Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

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Robert Harley, Larry Greenhill  |  Oct 14, 2022  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1991  | 
The Snell Type B is the culmination of three years' research and development effort by designer Kevin Voecks. Along the way, various iterations of the B have been shown at Consumer Electronics Shows. Like other Snell models, the facilities of Canada's National Research Council were used extensively during the B's development, both their anechoic chamber and their double-blind listening techniques.
Ken Micallef  |  Sep 30, 2022  | 
Founded in 1926 by Guy R. Fountain in London as the Tulsemere Manufacturing Company, Tannoy—a portmanteau (footnote 1) of "tantalum" and "alloy," after a tantalum-lead alloy used in rectifiers—took on its current commercial identity in 1928. Through the war years and beyond, the company specialized in public-address (PA) systems. Indeed, today, "tannoy" is a widely recognized generic term for a PA system in the UK; there's an entry for "tannoy" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Robert Schryer  |  Sep 23, 2022  | 
Has it ever crossed your mind that the reason you like your system more than your friend's or the store's is not because yours is better, even if you think it is, but because you're used to the sound of yours and not of theirs? Welcome to product habituation.

Some people, including some audiophiles, believe that product habituation is what's really behind what some people refer to as product break-in. It's not a mechanical or electronic phenomenon, they contend, but a mental one. Assuming the sound of the new gear is of adequate quality, it's the listener that breaks in to the product, as the product's sound, which was initially strange, grows more familiar and, so, right.

John Atkinson  |  Aug 24, 2022  | 
Although Danish company Audiovector was founded in 1979, I had very little experience of its loudspeakers, other than at audio shows (footnote 1), until I measured the Audiovector R 8 Arreté that Jim Austin reviewed in May 2021. Jim nominated the R 8 as his "Editor's Choice" for 2021, writing that "The gorgeous-looking Audiovector took me by surprise, doing things with imaging that I've never heard another loudspeaker do (like hearing a bass note directly behind another bass note)." Jim concluded that the R 8 "is a complicated speaker that sounds simple, sweet, and coherent."
Kalman Rubinson  |  Aug 19, 2022  | 
It seems as if I have been waiting for these all my life. Not in any existential sense, but in a literal, practical way: The arrival of the Blade Two Meta is the culmination of a lifelong fascination with KEF. As a teenager, I was introduced to founder Raymond Cooke and his innovative "race-track" woofer, Mylar tweeter dome, and Bextrene cones in Bud Fried's IMF Newsletter.
John Atkinson  |  Jul 29, 2022  | 
Given how crowded the loudspeaker manufacturing space has always been, I am always surprised when a new brand not only springs into being but does so with new speakers that sound and measure well. Take the UK's Q Acoustics, for example. The company didn't exist before 2006 and didn't have a presence in the US until 2018.
Robert Harley  |  Jul 14, 2022  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1991  | 
A review of the Monitor Audio Studio 20 loudspeaker is a study in contrasts. Compared with most other loudspeakers in the $4500/pair range, this 6.5" two-way from England is a mere pup. Perhaps this observation was sparked by the fact that I'd just finished reviewing the similarly priced Snell Type B, a huge, six-driver, four-way system. The two loudspeakers couldn't be more different, both in physical characteristics and sound.
John Atkinson  |  May 27, 2022  | 
Although I retired as Stereophile's editor-in-chief at the end of March 2019, I still have an ongoing connection with the magazine. As well as contributing reviews and measuring the audio products that are being reviewed, I prepare the magazine's content for republishing on its website. So when JansZen Audio's David Janszen contacted me about reviewing his Valentina P8 loudspeaker, I looked through my back issues to find reviews of JansZen speakers that could be posted.
Julie Mullins  |  May 20, 2022  | 
Great hi-fi can give you goosebumps. And it relates to another source of horripilation: live music, and its recordings. I've also always been a live music junkie—ever since I was a kid.

I was fortunate to have grown up attending the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra's "LolliPops" children's concerts. I'd seen some tepid live acts as a kid (ie, Donny and Marie). But nothing prepared me for my first rock concert. It, um, rocked my world.

J. Gordon Holt  |  May 12, 2022  |  First Published: Feb 01, 1968  | 
The idea of a loudspeaker system whose frequency response could be tailored to suit room acoustics and/or personal taste is one that has always appealed to the high-fidelity perfectionist. Ideally, such a loudspeaker would allow you to raise or lower the level of any part of the audio spectrum to correct for, say, a sharp 370Hz room resonance or a mild absorptive condition that weakens, say, the 800Hz–3kHz range. Obviously, though, this kind of flexibility would require an infinite number of bandpass networks, each with its own volume control—which is an obvious impracticality.
Alex Halberstadt  |  Apr 13, 2022  | 
One day in the mid-1990s, my friend J and I sat sprawled on the carpeted floor of a hi-fi shop in lower Manhattan, playing records. J, who was employed there as a salesperson, had dimmed the lights and locked the door of the listening room behind us to make sure we wouldn't be disturbed by actual customers. Earlier, he had lugged in a pair of homemade speakers that an elderly woman brought to the store, hoping to sell some of her late husband's gear.
J. Gordon Holt  |  Mar 10, 2022  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1966  | 
The Z-600 is the latest of the "console" (as opposed to "bookshelf") systems made by Neshaminy Corp., and using Janszen electrostatic tweeters (footnote 1) and a Neshaminy-designed 11" woofer. The nominal crossover frequency is 1500Hz, with a broad overlap between the woofer's top and the low end of the paralleled tweeters. Tweeter level is not adjustable (footnote 2).
John Atkinson  |  Feb 21, 2022  | 
One reason Stereophile publishes a FollowUp is when the original review leaves an issue unresolved or where further thoughts would be useful. Such was the case with the magazine's March 2022 issue, which had followup reviews on the iFi ZEN CAN headphone amplifier and ZEN DAC Signature V2 D/A processor ($599/pair). the Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2 phono preamplifier ($1999), and the Canton Reference 7K loudspeaker ($6995/pair).
Robert Schryer  |  Jan 20, 2022  | 
When I learned that I was to review the new seventh generation of Monitor Audio's Silver 500 loudspeaker ($3200/pair), descendants of the original Silver-series products launched in 1999, I thought back on what I knew about the company and then refreshed my memory. Monitor Audio was founded, in 1972, in Teversham, England, a town bordered by farmland located some three miles from the epicenter of its more famous neighbor, Cambridge.
John Atkinson  |  Jan 14, 2022  |  First Published: Jun 01, 1988  | 
So far, as part of my quest to find good affordable box loudspeakers, I have reviewed 20 models, in the August, October, and November 1987, and January and February 1988 issues of Stereophile (Vol.10 Nos.5, 7, & 8, Vol.11 Nos.1 & 2). Nearly all affordable loudspeakers have to be used with a pair of stands: as these have an important influence on the integrity of the sound and tend to cost upward of $100 a pair for good models, this makes such speakers less of a bargain. This month, therefore, I review loudspeakers designed from the outset to be floor-standing: three from the USA—DCM's Time Frame TF1000, the planar-magnetic Magnepan MG2.5/R, and the Orpheus 808—and one from Sweden, the Rauna Balder. The prices are pretty closely grouped, with the DCM being the least expensive, at a hair under $1100/pair.

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