PSB Imagine Series

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.

Read more: Going Deep with Artison

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.

Read more: A Simplifi Yearbook

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.

Read more: A Perfect Pair

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.

Read more: The Critical Component

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.

Read more: Has the Time Come for Surround Music?

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.

Read more: My Top Ten Products of the Last Two Years

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).

Read more: Turning Pro

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.

Read more: All About That Bass

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).

Read more: Gently Down the Stream

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.

Read more: Big Events

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.

Read more: Rules of the Game

  1. The Name Game
  2. January 1, 2020: The State of Streaming
  3. Warsaw’s Audio Video Show 2019, Simplifi’d
  4. Toronto Audiofest 2019, Simplifi'd
  5. Hi-Rez à-Go-Go
  6. Streaming the Classics
  7. Play Nice Together -- An Interview with Rob Darling of Roon Labs
  8. Active Voices, Part Three: KEF's Jack Oclee-Brown
  9. High End 2019, Simplifi'd
  10. Active Voices, Part Two: Axiom Audio's Andrew Welker
  11. Montréal Audio Fest Simplifi'd
  12. Active Voices, Part One: Elac's Andrew Jones
  13. Let's Keep it Simple
  14. A Roon of One's Own
  15. How I Simplifi'd My Wi-Fi
  16. Are Downloads Dead?
  17. Hi-Rez Streaming: Tidal vs. Qobuz
  18. Toronto Audiofest 2018 Simplifi'd
  19. How I Simplifi'd My Hi-Fi
  20. Time to Celebrate: Five Years of Google Chromecast
  21. How Good Can Voice Recognition Get?
  22. Are Smart Speakers Any Good for Audiophiles?
  23. High End 2018, Simplifi'd
  24. Is the Smart Speaker a Dumb Idea?
  25. What's Up with Apple AirPlay 2?
  26. The Spotify Dilemma
  27. CES 2018, Simplifi’d
  28. Farewell, CES
  29. Room Tunes
  30. Social Streaming
  31. CEDIA 2017, Simplifi’d
  32. Classical Prime Time
  33. The Röst Reconsidered
  34. High End 2017, Simplifi'd
  35. Vinyl: There's an App for That
  36. Metadata: Life with Roon
  37. The Internet and Audio: The Good, the Bad, and the Impossible
  38. The State of Streaming
  39. CES 2017, Simplifi'd
  40. Why "Simplifi"

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