricia Barber, Jim Anderson, and Ulrike Schwarz
  38. The New Apple Music
  39. Moving Forward with Formation: An Interview with Andy Kerr of Bowers & Wilkins
  40. Glory Days
  41. Spotify Goes Lossless
  42. In Defense of Streaming
  43. Tinkering Simplifi'd
  44. Simplifi Defined
  45. Going Deep with Artison
  46. A Simplifi Yearbook
  47. A Perfect Pair
  48. The Critical Component
  49. Has the Time Come for Surround Music?
  50. My Top Ten Products of the Last Two Years
  51. Turning Pro
  52. All About That Bass
  53. Gently Down the Stream
  54. Big Events
  55. Rules of the Game
  56. The Name Game
  57. January 1, 2020: The State of Streaming
  58. Warsaw’s Audio Video Show 2019, Simplifi’d
  59. Toronto Audiofest 2019, Simplifi'd
  60. Hi-Rez à-Go-Go
  61. Streaming the Classics
  62. Play Nice Together -- An Interview with Rob Darling of Roon Labs
  63. Active Voices, Part Three: KEF's Jack Oclee-Brown
  64. High End 2019, Simplifi'd
  65. Active Voices, Part Two: Axiom Audio's Andrew Welker
  66. Montréal Audio Fest Simplifi'd
  67. Active Voices, Part One: Elac's Andrew Jones
  68. Let's Keep it Simple
  69. A Roon of One's Own
  70. How I Simplifi'd My Wi-Fi
  71. Are Downloads Dead?
  72. Hi-Rez Streaming: Tidal vs. Qobuz
  73. Toronto Audiofest 2018 Simplifi'd
  74. How I Simplifi'd My Hi-Fi
  75. Time to Celebrate: Five Years of Google Chromecast
  76. How Good Can Voice Recognition Get?
  77. Are Smart Speakers Any Good for Audiophiles?
  78. High End 2018, Simplifi'd
  79. Is the Smart Speaker a Dumb Idea?
  80. What's Up with Apple AirPlay 2?
  81. The Spotify Dilemma
  82. CES 2018, Simplifi’d
  83. Farewell, CES
  84. Room Tunes
  85. Social Streaming
  86. CEDIA 2017, Simplifi’d
  87. Classical Prime Time
  88. The Röst Reconsidered
  89. High End 2017, Simplifi'd
  90. Vinyl: There's an App for That
  91. Metadata: Life with Roon
  92. The Internet and Audio: The Good, the Bad, and the Impossible
  93. The State of Streaming
  94. CES 2017, Simplifi'd
  95. Why "Simplifi"

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