NAD M33
Naim
NAD M33
iFi Audio
Lumin

In mid-February, SoundStage! editor-in-chief Jeff Fritz e-mailed to ask if I’d be willing to put together a “virtual system” as part of a series he was writing for SoundStage! Ultra: “If you had an unlimited budget and wanted the best performance money could buy on the desktop, what would you pick?”

Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.

Three years ago, when Kevin and Jonathan Couch formed Heavenly Soundworks, the father-and-son team planned to make only conventional passive loudspeakers—active speakers weren’t on the agenda. “My dad has been into audio as long as I can remember—since before I was born,” Jonathan told me in a phone interview, “which is why I’m into it too.”

It’s hard for people who are passionate about something to imagine others not sharing their enthusiasm. How could anyone not appreciate small-batch bourbons? Or 35mm rangefinder cameras? Or vintage wristwatches?

For his February 1 “SoundStage! UK” column on SoundStage! Hi-Fi, Ken Kessler wrote an entertaining (but slightly unhinged) rant, “I Hate Streaming.” Characteristically, Ken spiced up his piece with colorful prose. “As for streaming, I can’t even be bothered to dignify it by hating it,” he proclaimed. “Rather, I prefer to disrespect it with the ultimate insult: I couldn’t care less about it. . . . Indeed, when suffering insomnia, I think of streaming. Then, when I invariably wake up at 3 a.m., being of pensioner age, streaming is exactly what I do. In the loo.”

Is the Compact Disc on its last legs? It sure looks that way. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), US sales of CDs fell 45.2% (units) and 47.6% (dollars) in the first half of 2020, compared to the same period a year earlier. In that same period, revenues from streaming grew 12%, to $4.8 billion—85% of recording-industry revenues in the US.

In the last three years, Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries (DALI) has introduced active versions of models from three of its speaker series:

Reviewers' ChoiceIntroduced in 1991, PSB’s affordable Alpha series of loudspeakers have since earned a reputation for performance and value, and received many awards. PSB’s Alpha P5 two-way minimonitor ($399/pair, all prices USD except as noted) received a Reviewers’ Choice Award when it was reviewed on SoundStage! Access by Hans Wetzel in March 2019, and was subsequently named a SoundStage! Network Product of the Year for Exceptional Value.

During the 2018 Toronto Audiofest, I had an interesting conversation with an industry colleague about active speakers and streaming music. As previously observed on Simplifi, my living room can’t accommodate a conventional component system comprising amps and passive loudspeakers. Nor can it accommodate physical media such as CDs and LPs. For that reason, I’ve built my main hi-fi system around a pair of Elac Navis ARF-51 active speakers ($4599.96/pair, all prices USD), which have 300Wpc of built-in amplification. I stream all my music to the living room over our home network.

When he visited my home last summer, SoundStage! founder and publisher Doug Schneider asked what I thought was a strange question. Which am I into more, music or sound? Am I first and foremost an audiophile or a music lover?

In no other area do audiophile aspirations collide more forcefully with the laws of physics than in the reproduction of deep bass. That’s especially true with audio systems installed in multipurpose living areas, as opposed to dedicated media rooms. There are two main reasons for this, one quantitative, the other qualitative.

A trick question: What are the most valuable components of your music system? I don’t know about yours, but the most valuable parts of mine are space and time. If that sounds like new-age hokum, stay with me—that insight has a lot to do with how I’ve configured my hi-fi system, how I use it, and the writing I do in this corner of the SoundStage! Network.

Last spring, I added a new component to my audio wish list: a subwoofer. It happened after I’d conducted an experiment in which I compared my Elac Navis ARF-51 active floorstanding speakers ($4599.98/pair, all prices USD) with a pair of Elac Navis ARB-51 active stand-mounted speakers ($2299.98/pair), the latter augmented by an SVS PB-2000 Pro subwoofer ($899.99). I wanted to find out which would give me better sound: a pair of full-range floorstanders, or a pair of minimonitors plus a sub. The Navises employ the same drivers, crossovers, and amplifiers—in short, that minimum of variables made these two models an ideal test bed for my experiment.

Reviewers' ChoiceI 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reviewers' ChoiceWith 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Reviewers' ChoiceIn 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.

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.

