Audiophilepure

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1932-t-a-elektroakustik-criterion-s-230-loudspeaker

I spent many hours listening to the Criterion S 230 loudspeakers and was consistently impressed by the confidence, capability, and composure of their presentation. As confirmed by the foregoing comparison with the Dynaudio C2 Signatures, the Criterion S 230s performed well throughout the frequency range: bass was prodigious, when that was called for, and had great articulation and texture; midrange was smooth and natural, particularly in its lifelike presentation of the human voice; treble was silky smooth too, well polished but not dazzling. Given its good-natured sonic disposition, the Criterion S 230 proved an extremely easy speaker to listen to for long periods even at high volumes.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/audia-flight-fls10-integrated-amplifier

Beyond the somewhat brutish (dare I say un-Italian) exterior, the FLS10 is a thing of beauty. It animates even speakers with difficult loads. Above all, it doesn’t just play music—it unlocks it. From heavy metal and EDM to jazz and pop and classical fare, the amplifier’s speed tended to stay one step ahead of my high expectations, and the reproduction never felt frantic or mechanical.

With a slightly mellow midbass and a potent, agile bottom end, the Audia Flight isn’t warm in a bloated, nostalgic way, but its sensuous shimmer keeps pulling you in. More than once, I perceived phantom tubes in the system, although my ears also told me that second-order harmonic distortion is reassuringly low.

The FLS10 sounded even more commanding than it looked in my room and on paper (200Wpc into 8 ohms, almost double that into 4). Basswise, the amplifier doesn’t produce slam as brutally visceral as my beloved Krell reference does, but for the first time I’m considering that the Krell may be overly prodigious, and that the Audia Flight has it beat for musicality.

https://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0125/PureAudioProject_Duet_15_Loudspeaker_Review.htm#gsc.tab=0

My impression is that among audiophiles of this era, the preferred sound emphasizes extremely low noise floors, see-through transparency, and, to my ears, an artificially hyped-up detail that is reminiscent of super high-definition television. Some of these attributes, to some degree, contribute to creating a credible musical experience. But they are not ends in and of themselves, certainly not from a musical point of view. At the extreme, they are distracting artifacts that take us farther away from the music, relegating us to taking pleasure in being observers of the experience rather than active participants in it.

The same point can be made slightly differently. We can hear something that sounds absolutely beautiful, stunning even, and find it seductive, relaxing, even gorgeous, yet find that it conveys nothing to us. By that, I mean it fails to provide insight into the composer’s intention, or into the interaction among the performers – the key element of what constitutes making music together (as opposed to playing in the same setting individually. It can sound gorgeous yet fail to convey emotional meaning or narrative content. It’s beautiful, but empty, much like the Cosmopolitan magazine issues of the 80s and 90s.  We learn nothing from it.

The main problem with the focus on sound rather than music is that producing a desired sound is largely a technological achievement, whereas conveying the musical content in ways that express emotional or cognitive content or that allow us to see into the performance is an artistic achievement.

https://pt.audio/2024/12/27/genesis-g7-minuet-loudspeakers-review/#google_vignette

Gary elaborated further on this decision: “I’ve always had an issue with measurements because there are things I can measure that I don’t hear, and there are things I can hear that I don’t know (yet?) how to measure. The published sensitivity figure of 85dB 1 watt 1 meter is the traditional ‘anechoic’ measurement. When I mentioned 87dB to you, it’s with white noise using a high-power amplifier delivering constant voltage, which is more real-world to me. It is the same with frequency response. I publish a ‘musical range’ referencing music notes. An anechoic frequency response from these speakers is not representative as the double bass in a jazz quartet would be completely missing if you read the numbers instead of listening to music.”

The smooth, warm and gorgeous presentation of this pair put a huge smile on my face–I enjoy the Allnic so much but I don’t always have a pair of efficient speakers to use with them. After a few weeks, I felt that the pairing could struggle a bit to energize the room with enough bass, so I swapped the Fern and Roby in. The Amp No. 2’s 25 watts per channel sounded more in control of the Minuets’ low frequency performance. This, of course, was a supremely enjoyable pairing for a reasonable amount of money–just $18k and change for amplification and speakers, and you even get an excellent inboard phono stage thrown in.

