To the surprise of absolutely no one, I’ve just about had my fill of evil multinational corporations and their draconian control over every aspect of our daily digital lives. Thing is, though, that’s normally a principled stance. But recently, it’s become a pressing problem that I have to resolve soon if I want to keep earning a living. Apple and Microsoft both seem dead set on making it nearly impossible to function without spending gobs of money I don’t have, and I’m responding in the only way I know how: outright revolt—by trying to make Linux work for me despite the fact that the open-source OS wasn’t designed to do a lot of the things I need it to do.
Someone needs to invent a word to evoke the specific disappointment that comes from realizing you’ve stolen your own thunder. If the Germans can give us such evocative loanwords as schadenfreude, verschlimmbesserung, and wanderlust, surely they could cook up some delightfully and elegantly convoluted way of encapsulating the emotions running through my brain when I realized, far too late, that the conclusion of my unboxing blog post for Q Acoustics’ lovely new 3050c tower speaker (US$1749, CA$1900, £849, €1099 per pair) really should have been the intro to my full review.
Here in my third decade as a hi‑fi journalist, it still surprises me from time to time that there are legitimately major brands whose products I’ve never reviewed. Q Acoustics is one such brand, and I point that out merely as a way of underscoring my excitement during the unboxing process. A speaker with proper British pedigree, with a gorgeous design and good engineering for US$1199 per pair? Sign me the heck up. It took all the restraint I could muster to open the packaging for the new Q Acoustics 3050c properly—with a knife and all that—instead of just ripping into the cardboard like an unhinged beast.
Read more: First Look: Q Acoustics 3050c Floorstanding Loudspeaker
There’s one aspect of making a career out of a hobby that is rarely discussed. Sometimes life gets in the way of your hobbies. We’ve all been there. But unless you’re independently wealthy, a trust-fund baby, or retired, life can’t get in the way of your income. So what happens during those periods when pastimes are a luxury, work is a necessity, and you’re stuck in a paradox because your pastime is your work?
Read more: Perplexingly, My Hi-Fi System Feels More Important Than Ever Right Now
Let’s not bury the lede here, because I know the question right at the top of mind for most regular readers of SoundStage! Access: “Do I really need a $1600 4K Blu‑ray player?” The answer to that question is, of course, no. As nice as the Magnetar UDP800 universal disc/media player (US$1599.99, CA$2500, £1399, €1620) may be, it doesn’t change that fact. So the real question is, why might you want this particular player, despite its cost, given that you can purchase a UHD Blu-ray player with literally perfect A/V performance for under $500?
Every once in a while, I feel compelled for whatever reason to justify the existence of these unboxing blog posts, because it’s not about consumerism or SEO or anything else of the sort. Bottom line: it’s about telling a story slightly tangential to that of my in-depth gear evaluation—one that, I feel, gives you a more thorough overview of the product and the experience it delivers.
Read more: First Look: Magnetar UDP800 Universal Disc/Media Player
I don’t often dig deep into the sausage-making process in my editorials, since I think most of the decisions we make behind the scenes at the SoundStage! Network are quite a bit more boring than many people would suspect. Each of the SoundStage! editors has a lane, it’s not difficult to figure out what is and isn’t our beat, and we rarely have to worry much about which product categories are right for each of us. But when KEF reached out to me with an offer to review its new outdoor speakers, it prompted a lot of editorial discussions about whether outdoor audio—typically the domain of expensive custom installers—had any place in a publication focused on home theater and affordable hi-fi.
I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know here, but the way most people shop for audio products barely resembles the way hi-fi enthusiasts and audiophiles shop for audio products. Imagine you’re in the market for an outdoor audio system centered on passive speakers intended to be driven by an amp. You and I might research the category, do comparisons based on specifications, try to read some reviews, factor in any brand loyalties we might have, and plunk down our credit cards after some careful deliberation. Most people purchasing KEF’s Ventura 6 outdoor speaker (US$599.99, CA$749.99, £459, €599 per pair), on the other hand, probably asked their custom integrator for an outdoor speaker system, and it just so happened that their integrator was a KEF dealer.
If the name TEAC is unfamiliar to you, here’s a short history. The firm was founded in 1953 as the Tokyo Television Acoustic Company. In 1956, an affiliate, the Tokyo Electro-Acoustic Company, was formed to manufacture reel-to-reel tape recorders. Subsequently, the two companies merged to form TEAC Corporation. From the ’60s to the ’90s, TEAC was best known for its reel-to-reel tape recorders and cassette decks. When those fell out of fashion, the brand withdrew from the North American market.
Read more: TEAC TN-3B-SE Turntable with Audio-Technica AT-VM95E Cartridge
Here’s something you don’t see very often in the pages of Access, or any of the SoundStage! Network publications, for that matter: outdoor speakers. In a former life, when I covered the custom-installation industry heavily, speakers of this sort crossed my threshold on the regular. But in consumer audio, and especially in the domain of budget-conscious passive speakers, they’re much rarer, for reasons I’ll be discussing in an upcoming editorial.
Read more: First Look: Unboxing and Setting Up KEF Ventura 6 Ci Series Outdoor Speakers