  1. HEDD Type 07 Analog Active Loudspeakers
  2. exaSound Audio Design Delta Music Server M100
  3. Bryston BDA-3.14 Streaming DAC-Preamplifier
  4. Gently Down the Stream
  5. Big Events
  6. iFi Audio Pro iDSD Streaming DAC-Preamp-Headphone Amplifier
  7. Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar
  8. DALI Rubicon 6 C Hybrid Active Loudspeakers
  9. Rules of the Game
  10. Pro-Ject Audio Systems Pre Box RS2 Digital DAC-Preamp-Headphone Amp
  11. Klipsch RW-51M Wireless Powered Loudspeakers
  12. The Name Game
  13. iFi Audio Aurora Wireless Music System
  14. Naim Audio Mu-so Qb 2nd Generation Wireless Music System
  15. January 1, 2020: The State of Streaming
  16. Cambridge Audio CXA81 Integrated Amplifier-DAC
  17. Warsaw’s Audio Video Show 2019, Simplifi’d
  18. Hegel Music Systems H120 Integrated Amplifier-DAC
  19. DALI Katch One Soundbar
  20. NAD Classic C 658 BluOS Streaming DAC
  21. Toronto Audiofest 2019, Simplifi'd
  22. Kanto Audio Tuk Powered Loudspeakers
  23. Hi-Rez à-Go-Go
  24. Lumin T2 Network Music Player
  25. Naim Audio ND5 XS 2 Network Music Player
  26. Elac Navis ARF-51 Active Loudspeakers
  27. Streaming the Classics
  28. Devialet Phantom Reactor 900 Active Loudspeakers
  29. Play Nice Together -- An Interview with Rob Darling of Roon Labs
  30. PMC result6 Active Loudspeakers
  31. Bowers & Wilkins Formation Duo Active Loudspeakers
  32. Active Voices, Part Three: KEF's Jack Oclee-Brown
  33. Naim Audio Mu-so 2nd Generation Wireless Music System
  34. McIntosh Laboratory MTI100 Integrated Turntable
  35. High End 2019, Simplifi'd
  36. Yamaha WXA-50 MusicCast Streaming Amplifier
  37. NAD Masters M10 BluOS Streaming Integrated Amplifier
  38. Active Voices, Part Two: Axiom Audio's Andrew Welker
  39. Primare SC15 Prisma Streaming DAC-Preamp
  40. Montréal Audio Fest Simplifi'd
  41. Naim Uniti Core CD Ripper/Music Server
  42. Elac Navis ARB-51 Active Loudspeakers
  43. Active Voices, Part One: Elac's Andrew Jones
  44. Bluesound Pulse 2i Wireless Speaker
  45. SVS Prime Wireless Active Speakers
  46. Let's Keep it Simple
  47. Totem Acoustic Kin Play Powered Speakers
  48. A Roon of One's Own
  49. KEF LSX Active Loudspeakers
  50. Bluesound Vault 2i CD Ripper-Server-Streamer
  51. Pro-Ject Audio Systems Stream Box S2 Ultra Music Streamer
  52. How I Simplifi'd My Wi-Fi
  53. Kii Audio Three DSP-Controlled Active Loudspeakers
  54. Aurender S5W Battery-Powered Wireless Active Loudspeakers
  55. Are Downloads Dead?
  56. Cambridge Audio Yoyo (L) Wireless Speaker
  57. Hi-Rez Streaming: Tidal vs. Qobuz
  58. DALI Callisto 2 C Active Speaker System
  59. Toronto Audiofest 2018 Simplifi'd
  60. Kanto SYD Bluetooth Speaker
  61. LG G7 ThinQ Smartphone
  62. How I Simplifi'd My Hi-Fi
  63. Pro-Ject Audio Systems Juke Box E Turntable-Integrated Amplifier
  64. Time to Celebrate: Five Years of Google Chromecast
  65. NAD D 3020 V2 Bluetooth Integrated Amplifier-DAC
  66. How Good Can Voice Recognition Get?
  67. Polk Assist Wi-Fi Smart Speaker
  68. Are Smart Speakers Any Good for Audiophiles?
  69. MartinLogan Unison Wireless Preamplifier
  70. High End 2018, Simplifi'd
  71. Dynaudio Music 7 Wi-Fi Speaker
  72. Musical Fidelity M6 Encore 225 Music System
  73. Cocktail Audio X35 Music System
  74. Is the Smart Speaker a Dumb Idea?
  75. Peachtree Audio decco125 Sky Integrated Amplifier-DAC
  76. Technics Ottava f SC-C70 Music System
  77. What's Up with Apple AirPlay 2?
  78. JBL Link 500 Wi-Fi Speaker
  79. The Spotify Dilemma
  80. Trinnov Amethyst DAC-Preamplifier-Processor
  81. Control4 Triad One Streaming Amplifier
  82. Elac Discovery Z3 Wi-Fi Speaker
  83. CES 2018, Simplifi’d
  84. Klipsch Heritage Wireless Three Wi-Fi Speaker
  85. Farewell, CES
  86. Paradigm PW 300 Wi-Fi Loudspeakers
  87. Thiel Audio Aurora Home Wi-Fi Speaker
  88. Room Tunes
  89. Hegel Music Systems H190 DAC-Integrated Amplifier
  90. Social Streaming
  91. Yamaha R-N803 Network Stereo Receiver
  92. Onkyo TX-8270 Network Stereo Receiver
  93. CEDIA 2017, Simplifi’d
  94. Dynaudio Focus 20 XD Active Loudspeakers
  95. Riva Audio Festival Wi-Fi Speaker
  96. Naim Audio Uniti Atom Wireless Streaming DAC-Integrated Amplifier
  97. Classical Prime Time
  98. NAD Masters Series M50.2 Digital Music Player
  99. Bryston BryFi BW-1 Wi-Fi Speaker
  100. The Röst Reconsidered
  101. Arcam rPlay Music Streamer
  102. Auralic Polaris Wireless Streaming DAC-Integrated Amplifier
  103. High End 2017, Simplifi'd
  104. Simaudio Moon Neo ACE DAC-Streamer-Integrated Amplifier
  105. Vinyl: There's an App for That
  106. Metadata: Life with Roon
  107. NAD C 368 DAC-Integrated Amplifier
  108. The Internet and Audio: The Good, the Bad, and the Impossible
  109. Lumin M1 Integrated Amplifier-Network Music Player
  110. Arcam Solo Music DAC-Integrated Amplifier-Universal Player
  111. McIntosh Laboratory RS100 Wi-Fi Loudspeakers
  112. The State of Streaming
  113. Hegel Music Systems Röst Integrated Amplifier
  114. CES 2017, Simplifi'd
  115. Naim Audio Mu-so Qb Wi-Fi Speaker
  116. Why "Simplifi"
  117. Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 2 Wi-Fi Speaker