Reviews of Attainable Hi-Fi & Home-Theater Equipment
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- Written by Dennis Burger
When I took the reins of SoundStage! Access in late 2020, I wasn’t really given a mandate, other than being told that the entire point of the publication was to cover affordable audio gear. Here’s the thing about affordability, though: everyone knows exactly what it means until you ask them to define it precisely. (I guess it’s sort of like smut in that regard.)
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- Written by Dennis Burger
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
Here’s a peek behind the curtain that I may end up regretting giving you: More often than not, when I’m doing these unboxing posts, the first image of the unopened container is there to fill up space and give me room to monologue about the product and its place in the overall market, or my anticipation for reviewing it. In the case of NAD’s new limited 50th-anniversary-edition integrated amplifier—the C 3050 LE—I actually want to draw your eye to the packaging itself. It’s a little cheeky, a bit retro, but not a slave to past conventions.
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- Written by Dennis Burger
You wouldn’t think someone from my neck of the woods would have a favorite loblolly pine tree. The things are so ubiquitous, it’s almost like having a fondness for one specific blade of grass. But I do have a favorite: a particularly majestic old Pinus taeda that I reckon is at least 150 years old—perhaps much older. It’s oddly the only pine on my property. It’s also the only tree of mine I can see out my office window. And of all the trees that were here when I bought the house a quarter-century ago, it’s one of only two that remain.
And it’s dying.
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- Written by Dennis Burger
As I’ve said a number of times, we all have our biases and blind spots, and the biggest for me is that the more I weigh the pros and cons of vinyl, the more I love my all-digital hi-fi system. As such, there are a number of revered audiophile brands I don’t get to interact with much.
Read more: Unboxing the Project Audio Systems MaiA DS3 Integrated Amplifier-DAC
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- Written by Dennis Burger
If you buy into Malcolm Gladwell’s interpretation of the “10,000-Hour Rule,” popularized in his book Outliers, I’m a long way from being an expert at audio production. A very long way. SoundStage! Solo editor Brent Butterworth and I have recorded 22 episodes of the SoundStage! Audiophile Podcast to date, and I’ve mixed and mastered about half of them. Each episode takes me anywhere between 16 and 20 hours to produce and edit, which means I’m creeping up on somewhere around 200 hours of experience in the field of audio production. And 200 divided by 10,000 is math.
Read more: What Audio Production Has Taught Me About Audio Reproduction
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- Written by Dennis Burger
There are two things worth noting about the packaging of Atlantic Technology’s AT-3 loudspeaker right up front. Thing the first: I’m pretty sure the only things left after the upcoming nuclear apocalypse will be cockroaches and unopened AT-3 speakers. I’m seriously considering turning the crates into a makeshift storm shelter if this autumn’s tornado season gets too squirrely for comfort.
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- Written by Dennis Burger
I was recently chatting with an industry colleague who’s reviewing an updated version of a wireless headphone model I reviewed several years back (for another publication). Without knowing the tonal quirks of this new version, I told him the old one had a reasonably flexible built-in EQ, and I’d be happy to share my custom profiles for that version to see how well they worked for the new release.
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- Written by Dennis Burger
There have been times in my career when I was certain someone oopsed and shipped me an empty box. Granted, almost all of those times were when I was covering gaming headsets or lightweight gaming mice or custom IEMs or things of the like—never an honest-to-gosh hi-fi stereo amp. Until, that is, the new SVS Prime Wireless Pro SoundBase arrived at my door.
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- Written by Dennis Burger
If you’re shopping for new gear—especially as a relatively new audio enthusiast—one of the most important decisions you can make is which songs to use as test material when auditioning an amp or preamp or—most importantly—a pair of speakers. And the choice of which material is most illustrative isn’t always super intuitive.
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- Written by Dennis Burger
Normally, the Noachian weather we’re having here in central Alabama at the moment wouldn’t be a matter of concern for SoundStage! Access readers. It seems relevant, though, given that our recent flooding threatened to derail my upcoming review of the Technics SU-G700M2 integrated amp ($2699, all prices USD). Or so I thought.
