VPI Cliffwood Turntable with Ortofon 2M Red Cartridge

Details: Written by Thom Moon; Created: 15 September 2021

Reviewers' Choice According to Wikipedia, “Cliffwood is an unincorporated community located within Aberdeen Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States.” As of the 2010 US Census, the population of Cliffwood’s ZIP Code Tabulation Area, 07721, was 2974.

Unboxing the SVS PB-1000 Pro Subwoofer

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 15 September 2021

Someone recently asked me, “What’s the point of doing unboxing blogs?” Admittedly, I didn’t quite grok this uniquely 21st-century phenomenon at first, but I’ve come to realize that they tell a story. Sometimes that story is about the care put into packing and shipping a piece of gear. Sometimes it’s about presentation. Sometimes it’s just about initial impressions and a closer look at connectivity. In the case of the SVS PB-1000 Pro subwoofer, though, the packaging itself tells a neat story.

Richard X. Heyman: "Copious Notes"

Details: Written by Joseph Taylor; Created: 15 September 2021

Turn-Up Records TU-11
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

Rock songsmith Richard X. Heyman has been making music since the mid-1960s, starting out as a drummer. His band, The Doughboys, was signed to Bell Records but their two singles for the label didn’t make a dent in the charts. However, the band continued to play, opening for big name bands and modifying their lineup and style in an attempt to find an audience. When they folded in 1968, Heyman went solo, backing a variety of musicians, including Link Wray and Brian Wilson.

Why Do Kids Use YouTube for Music?

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 01 September 2021

Kids these days, with their hula hoops and their disco music and their pet rocks. It’s a foregone conclusion that they’re destroying civilization with their ravenous consumption of avocado toast and refusal to use plastic straws. But the biggest crime against humanity committed by millennials and zoomers is apparently the fact that they use YouTube as a streaming music service.

AudioControl The Director Model M4800 Eight-Channel Network DSP Matrix Amplifier

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 01 September 2021

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

Let’s go ahead and get one thing out of the way, right from the giddy-up. If you’re perfectly well-served by and happy with a wireless multiroom speaker ecosystem around your house—something like a Sonos speaker system, or even a gaggle of Amazon Echo or Google Nest smart speakers—you probably don’t need an amp like AudioControl’s The Director Model M4800. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a truly audiophile-quality distributed-audio solution that can be used with practically any speakers you can imagine, let’s talk. Because the M4800 may be exactly the amp you didn’t know you needed. And shockingly enough, it’s not stupid expensive.

Dave McMurray: "Grateful Deadication"

Details: Written by Joseph Taylor; Created: 01 September 2021

Blue Note Records B003346902
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

Detroit-based jazz saxophonist Dave McMurray has crossed genres throughout his career, appearing on record and in performance with a variety of artists, including Albert King, Nancy Wilson, Geri Allen, and Iggy Pop. He was an original member of Was (Not Was), a group that itself resisted categorization, so it’s not surprising that Don Was, a founder-member of the band and current president of Blue Note Records, would bring him to the venerable jazz label. McMurray’s first release for Blue Note was Music Is Life (2018).

Denafrips Ares II Digital-to-Analog Converter

Details: Written by Mark Phillips; Created: 15 August 2021

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

Recently I’ve been reviewing a lot of DACs, and I’ve noticed that two of the biggest differentiators among them are the type and quality of digital filter used. I have yet to hear a DAC from, say, Chord or dCS, so this is only a hypothesis, but I believe that the digital filter is at least as important as most other technical aspects of a DAC.

Unboxing the AudioControl The Director Model M4800

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 15 August 2021

For most of my career, I sort of treated hi-fi and distributed audio as wholly separate domains. “Non-overlapping magisteria,” to borrow a phrase from the great Stephen Jay Gould. That isn’t to say that distributed audio can’t sound good, but that’s generally not the point. Most multiroom audio amps, I think you’ll agree, are designed to deliver listenable music around the home (or commercial environment) in acceptable quality, without having to litter every room with Wi-Fi-connected plastic boxes. But my first experience with AudioControl’s The Director Model D3200, way back in the bygone days of 2012, disabused me of this bias. It was a technological marvel with control features I didn’t even know I needed. But most importantly, it delivered legitimately audiophile-caliber sound. Who even knew that was a thing?

Julian Lage: "Squint"

Details: Written by Joseph Taylor; Created: 15 August 2021

Blue Note Records B003332501
Format: LP

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

Jazz guitarist Julian Lage was only 15 when he made his first major recording, on vibraphonist Gary Burton’s Generations, in 2003. He contributed three tunes to the album, which was released the following year, and went on to make three more Burton albums. Lage has appeared on recordings by jazz composer John Zorn, trumpeter Dave Douglas, and many others—he was the guitarist on Charles Lloyd’s 8: Kindred Spirits (Live from the Lobero), released in 2020 to document the concert celebrating the saxophonist’s 80th birthday two years earlier. Lage has led or co-led more than a dozen sessions for various labels, but his latest album, Squint, is his debut for Blue Note Records.

The True Cost of Saving a Few Bucks: A Q&A with Emotiva's Dan Laufman

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 01 August 2021

Every article that you read on SoundStage! (or anywhere, for that matter), generally starts with a question. “Is this product good?” “Are tubes B.S.?” “What the heck are balanced armatures?” Something like that. The question that led to this article, though, was a bit of a sticky wicket: “Does the country in which your electronic gear is manufactured really matter?”