Parts Express’s Dayton Audio operation is a major supplier of speaker components as well as audio testing and measurement tools, and has recently expanded its offerings of home audio products, many of them at exceptional prices. Their latest offering is the TT-1 manual turntable, which comes with a factory-mounted Audio-Technica AT-VM95E cartridge.
Read more: Dayton Audio TT-1 Turntable with Audio-Technica AT-VM95E Cartridge
Sometimes, I like to approach a new review product as if I had encountered it in the wild, unawares, even if I know exactly what I’m getting ahead of time. And when I look at the packaging for Yamaha’s R-N1000A streaming stereo receiver ($1799.95, in USD) in that frame of mind, I have to admit that my first thought is to wonder whether this is a piece designed with the A/V market or the hi-fi crowd in mind.
Read more: Unboxing the Yamaha R-N1000A Streaming Stereo Receiver
As some of you know, I await the publication of my own hardware reviews like a kid anticipates Christmas—not because I want to re-read my own words, but because that’s when I finally get to see our measurement specialist Diego Estan’s objective data for the first time. I see those measurements when you do, dear reader, and not a minute before.
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Going into a product review knowing exactly what you’re in for can be simultaneously comforting and a bit boring. Going into a review feeling confident that you know exactly what you’re in for and being thrown for a bit of a loop, on the other hand, can be thrilling and embarrassing in equal measure. That’s exactly what happened to me during my time with PSB’s new Imagine B50 loudspeakers ($699/pair, all prices USD).
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
For readers who aren’t familiar with Living Sounds Audio (LSA), the brand is owned by Underwood HiFi, a Hawaii-based, internet-only provider of home audio equipment. Its owner, Walter Liederman, was a longtime executive with HiFi Buys, an Atlanta-based audio chain. When HiFi Buys was sold in the late 1990s, Liederman struck out on his own, working as a consultant for brands such as Infinity and Acoustic Research. Later, he began selling closeouts, B-stock, and discontinued audio gear for companies that did not want to market such products through their normal distribution systems.
It’s getting a little difficult these days to sort out a piece of Marantz gear’s place in the overall product family by designation alone, but that’s where my complaints with the company’s current lineup begin and end. Its latest integrated amplifier, for example, is simply called the Model 50 ($1800, all prices USD). Is there anything in that title that indicates a sort of little sibling to the Model 30 ($2999) released in 2020?
Read more: Unboxing the Marantz Model 50 Integrated Amplifier
It seems that I’ve been misunderstood. That’s always a danger when you’re monologuing, but thankfully the SoundStage! Network is more of a slow, ongoing dialog between an incredibly motley crew. To wit: the most recent volley in my ongoing parley with SoundStage! Ultra editor Jason Thorpe is a piece titled “I’m Not an Oligarch!”—which is a response to my January editorial, “The Needs of the Many versus the Needs of the Reviewer.”
Read more: On the Nature of Stoics, Straw Men, and Solved Problems
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
It’s a funny old thing, seeing legitimate buzz about any piece of hi-fi gear these days, but in the past year we’ve seen oodles of noise about not one, but two very different stereo integrated amplifiers—and for very different reasons. The NAD C 3050 ($1399, all prices in USD) I’ve discussed to death already, and I’m going to be discussing it more soon since I’m buying one and plan on doing a comparison with the LE version I reviewed last year. The other, as you’ve likely already guessed from the headline, is Dayton Audio’s HTA200 ($349.98), which—along with its little sibling, the HTA100—is garnering a lot of noise for its hybrid tube design, its ample power, its connectivity, and its ridiculously low price.
Back in July 2017, I reviewed the Fluance RT81 turntable, which I thought was a really good choice for its price ($249.99, all prices in USD). Amazingly, in 2024, it still sells for the same amount. Recently, Fluance introduced a tricked-out version of the RT81 called the RT-81+, which retails for $299.99.
Read more: Fluance RT81+ Turntable and Audio-Technica AT-VM95E Cartridge
Kicking off a relationship with openness and honesty is always a good policy, so I love it when manufacturers don’t try to hide (often economically necessary) offshore manufacturing with “Designed in _____” badging. And to be sure, there is a “Designed and Engineered in Canada” label on the packaging for PSB’s new Imagine B50 bookshelf speakers ($699/pair, all prices USD). But that’s just as quickly followed by a transparent and prominent “Made in China.”