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/kef-unveils-new-q-series-mat-high-fidelity-every-home

Early access to KEF’s Q Concerto Meta begins today for myKEF members. The full Q Series lineup hits shelves October 10, featuring models Q11, Q7, Q3, Q1, Q6, and Q8 Meta. The Q4 Meta, along with optional SQ1 Floor Stand and PQ1 Plinth Spike Kit accessories, will appear this winter. Prices range from $500 to $2,200 depending on the model.

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1259-borresen-x6-loudspeaker

The crossover between the midranges and that sexy ribbon tweeter was nearly invisible (inaudible?), rivaling the clarity of the Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Signature. “Red” from King Crimson’s Absent Lovers: Live in Montreal 1984 (16/44.1 FLAC, Discipline Global Mobile / Tidal) just bombarded me with upper-midrange and treble information—two angry guitarists fighting with a furious electronic drum kit. The X6s kept the instruments discrete, with the well-behaved interplay between the drivers rendering the performance front and center without me having to think about how it was all working.

For a large portion of my time with the Børresen X6s, I was conscious of the speakers themselves as large, ominous, monolithic presences in my room. I mean this in only the best way possible, as their physical appearance spoke to me in a deeply appealing manner. They were science-fiction-solidified, large wedges of carbon fiber that looked like they were approaching warp speed while standing still.

Initially, the contrast between the X6s’ dramatic appearance and their aural disappearing act imposed a disconnect on my reaction to the speakers. As time went by, though, it got to the point where I could focus my attention on those huge, alien cabinets ready to destroy my world, or throw a switch in my brain and have them disappear completely, leaving only free-floating, disembodied music.

Create audiophile-grade wireless earbuds and speakers. But it all has to be simple to use. Youth likes easy to blend in with what they are doing at the time.Earbuds are simple to power with small batteries, but speakers are a different thing altogether. They need to have a decent amount of watts available. Batteries won’t work, and putting a Class A/B power amplifier on the back of a speaker will produce a hefty speaker, the rear panel of which would get hot.Enter Class D amplification. They can be small and don’t get hot, just modestly warm at worst.Triangle’s new Capella stand-mount speakers (OK on a bookshelf too since the port is on the bottom) fit the bill, and I got a pair in their Astral Blue wood-grained finish

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1930-psb-imagine-t65-loudspeaker

I continued with Mule Variations and listened to “Take it With Me.” Again, I was impressed by the wonderful, sharply depicted center fill the PSBs created and the broad soundstage they cast. After a short piano introduction, Waits’s gravelly voice enters, and my ears perked up hearing it so profoundly deep. Like on the Sexton track, I was picking up on something I’m not accustomed to hearing with my own speakers. “Take it with me when I go,” he rasps, with a voice chesty and full. I loved how he sounded. This, I knew, is the track I’d play to show off what these speakers can do. When I switched over to the Monitor Audios, I found Waits’s voice to still have a striking presence, but I didn’t hear that extra bit of emphasis in the lowest region of his coarse baritone.

As good as the PSB T65s sounded, they couldn’t match the performance of the Monitor Audio Gold 300s. The Monitor Audios just gave me more of what I wanted to hear. Still, listening to the PSBs was a treat, and as I swapped the cables back and forth between the two sets of towers, it became obvious to me that the T65s came much closer to approaching the Gold 300s’ sound than one might expect from their disparate prices.

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1259-borresen-x6-loudspeaker

For a large portion of my time with the Børresen X6s, I was conscious of the speakers themselves as large, ominous, monolithic presences in my room. I mean this in only the best way possible, as their physical appearance spoke to me in a deeply appealing manner. They were science-fiction-solidified, large wedges of carbon fiber that looked like they were approaching warp speed while standing still.

Initially, the contrast between the X6s’ dramatic appearance and their aural disappearing act imposed a disconnect on my reaction to the speakers. As time went by, though, it got to the point where I could focus my attention on those huge, alien cabinets ready to destroy my world, or throw a switch in my brain and have them disappear completely, leaving only free-floating, disembodied music.