SoundStage! Solo | SoundStageSolo.com

Details: Written by: S. Andrea Sundaram; Created: 15 December 2018

When I reviewed the Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature headphones, I found much to praise in their looks, materials, and build quality. While industrial design at Bowers & Wilkins is always top-flight, it was obvious that the company’s engineers had also put a lot of work into the acoustic design -- evidenced by the earcup suspension, attention to resonance reduction, and angled drivers with proper surrounds. Sonically, the P9 Signatures did an exceptional job delivering soundstage cues, a real sense of space, and explosive dynamics. What was more problematic from an audiophile perspective was their frequency balance.

Details: Written by: Brent Butterworth; Created: 01 December 2018

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When SoundStage! founder Doug Schneider and I created SoundStage! Solo, we decided to try some ideas that other SoundStage! Network sites had never explored. We expanded the publishing schedule, added a comments section to the articles, and -- at Doug’s suggestion, and against my hesitation -- introduced ratings. Why did Doug’s suggestion worry me? Because I’d asked the “ratings or no ratings?” question so many times since I started as a tech journalist in 1989, and I’d never really come up with a satisfactory answer.

Details: Written by: Brent Butterworth; Created: 01 November 2018

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I don’t often participate in online audio forums; I have a great outlet here at SoundStage! Solo, and don’t want to invade someone else’s space. But I do read the forums to see what audio enthusiasts think about various products, and about the reviews of those products. While reading online forums can sometimes diminish one’s faith in humanity, I generally like what I see on headphone forums.

Details: Written by: Brent Butterworth; Created: 01 October 2018

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Almost all audio product reviews share the same conceit: the idea that the opinions of the person doing the review will correspond with yours. That’s because almost all evaluations of audio products are performed by a single reviewer, with negligible, if any, solicitation of or mention of others’ opinions. The premise has always been that because the writer is an expert, he (or in very rare cases, she) will understand the product well enough to predict whether or not an audio product will be a good choice for you -- or at least he or she will be able to describe the product’s characteristics accurately enough for you to get a good idea of whether or not you’ll like it.

Details: Written by: Brent Butterworth; Created: 01 September 2018

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Yesterday at the IFA show in Berlin, Qualcomm announced aptX Adaptive, the latest in a line of audio coding technologies intended to improve the performance of Bluetooth audio. During the advance briefing I received early in August from Chris Havell, Qualcomm senior director of product marketing, I was excited about what aptX Adaptive might do for headphone sound quality, but also wondered about the reaction it may get in the audio community.

Details: Written by: Brent Butterworth; Created: 01 August 2018

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When people who own gear priced in the thousands of dollars encounter similar gear priced in the hundreds of dollars, human nature practically forces them to disparage the cheap stuff. So I wasn’t surprised to see a few professionals disparaging the new miniDSP EARS headphone measurement jig on social media. I chimed in myself, predicting that the EARS might be part of an ongoing “crisis in headphone measurement.”