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Electrocompaniet AW 300 M Mono Power Amplifier

Written by: Phil Gold
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 September 2024

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

Scandinavia is home to many highly regarded audio companies, but most are located in Sweden and Denmark. Norway has just a few well-known makes, including Electrocompaniet, Hegel Music Systems, and SEAS. Hegel and Electrocompaniet are both active in electronics, while SEAS makes speaker drivers for speaker manufacturers.

Read more …

Teaching Turntable Setup to an Analog Lightweight and the Next Generation

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Opinion
Created: 01 September 2024

My family loves Ottawa, Ontario, which is about a four-hour drive from our home in Toronto. Marcia has had a long love affair with Ottawa, stemming back to her late-teenage years when she had friends who went to the city’s Carleton University. Ottawa is Canada’s capital city, and as such it’s loaded with huge stone buildings, both brutal and elegant in equal measure. There are tons of museums and galleries, most notably the National Gallery, which we often visit when we’re there.

Read more …

Perlisten Audio R5t Loudspeaker

Written by: Jonathan Gorse
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 September 2024

Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.

Founded in 2020, Perlisten Audio is a relatively new entrant on the high-end audio scene. The firm was established by a team of industry veterans with the goal of manufacturing high-performing loudspeaker systems to rival the best at their price points. The first model was the S7t, a tall, four-way loudspeaker which utilizes several relatively small bass drivers to deliver satisfying bass extension in a slender design. Priced at around $20,000 per pair (all prices in USD), the S7t distinguished itself sufficiently well from the surrounding mass of competing designs to win several audio awards. From there, the firm has expanded its range to offer a wider range of options.

Read more …

Do What You Love! Setting Up a European Audio Team Turntable

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: For the Record
Created: 15 August 2024

In my August 1 editorial, I talked about the recent arrivals and departures in my review system. It’s been uncharacteristically variable lately, which has made reviewing a challenge. To make this variability work, I’ve been listening pretty much non-stop, and it’s been hard work. Oh boo-hoo, you might be thinking. Poor Jason—he’s got to listen to music all day. World’s smallest violin, etc.

Read more …

Hard Work or Humble Brag?

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Opinion
Created: 01 August 2024

For me, sitting down and writing a formal article requires a generalized sense of structure and a setting of stability. I’ve had neither for the past couple of months and it’s harshing my mellow.

Read more …

Voodoo Labs Witchcraft Speaker Cable

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 August 2024

My father and his parents—my grandparents (obviously)—were kind, generous, inoffensive people. They wouldn’t say shit if they had a mouth full of it.

Read more …

Charisma Audio Signature Two Moving-Coil Phono Cartridge

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 July 2024

We’re on an analog roll here at SoundStage! Ultra. In the past couple of months, we’ve reviewed the Thales TTT-Compact II turntable system and the matching X-quisite Voro cartridge, the Musical Fidelity M8xTT and Vertere Acoustics MG-1 turntables, and the Audio-Technica AT-ART20 cartridge. I’ve kept up the pace with the first installment of my VPI Prime Signature tonearm upgrade path and thrown in some analog love from European Audio Team.

Read more …

What Happens When the Magic Smoke Escapes?

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Opinion
Created: 01 July 2024

Ian, Andrew, and I were standing around at the dog park, chatting as we do each morning. Three boomer-adjacent white males, keeping one eye on the dogs to make sure they weren’t eating things they shouldn’t, although this was more my concern; my dog’s an idiot and will eat anything, including mud and dog shit.

Read more …

Vertere Acoustics MG-1 Turntable

Written by: Jonathan Gorse
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 July 2024

In 2023 I visited Vertere Acoustics, a small London-based manufacturer of turntables and related products. The company was founded in 2006 by mechanical engineer and turntable designer Touraj Moghaddam after he separated from Roksan, a company he had cofounded some 20 years earlier. Roksan achieved early success with Moghaddam’s first turntable design, the Xerxes, which is still in production, after many iterations, and is still highly regarded.

Read more …

Thales TTT-Compact II Turntable System

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 June 2024

The Swiss know how to make high-quality, compact machines. They own the high-end automatic watch market, right? Every year, a Swiss manufacturer like Audemars Piguet brings out a new complication—movement—that contains even more parts, does more crazy computations, that never needs resetting for leap years, the orbit of Neptune, Easter, all that stuff. I own an Omega Speedmaster watch, and it doesn’t do any real tricks. It’s a NASA-approved chronograph, so I can time my steaks superbly to ensure they’re medium rare every time, but other than that, all it does is tell the time with great accuracy. I have seen this watch with the back cover removed, and there’s a whole world in there—gears, levers, springs—all manufactured with insane precision. Switzerland is the land of miniaturization.

Read more …

  1. A New Arms Race—Jason Gets Gimballed
  2. Munich Exhaustion and EAT’s New Products
  3. Naim Audio NAP 350 Mono Amplifier
  4. Audio-Technica AT-ART20 Moving-Coil Cartridge
  5. Shelly Manne & His Men: “At the Black Hawk, Vol. 1”
  6. Read the Instructions! The Perils of Cartridge Setup
  7. X-quisite Voro Moving-Coil Phono Cartridge
  8. Musical Fidelity M8xTT Turntable
  9. Bounce with Counce and Mat Matters
  10. The Hardest-Rocking Album Ever—“Van Halen” on Vinyl

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210x600 T+A R Criterion S (20240601)
Dynaudio Contour 20BE
 Electrocompaniet - AW300M
Electrocompaniet AW 300M

Vitus Audio
Vitus Audio

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